| The purpose of this dissertation is to make an attempt to integrate foreign language education for adult learners, as an important part of adult education, into the framework of lifelong learning system and theory, focusing on specific aspects under which learning strategies and teaching methodologies for adult FL learners, in particular, those related to the training of translation and interpretation skills, will be analyzed and dealt with.According to the Belém Framework for Action (December 2009), lifelong learning"from cradle to grave"is a philosophy, a conceptual framework and an organising principle of all forms of education; it is all-encompassing and integral to the vision of a knowledge-based society.Adult learning and education represent a significant key component of a holistic and comprehensive system of lifelong learning and education which integrates formal, non-formal and informal learning and which addresses, explicitly or implicitly, both youth and adult learners. Furthermore, Adult learning and education play a critical role in responding to contemporary cultural, economic, political and social challenges. Today's globalization has paved the way for many opportunities, among them the possibility of learning from and exchanges between rich and diverse cultures that transcend geographical boundaries. Such learning and exchanges can certainly be facilitated with the learning of a foreign / second language or with the aid of an interpreter. Ultimately, adult learning and education are about providing learning contexts and processes that are attractive and responsive to the needs of adults as active citizens of the"global village".In the new century when our society is changing rapidly and our economy develops very fast, when we live in the information and post-modernism era, it is necessary for us to frame a lifelong learning system so that nobody, unless he or she is physically or mentally not qualified, will be left behind simply because he or she cannot afford regular education. As we have learned from Paulo Freire, learning throughout life helps us to understand our world and to shape it– individually and collectively. Also in his words we have learned,"Nobody is completely ignorant. Nobody knows everything. All of us lack knowledge of something. That is why we continue to learn". Adult learning and education can ensure a viable future for all of us. At all stages of life, education is transformative. It empowers us with the knowledge and skills to better our lives. Evidence shows that it impacts on economic growth and per-capita income. This is why the provision of good quality learning opportunities throughout life is one of the smartest strategies for reducing inequalities and promoting more harmonious and just societies. Obviously, adult learning counts more than ever in the era of globalization.At the Second International Conference on Adult Education (Montreal, Canada 1960) some delegations expressed the view that UNESCO should take a lead in convincing Member States of the urgency of reaching agreement on a single "second" language. This language when chosen would be taught in all schools in all Member States, thus providing a language of communication throughout the world. Half a century later, at the Sixth International Conference on Adult Education (Belém, Brazil 2009), the Belém Framework for Action urges that, for"Participation, inclusion and equity"in this rapidly changing society, we commit ourselves to"supporting the development of writing and literacy in the various indigenous languages…, while adequately developing the teaching of the second language for wider communication."It is obvious that the teaching and learning of a second or foreign language for adults has always been and is an ever-increasingly important part of adult education worldwide. Today, in this information age and"globalized"world, the mastery of a second or foreign language may well support an adult's professional career and work, in the long run, to his or her advantage.Vocational education and training, foreign or second language training included, is a key component of adult education. According to the UNESCO definition for vocational education and training, it includes,"All forms and levels of the educational process involving, in addition to general knowledge, the study of technologies and related sciences, the acquisition of practical skills, know how, attitudes and understanding relating to occupations in the various sectors of economic and social life."In the UK, vocational education and training includes commercial, technical and professional developments. These developments require knowledge, understanding and skills which together we call competence. In our modern society, it is widely acknowledged that competence, including the individual's foreign or second language proficiency, is the key to economic success in a highly competitive global economy.In his article, In Defense of the Staged Self-Directed Learning Model , Grow (1993) briefly defines and summarizes the SSDL model for adult learners: (1) Learners can progress toward greater control of their learning, but simply being an adult does not assure the ability to take a high degree of learner control. (2) Teachers can assist in that progression by cultivating not only the basic knowledge but also the metaskills whose integration makes greater learner control possible. Programs can be designed to gradually increase the degree of learner control as students master basic content and skills. Teachers can shift their teaching styles productively to stimulate learner progress or respond to learner need. The SSDL provides workable labels for such shifts. (3) There is no one way to teach or learn well. Different styles work for different learners in different situations. Good teachers understand and use the learner's present stage and help the learner progress toward greater self-direction characterized by greater learning readiness, flexibility, and learner control. (4) Degree of