What’s the Difference Between Teaching English to Adults vs Children?
Teaching English as a second language can be incredibly rewarding, but teaching adults and children often requires very different approaches.
The fundamentals of good teaching remain the same: clear communication, engaging lessons, meaningful practice, and supportive feedback. However, the way you plan and deliver your lessons can change significantly depending on the age of your students.
If you’re considering a career in TESOL, understanding these differences can help you become a standout ESL teacher.
Teaching Adults vs Children at a Glance
| Teaching Adults | Teaching Children | |
|---|---|---|
| Motivation | Often connected to work, travel, study, or personal goals | Often influenced by parents, school, friends, and enjoyment |
| Lesson style | More structured and goal-oriented | More interactive and activity-based |
| Classroom management | Usually focused on participation and maintaining engagement | Often requires clear routines, boundaries, and transitions |
| Activities | Discussions, role-plays, problem-solving, real-world tasks | Games, songs, stories, crafts, movement, and interactive activities |
| Expectations | Students may expect measurable progress and practical outcomes | Students often expect lessons to be fun as well as educational |
| Teacher role | Facilitator, coach, and language resource | Teacher, guide, motivator, and classroom leader |
1. Lesson Planning
One of the biggest differences between teaching adults and children is how you structure your lessons.
Teaching Adults
Adult learners often have specific reasons for learning English. They may want to communicate with colleagues, prepare for an exam, or travel to an English-speaking country.
Adult learners generally appreciate knowing what they are learning and why it matters. As a result, adult lessons can often be organised around practical objectives. For example, a lesson might focus on:
- Making small talk
- Ordering food at a restaurant
- Asking for directions
Teaching Children
Children may have less control over why they are learning English. They might be attending because it is part of their school curriculum or because their parents have enrolled them in the class. This means you often need to build motivation into the lesson itself. Rather than simply explaining a vocabulary point, you might teach the same lesson through:
- A game
- A team challenge
- A visual / picture based activity
2. Motivation
Motivation is important for every language learner, but what motivates adults and children can be very different.
What Motivates Adults?
Adults are often motivated by a specific outcome. This means teachers can often increase engagement by connecting classroom activities to the real-world goals of their students. They may want to:
- Travel more confidently
- Pass an English examination
- Communicate with friends
- Watch their favourite movies and TV shows in English
What Motivates Children?
Children are often motivated by interaction, curiosity, achievement, social connection, and enjoyment. A child may not be particularly excited about learning the past tense, but they may be very excited about playing a game where they have to describe what happened yesterday.
For younger learners, “learning through doing” can be particularly effective. The goal isn’t to make every lesson a game. Instead, activities should be enjoyable while still having a clear language-learning purpose.
3. Classroom Management
Classroom management can look quite different depending on the age of your students.
Managing Adult Classes
Adults generally bring established expectations about how classrooms work. They may be comfortable sitting, listening, taking notes, completing exercises, and participating in discussions.
Good classroom management for adults often involves establishing expectations, creating opportunities for everyone to participate, and designing activities that encourage meaningful interaction. However, adult classes can still present challenges. For example, you may have:
- Students who dominate discussions
- Students who are tired after work
- Learners who are anxious about making mistakes
Managing Children’s Classes
Children may require much more explicit structure. Transitions are particularly important. Moving from one activity to another can sometimes be just as challenging as the activity itself. Clear instructions, visual cues, predictable routines, and engaging tasks can make classroom management much easier. Teachers may need to establish routines for:
- Working in groups
- Using classroom materials
- Taking turns
4. Choosing Activities
The activities you use should reflect the age of your students, interests, language level, and learning objectives.
Activities for Adults
Adult learners often respond well to activities that replicate real-world communication. Remember, you can incorporate some fun and interactivity into adult lessons too.
Examples include:
Role-plays:
Students practice situations such as customer service interactions, meetings, or travel conversations.
Discussions:
Students exchange opinions and practice expressing agreement, disagreement, and explanations.
Information-gap activities:
Students need to communicate with one another to complete a task or discover missing information.
Activities for Children
Children often benefit from activities that involve imagination, movement, repetition, and interaction. The important thing is not simply whether an activity is entertaining. A good ESL activity should give students a meaningful opportunity to use the target language.
Examples include:
Language games:
Vocabulary bingo, guessing games, matching games, and team challenges.
Stories:
Stories provide context and give children opportunities to encounter language repeatedly.
Role-play:
Children can pretend to be shopkeepers, doctors, superheroes, explorers, or other characters while practicing English.
5. Teaching Approaches
There isn’t one teaching method that works perfectly for every adult or every child. In both cases, the underlying principle is the same: students need opportunities to actively use English, not simply listen to the teacher talk about English (TTT – Teacher Talk Time). With adults, you may spend more time using:
- Real-world scenarios
- Task-based learning
- Discussions
With children, you may incorporate more:
- Games
- Interactive tasks
- Hands-on activities
6. Feedback and Correction
Adults may appreciate direct explanations of their errors, particularly when they want to improve accuracy for professional or academic purposes. For example, a teacher might explain why a particular tense is incorrect and then provide opportunities to practice it.
With children, correction may need to be more subtle and encouraging. Instead of stopping a young learner every time they make a mistake, you might naturally model the correct form.
Student: “Yesterday I go to the park.”
Teacher: “Oh, you went to the park yesterday? What did you do there?”
The teacher has provided the correct form without interrupting the child’s communication completely. The appropriate approach will depend on the learner, the activity, and the learning objective.
Ready to Start Your TESOL Journey?
If you’re considering becoming a qualified English language teacher, explore how TESOL training can prepare you for teaching learners of different ages, backgrounds, and English levels.
