[clivehawkins]

Up until two weeks ago I taught exclusively to adults. The levels range from absolute beginner to proficiency. There are obviously merits to teaching all levels but I'd have to say that I prefer pre-intermediate. They have enough language to be able to communicate quite freely but still literally eat up all the new stuff you present. They keep it to English mostly in class and the difference in ability from the start and end of the course is the most noticeable of all the levels.

Now I'm teaching kids from 3 -6 years old, all beginners, and it's a great laugh. Looking at the concentration on their faces while they're colouring something or doing a puzzle together is just so nice. It's really satisfying when they understand (something of) what you say and react to your input. The posts from members of this site in response to my call for help have been really useful.

So, to continue livinginkorea's summing up:
adults - pre-intermediate
kids - beginner

[livinginkorea]

Great post clive! By the way I was wondering...

You taught adults for years and then decided to teach kids? Why the sudden change?

It has been different for me. I have always been teaching adults and kids so it has always been a mix for me.

[clivehawkins]

Quote livinginkorea

Great post clive! By the way I was wondering...

You taught adults for years and then decided to teach kids? Why the sudden change?

It has been different for me. I have always been teaching adults and kids so it has always been a mix for me.

I still teach adults in my school in the afternoons, but the opportunity came up to do 2 hours every morning with kids split over 3 groups. It's something I had never really wanted to do (fear of the unknown and all that) but the idea of a new challenge has appealed lately. That may be something to do with becoming a father this year as well. It'll add another string to my bow too. I'd say I'm finding it tougher than the adult classes but with some time I guess things will calm down a bit.

What about you? How do you find mixing the ages? And which do you prefer?

[Mr. E English]

Upper-intermediates do it for me!

They provide a great opportunity to start looking into some nitty-gritty grammar, with lots of deductive comparative grammar presentations.

They can also start getting into some fluency work with longer discussion sessions and class debates.

[Pix]

I like elementary and pre-intermediate if the students are kids because you can have so much fun with them and learn through games.

Adults can be a bit hung up about letting themselves go so for adults I prefer upper intermediate to advanced where you can have discussions which are genuinely interesting.