learner control depends in part on the situation and in part on learners' ability to transfer skills and metaskills to a new situation.The metaskills that Grow mentions are unique to the adult learner, and if explored fully and appropriately, may work to his / her advantage in the performance of a learning task. Therefore, an adult learner's cognitive and metacognitive skills play a very important role in the task-based approach. Both cognitive and practical skills are needed to perform the task of learning, whereas metacognitive skills are necessary to understand how it was performed and to ensure that it was performed. Metacognitive skills are generally divided into two types: self-assessment (the ability to assess one's own cognition) and self-management (the ability to manage one's further cognitive development). Successful adult learners employ a range of metacognitive skills and effective teachers in adult education attend to the development of these skills. According to the research on self-assessment, learners who are skilled in metacognitive self-assessment and are therefore aware of their abilities are more strategic and perform better in the task-based approach than those who are unaware.It is widely acknowledged in China that the mastery of a foreign language is one of the two basic skills -- the other being computer skills -- required of a competent and able and talented individual in the new century. There are so many foreign language learners in China that foreign language training has been a booming business for decades. Along with it are different kinds of language proficiency certificates at different levels. We know that language use is a lifelong process; so is the foreign language acquisition. It is imperative for us to realize the significance of foreign language learning for adults living in this globalized world of ours. But, how can we learn a foreign language well and how can we make the best use of a foreign language? The questions have been asked and probed ever since China opened its door to the outside world. Various learning methods have been suggested or advocated and practiced to some extent. We have learned about not only the traditional grammar-translation approach, but also the cognitive and the communicative approaches in the 70s, the new immersion and the content-based approaches in the 80s, as well as the multi-intelligence approach of the new century. However, in a country where the foreign language we are learning, e.g. English, is neither official nor commonly used, none of the above pedagogical approaches proves to meet our satisfaction, let alone with good and remarkable achievements. Within the space available, the present paper cannot illustrate in detail nor elaborate on all the above-mentioned but for the Comprehensive Translation Approach (CTA for short), which the author renders is one of the most suitable for adult FL learners in China.The argument over which pedagogical approach or learning strategy is better for us has been as long as the time when we Chinese started to learn foreign languages, and it is only becoming more intense. Ferguson (1964 1971 1975 1981) proposed the notion of the existence of a set of simplified registers for second / foreign language learners, such as baby talk, teacher talk and foreign talk. In SLA research, the notion of interlanguage and its significance proposed by Selinker (1969 1972), despite the fact of fossilization, has ever since been explored in great detail. Later, we have also heard about Nemser's approximative system (1971), Corder's idiosyncratic dialect (1971) and language learners'language (1978). Whatever the name, they all point to one thing: our language learners, adult learners in particular, may have to learn their second or foreign language in a way different from that they acquired their first.When we turn our eye to adult English language learners in China, we cannot overlook the fact that they are learning not only a foreign language that is very much different from their native language, but also in an unfavorable language environment where their learning efforts can be constantly and repeatedly disrupted and even nullified by the interference of other linguistic and non-linguistic elements. Given such conditions, most adult FL learners in China cannot learn a foreign language the way they acquired their first. On the other hand, adult language learners enjoy a kind of advantage: their ever-perfected metacognitive skills may facilitate their foreign language learning so that they are more likely to acquire the types of competence for relatively smooth and effective communication, namely, grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence. (M. Canale & M. Swain 1980 )Obviously, we need to frame a new pedagogical approach specifically for our adult foreign language learners, an approach that will accommodate their purposes and needs, that will take into consideration their multi-facet working conditions and life styles as well as their language environment, that will make better, if not the best, use of their metacognitive skills as well as their first language competence, and that will bring them tangible and beneficial results in the shortest time possible.The new CTA proposed in this paper is different from the traditional grammar-translation method in that the former emphasizes translation as a means for cross-cultural communication. In the traditional grammar-translation approach, the teaching and learning is focused on grammatical elements such as vocabulary and sentence structure, and translation, mainly written, is used to confirm and consolidate the learner's grammatical competence. Whereas in CTA, the learner's grammatical competence is a pre-requisite, and translation, especially interpretation and sight translation, serves a variety of purposes: it manifests the learner's comprehensive language skills; its practice in turn enhances those language skills and it ensures that the learner can make the best use of those language