Teaching Kids or Adults?

While the CELTA course will prepare you for teaching English to adults, many qualified teachers find themselves expanding their skillset to also be able to teach kids. The demand for teaching young learners is growing, so if you’re thinking about your teaching career and can’t decide if you want to teach kids or adults, we’ve listed some positives and challenges of both age groups to help you plan your future.

Teaching Kids - The Positives

Kids are full of energy and enthusiasm and teaching them can be really fun. They’ll constantly surprise you with the things they say and do, so you’ll laugh a lot and never get bored. Your youngest students will adore you; they’ll find your foreignness fascinating and make you handwritten cards with the words “I love you teacher” scrawled unselfconsciously across the front. They’ll even share their snacks with you (whether you want that fuzz-covered gummy bear or not)! 

Teaching kids will keep you feeling young; you’ll effortlessly stay up-to-date with popular culture and the latest trends just by being around them. It will also keep you fit, as you’ll always be on your feet and moving around the classroom. You can unleash your creative side by incorporating loads of fun games and activities into your lessons, as well as things like arts and crafts, sports, cooking and music. Kids love variety and are extremely adaptable, so they’ll always be up for trying something new. They’re fast learners and it’s so rewarding to watch them progress and know that you’ve played a part in their development. 

The more time you spend with your young students, the more you’ll realise that, underneath all that buzzing energy, raw emotion and nose picking, kids are just tiny little people with their own (often very insightful) beliefs and opinions. Their naivety and sense of optimism is infections and will soften your adult perspective on life, while their brutal honesty will become a breath of fresh air in a world of social niceties and norms. 

Teaching Kids - The Challenges 

The biggest drawback when it comes to teaching kids is having to deal with behavioural issues. Kids will be kids after all, and there’s always going to be those pesky students who like to push your buttons and disrupt the rest of the class. This is difficult for any teacher to deal with, but as an EFL teacher there are often additional factors at play. 

For instance, it’s very difficult to reason with or discipline a child when you don’t speak their native language. Often when kids get upset or angry they’ll revert back to their mother tongue. As such, it can be near impossible to get to the bottom of a dispute by yourself, but asking the other kids or the teacher next door to translate somewhat undermines your authority. Appeasing parents and having to write suspiciously positive progress reports on a regular basis are another two less than desirable parts of teaching kids.

It’s also a big responsibility. While your students are in your classroom, you’re responsible for their wellbeing. This can be tough, since kids are both naturally accident prone and highly emotional beings. They’re impulsive and unpredictable, so you can’t let your guard down for a second. A seemingly innocent art project could end with you having to explain to a furious parent why a chunk of their child’s hair has been cut off. 

Teaching kids is messy and generally chaotic, so if you’re the kind of person that likes things neat and organised, it’s going to be a challenge. Added to this, you might feel a bit devoid of intellectual stimulation at times. After a week of nursery rhymes and nose-wiping, you’ll probably find yourself longing for adult conversation.

Teaching Adults - The Positives

Adult students are almost always well-mannered and, can you believe it, they’ll happily remain in their seats for the entirety of a lesson. You won’t have to raise your voice or spend half your time trying to corral them back into their chairs. There’s unlikely to be any sudden emotional outbursts during class, and you shouldn’t have to worry about any of your students drawing on their neighbour’s face with permanent marker. With advanced level adult students, you can discuss interesting and relevant topics such as current affairs and history. If you’re teaching in-company business English, you can usually count on comfortable, air-conditioned rooms with top-notch facilities. Heck, they might even offer you a fancy espresso-machine coffee! 

The number of students in each class is generally fewer when you’re teaching adults. This makes things easier and means that you can do things like rearrange the furniture to suit the tone of the lesson. For example, if you want to facilitate class discussion, you can ask your students to sit in a circle, rather than having everyone face the board. A simple request such as this in a room of 20+ kids can quickly descend into a riot. 

With fewer students, you can also spend more time answering individual questions. When you have a small group of adult students where everyone gets along and feels comfortable, a lesson doesn’t feel like work at all. And finally, you can dress smartly when you teach adults, as you won’t have to worry about getting glitter/glue/paint/food/snot on your clothes.

Teaching Adults - The Challenges

Adults are generally far more self-conscious than children, so getting them to speak up in class can sometimes feel like pulling teeth. When you ask a room full of kids a question, a sea of tiny hands will immediately shoot up into the air (whether they know the correct answer or not). Some kids might even start jumping up and down on the spot, holding their extend arm upright with their other hand in a frantic effort to gain more height and visibility. It’s as though preventing themselves from screaming out the answer is physically uncomfortable. In contrast, many adults will stare intently down at their desks in a desperate attempt to avoid eye contact whenever you pose a question to the class. They’ll tell you they want to practise their conversation skills, but then provide you with mere yes / no answers whenever you try to start a discussion. You’ll therefore probably have to spend some time coaxing your adult students out of their shells a bit.

When adults are paying for their English lessons themselves, they can be quite demanding. This is completely understandable of course, but there are always those overly analytical students who want to know why your studying that particular grammar point at that particular time. Going into the intricate details of teaching methodology is rarely, if ever, helpful for your students. Unfortunately, however, you can’t just reel out that all-justifying phrase “because I said so”. Why? Because this student isn’t a child. In fact, he’s 43. 

In contrast, when adults aren’t paying for their classes, as is the case with many business English lessons (the company pays), they sometimes don’t take it very seriously. They’ll turn up late, or not at all. Or, they’ll turn up early, put their name on the register, then pretend they have a “work emergency” and leave before the lesson’s even begun. They’ll claim they’re “too busy with work” to do their homework, and then be miffed when they get a bad mark in the exam. 

So, Adults or Kids?

At the end of the day, every type of teaching has its ups and downs. Finding a job that allows you to work with a variety of age groups is a good way to balance out the scales. It’s always possible to have too much of a good thing, so if you can, keep life interesting by teaching everyone from nursery schoolers to managing directors. This way, you’ll get the best of both worlds, and you won’t be around any age group for long enough to let the challenges phase you.