5 Applying Constructive– Developmental Theories of Adult Development to ABE and ESOL Practices

When adult educators walk into classrooms or workshops, they find a diverse group of learners who at one moment can draw on a rich store of life experiences and at the next may resist new ideas that challenge what they already know. Adults tend to be highly motivated to learn yet will sometimes focus on evaluations or grades rather than on learning. They think of themselves as “self-directed ” yet they may feel shortchanged when an educator explains that she intends to be less a source of answers than a resource for learning.... Many adults who have successfully man-aged their own professional development nevertheless sometimes revert to classroom strategies that [previously] worked for them (“How many pages? ” “Will this be on the test?”), generally trying to do “what the teacher wants. ” In the training environment, learn-ers may seek to improve their job performance yet may deny them-selves the practice it takes to develop the new skills