skills.SLA theory and empirical research suggest that successful language learning can only occur when the following four conditions are met: (1) rich input from varied sources and elaborative input via negotiation of meaning; (2) ample opportunities for language use in authentic contexts for real purposes; (3) immediate and quality negative feedback through focus on form; and (4) individualized content that respects learner syllabus and developmental readiness ( Egbert, Chao & Hanson-Smith, 1999; Gee, 2003; Pennington, 1996; Zhao, 2003). However, for adult foreign language learners in China, they are lacking of accessible, engaging and comprehensive language input; they don't have as much opportunity to use the target language; their social interactions in the targeting language are contrived; learners have difficulties in developing and sustaining a learning community.The Shanghai Interpreting Accreditation (SIA for short) discussed in this paper first requires its candidates be trained in engaging and comprehensive language exercises, such as listening, speaking, reading, translation and interpretation skills. The course books for the training are designed with this in mind and as such. Adult learners in the SIA course are encouraged to use the target languages (both native language and foreign language) as much as possible and to translate or interpret in either way. The translation or interpretation is guided but not contrived, and through translation and interpretation practices the adult learner can develop and sustain for himself or herself a"learning community"where he or she may consolidate and improve his or her language skills to his or her own satisfaction. Therefore, the SIA course is not only meant for our future interpreters, but also for most adult language learners who want to improve and perfect their language competence even after they have left school and engaged themselves in their respective professional careers. For foreign language learners, Cooper and Greenbaum (1987) defined an accommodation model somewhat different from that of Giles, and, as they said, broader. According to them, accommodation is the"adjustment of speech in response to the mutuality which speakers perceive between themselves and their hearers."They suggested 4 types of mutuality: verbal repertoire, background knowledge, solidarity or intimacy, and power. Verbal repertoire and background knowledge are perception of knowing, while solidarity or intimacy belongs to the domain of feeling, and power, the domain of doing. For the definition of the register, they suggested simplification and wellformedness. By simplification, it means less syntax, shorter utterance, higher frequency lexical items, and slower speech. By wellformedness, it means the utterances are grammatically acceptable in terms of surface structure. How can we achieve simplification and wellformedness simultaneously? And where is the balance?The answer may well lie in the training of interpretation skills, which can satisfy the typicality conditions for foreigner talk, namely, simplifying, matching, solidarity and distortion. (Bernard Spolsky 1989) These elements are easily traceable when we elaborate on the theories and practices of interpretation, so as to justify our discussion of the SIA programmes for adult English learners in China.The main body of this dissertation starts, in Chapter Two, with a brief, overall introduction of contemporary adult education as a key and significant part of lifelong learning system. Then, it focuses on the discussion of foreign language education for Chinese adults in a variety of areas such as community education, vocational education, degree and open or distance learning programmes. As most adult learners in China take up foreign language learning with a view to passing certain language tests, the dissertation would be incomplete were the discussions of those language tests and test-oriented training programmes not included. With similar reasons, those English textbooks and course-books specially designed for Chinese FL learners are also introduced and analyzed. Chapter Three probes into the theories and approaches of the foreign language education for adults, while discussing in detail the unique features manifested by adult FL learners. In Chapter Four the importance of comprehensive language skills for adult FL learners is emphasized, and the essence and development of different approaches of FL methodology are introduced, in particular, those that are better or well suited for Chinese adult learners. For example, the grammar- translation approach, the communicative approach, the task-based approach and, last but definitely not the least, the comprehensive translation / interpretation approach. Chapter Five introduces the testing of interpretation skills for Chinese FL learners, its theoretical backgrounds and practical applications, which naturally and inevitably leads to the discussion of prep training of language proficiency for the tests. So the final overall conclusion, as is restated in Chapter Six, is a strong recommendation for the Chinese adult learner that the comprehensive translation / interpretation approach be adopted to facilitate their FL learning, having taken into account the SLA conditions here in China.All in all,"as the practical basis, as well as an important part, adult education is"the leader"and"the desirable culmination"of lifelong education. It is impossible for us to frame the system of lifelong education without the system of well-developed and matured adult education. (Gu Xiaopo 2010) And foreign language education forms a key component of adult education which is undergoing the process of globalization and internationalization. The Comprehensive Translation Approach recommended, discussed and studied in this paper, with its distinctive features in interpretation training, calls for more attention and further studies in the field of adult foreign language education.
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