Phonetics are the sounds that occur in a particular language. Phonics instruction is a popular teaching method for children and can work just as well for adults. English contains a limited number of phonemes, or sounds, which often correspond to a single alphabetic letter or a group of letters. Teachers should teach adult students the English alphabet and the connection between letters and sounds. This type of instruction will allow English language learners to recognize and pronounce words that they might not have explicitly learned.
All words have meaning, and even if an adult can pronounce a word, this does not mean that he understands its meaning. Vocabulary instruction should be taught on a priority usage basis. This means that functional words such as nouns, particularly subjects, and verbs should be taught first. Other important nouns and useful expressions should follow so that adults have enough of a vocabulary to function in an English-speaking society while continuing their language education.
As adults learn the words and their meanings, they should also learn their parts of speech and the rules that govern how to use them. Grammar instruction can be taught much more explicitly with adults than with children because adults have already mastered their native grammar. Not all of the same grammar rules of a native language will transfer to English grammar. However, adults typically are fluent in their native grammar, and teachers should use this as a valuable resource by teaching English grammar and comparing or contrasting it to the previously learned native grammar.
Once students learn all of the sounds and a set of words and their parts of speech, they are ready to form sentences. English syntax rules are limited, so instruction should focus on the number of ways English speakers form their sentences. All languages have a syntactic structure that uses a subject, object and verb, but the order that these are used differs from language to language. English generally uses a subject-verb-object structure.
Since adults typically have already mastered their native syntax, teachers should once again rely on the rules the adults have already formed and show the similarities and differences to English structure. This will decrease the amount of time required to learn the language rules if adults can refer to native structures with which they are already familiar.