I had had a bit of problem with some of my adult EFL learners and would like to know if I did the right thing or not.
The EFL class I had a trouble with was an advanced EFL class in which most students were housewives who studied conversational English for many years. However, when I first started teaching them, there were only a few who could speak English fluently although the period majority of the students had taken the conversational class was more than 3 years at least. According to students, when teaching, the former instructor heavily depended on the textbooks for conversational English such as Side by Side and ExpressWay. It seemed she never utilized group discussions, games or other activities in her class. She just read the textbooks, made the students repeat after her, and had students memorize the dialogs in the book.
In order to increase the students' speaking and listening skills in English, I implemented lots of group discussions and activities into my lessons and most of the students were able to converse with each other much more easily and fluently one year after I taught the class. However, several older learners who were in their 60s stopped coming to my class. I then realized the teaching method I was using was not for everyone although it surely made most of the students in my class improved their English conversational skills greatly.
Nowadays, I temporarily stopped teaching because of my graduate study, but I'd like to know how I would have made every student in my class happy since I keep thinking about the students who quit learning because they felt discouraged by my too active teaching.
I'd really appreciate your advice!
