Perhaps the greatest difference between adults and younger ages is that the former come to lessons with a long history of learning experience. They will usually have gone through at least ten years of schooling and may then have gone on to study at a higher level. Those learning experiences - both bad and good - will have helped them to form strong opinions about how teaching and learning should be carried out. They also come with their own record of success or failure. Those who underachieved at school may subconsciously assume that they are going to fail again; those who were school successes may believe that learning English will be easy.