PUTTING ADULT BACK INTO ADULT ESL EDUCATION

ESL teachers often talk about adult learners behaving like children but seldom ask the question of how much they, as instructors, contribute to adults finding themselves in childlike situations. Applied linguistics pays little attention to adult ESL learners outside the higher educational context. Adult ESL learners are also on the periphery of research in adult education and andragogical principles ignore ESL students' diverse cultural backgrounds. According to researchers from other disciplines, however, adults are infantilized in a variety of situations. In this paper, I try to arrive at a better understanding of the factors that play a role in the infantilization of adult ESL learners. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]