由於出生率下降以及整體台灣人口逐漸老化，因此我們將英語作為第二語言(ESL)及外國語言(EFL)教育的焦點從傳統學生（例如:在校求學的青少年）轉換至開始為“非傳統”成人（例如:非典型在校求學的成人）尋找改善ESL/EFL的教育方法已經逐漸變成重要性。近年來，台灣政府已成立許多社區大學針對於非傳統學齡的學生提供ESL / EFL的教學; 然而，很不幸地是與ESL / EFL相關的教育，在進行此獨特學生族群之教師經驗仍缺乏深入之研究。本研究為了解決此差距藉由質性方式來評估一位台灣土生土長之EFL教師，在北台灣一家社區大學教授非傳統學齡之EFL成人學習群的教學經驗。為此，依照成人學習者特別的需求，特將焦點放在查明此教師之學生們如何看待此教師的教學方法，觀點，課程和態度方面的效應。資料收集包括此教師及其學生結構性和半結構性的訪談，此教師之日記，課堂上師生互動之錄音及錄影，教師之課堂筆記，和個人溝通。資料乃依Strass 和Corbin在1990的紮根理論的編碼程序進行質性分析。
本研究結果發現，由政府在台灣社區大學所開設的EFL課程的籌畫者很少或沒有嘗試依照成人學生的EFL語言熟練度和學習動機來為他們做課程規劃。根據教師與學生相關的資料，我們發現成人學習者先前的知識，教育和語言的經驗，以及有意願以目標語來溝通（WTC）和第二語言焦慮程度對於此教師在教學上產生了巨大的挑戰。總之，這項研究累積的發現顯示出教授非傳統學齡之成人學習者比研究者在一開始進行本研究時預計的還更具有挑戰性和複雜度。希望我們的研究結果不但揭示出前面所提及包括教授此特殊學生族群的困難，但也鼓勵那些希望教授非傳統學齡學習者之教師來調整自己的教學模式，才更能滿足符合這一群新興學生的需求。

Due to falling birth-rates and the overall graying of the population in Taiwan, it is becoming increasingly important that we shift the focus of ESL/EFL education away from “traditional” students (i.e., school-aged youth) and begin finding ways of improving ESL/EFL for their “non-traditional” adults (i.e., not typically school-aged adults) counterparts. Recently, the Taiwanese government has established a number of community college geared towards providing ESL/EFL instruction for “non-traditionally” aged students; unfortunately, however, there remains a lack of in-depth research conducted on the experiences of instructors of this unique student population. The present study addresses this gap by assessing qualitatively a Taiwanese-heritage EFL instructor’s teaching experiences at a community college of non-traditionally aged adult EFL learners in northern Taiwan. In doing so, particular attention was placed on ascertaining how the informant’s students perceived of the effectiveness of the informant’s teaching approaches, perspectives, curricula, and attitudes regarding the special needs of adult learners. Data were gathered from structured and semi-structured interviews with the informant and his students, the informant’s reflective journal, audio-recordings, video-recording of class interactions, the informants’ class notes, and personal communication, and were analyzed qualitatively according to Strass and Corbin’s (1990) grounded theoretical coding procedures. Results suggested that the organizers of government-run EFL programs in Taiwanese community college make few or no attempts to organize adult students according to their linguistic proficiencies and EFL learning motivations. Regarding the teacher-student-related data, we found that adult learners’ previous knowledge, educational and linguistic experiences, as well as overall willingness to communicate (WTC) in the target language and second language anxiety levels created prodigious challenges for the informant in teaching. All in all, the study’s cumulative findings show that teaching non-traditionally aged adult learners is a much more challenging and complex enterprise than was expected by the researchers at the onset of the present study. Hopefully, our findings will not only shed light on the aforementioned difficulties involved in teaching this particular student population but also encourage those who wish to teach non-traditionally aged learners to adjust their teaching schemata to better meet the needs of this emergent student population.

Keywords: adult EFL learners, community college, community college ESL/EFL, non-traditional learners, willingness to communicate (WTC)

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