What’s Special About Teaching Adults?

Perhaps the greatest difference between adults and younger ages is that the former соmе to lessons with а long history of learning experience. Тhey will usually have gone through at least ten years of schooling and mау then have gone on to study at а higher level. Тhоsе learning experiences – both bad and good – will have helped them to form strong opinions about how teaching and learning should bе carried out. They a1so соmе with their own record of success оr failure. Those who underachieved at school mау subconsciously assume that they аrе going to fail again; those who were school successes mау believe that learning English will be easy.

Adolescents (and to а lesser extent children) have their own histories too. Each failure predisposes them to more failure, each success provokes the hope of more success. But the younger the student the less likely it is that these educational histories аrе fixed.

Adults аге frequently more nervous of learning than younger pupils are. The potential for losing face becomes greater the older you get. Adolescents dislike being made to look foolish in front of their classmates too, but there аrе probably other things which make them vulnerable in this way rather than аn inability to learn (English). Older students, on the other hand, who аrе coming back to the classroom after а long absence, mау have а high degree of anxiety about the process of learning itself.

Оnе of the recurring nightmares for teachers of adolescents is losing control: the lesson that slips away from them, that they can’t control because the students don’t like the subject, each other, the teacher оr the school – оr sometimes just because they feel like it.

They may well have a view of the importance of learning which makes them stick to a course of study in a specially adult way.

Whereas in primary schools much learning takes place through play and knowledge gathering is done through games, songs and puzzles, adults, оn the other hand, do not necessarily need their learning to bе camouf1aged, dressed up in quite the same way. If they cаn see the point of learning – and if we are able to explain the reason why we аге asking them to do things to their satisfaction – we do not have to play games or sing songs to get their cooperation.

It is, of course, possible for adults to suffer from boredom in class, especially when they are studying on а full-time course and/or have studied in the same kind of class for а long time. Such people mау respond well to lessons that are entertaining and which use enjoyable activities to facilitate language learning. We won’t want to treat them like children, but some of them might, nevertheless, respond well to а lighter style of learning which does, indeed, involve quizzes, puzzles and the study of contemporary songs.

Good teachers are able to balance the serious study of English with the more entertaining activities that they think their students sometimes need. By watching their classes and asking their students what they think and feel, they сап select a judicious blend of activity and style.

Summary

The text under consideration is head-lined: “What’s Special About Teaching Adults?”. The author of the text is Jeremy Harmer. It is devoted to the description of differences between teaching adults and students or pupils of younger ages. The author stresses the fact that histories of learning experience form strong opinions about how teaching and learning should be carried out. The younger the student the less likely it is that these educational histories are fixed. The author points out that both groups of learners – adolescents and adults – may have a high degree of anxiety about the process of learning itself, both can be disruptive and exhausting.

Further on the author underlines that adults as a group have much to recommend younger learners. They bring life experience into the classroom which younger learners do not have. Adults do not necessarily need their learning to be camouflaged. They may respond well to lessons that are entertaining and which use enjoyable activities to facilitate language learning. The author concludes that good teachers are able to select a judicious blend of activity and style.

Try to produce the summary of the text “Science” making use of the instructions given above. For reference consult the Academic Vocabulary provided in the Supplement.

Science

Science [from Latin scientia from scire to know] is systemized knowledge derived through experimentation, observation, and study. In its widest sense it is formulated knowledge, a knowledge of structure, laws, and operations. The unity of human knowledge may be artificially divided into religion, philosophy, and science. Sometimes it is considered as a method of reaming about the world by applying the principles of the scientific method, which includes making empirical observations, proposing hypotheses to explain those observations, and testing those hypotheses in valid and reliable ways.

Science and philosophy, as presently understood, have in common the quality of being speculative. The present distinction between science and philosophy lies largely in their respective fields of speculation. What is known as modern science investigates the phenomena of physical nature and by inferential reasoning formulates general laws there from. Its method is called inductive and its data are so-called facts – i.e., sensory observations; whereas deductive philosophy starts from axioms. Yet a scientist, in order to reason from his data at all, must necessarily use both induction and deduction.

Fundamental science is the part of science that describes the most basic objects, forces, relations between them and laws governing them. Fundamental science includes biology, chemistry, earth science and geology, physics, resource sciences, space and astronomy, biotechnology, engineering, computer and information technology.

The humanities are a group of academic subjects united by a commitment to studying aspects of the human condition and a qualitative approach that generally prevents a single paradigm from coming to define any discipline. Art, Communications, Counseling, Education, English, Foreign Languages, Literature, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Speech, Theatre are subjects distinguished from fundamental sciences.

Scientific theories simplify reality to allow us to understand basic forces and laws of the nature and society. We can observe actions and their consequences. Observation and description are not sufficient for understanding and ultimately predicting actions. Theory establishes relationships between cause and effect. We use it to interpret actions and outcomes so we can explain the process by which the actions were undertaken and the outcomes achieved. The purpose of theory in all scientific analyses is to explain the causes of phenomena we observe. To conduct analyses we frequently need to engage in abstraction. This involves making assumptions about the environment that simplify the real world enough to allow us to isolate forces of cause and effect. Any theory is a simplification of actual relationships.

Now try to translate a summary of a scientific paper from
Russian into English.

Данное издание является первой попыткой систематизации и обобщения (generalization) всего опыта белорусской философской, религиозной и культурной мысли XX столетия. Его контекст и критерий отбора фактографического (factual) материала определила проблема Беларуси как эпицентра (epicenter) культурно-цивилизационного взаимодействия Востока и Запада.

В антологии представлены концепции, точки зрения и суждения видных белорусских мыслителей, православных и католических деятелей, писателей, ученых, публицистов и политиков, затрагивающие комплекс (range) проблем и вопросов геокультурологического характера.

Особое внимание в публикации отведено проблеме определения культурно-цивилизационных основ белорусского этноса и народа, рассмотрению ключевых факторов формирования и этапов развития национального самосознания (self-consciousness).

Книга знакомит с белорусским видением и глубиной понимания сущности, форм и последствий влияния и взаимодействия исторических, религиозных и культурных традиций Востока и Запада в белорусском прошлом и настоящем.

Abstract Writing