Latin for "leader of man," the term angragogy was coined by German educator Alexander Kapp in 1833, and brought to life by Alexander Knowles in 1980. Knowles employed social and psychological definitions of adulthood to his learning theory, which, as it turns out, are not limited to adults.
Blondy, L.C. (2007). Evaluation and application of andragogical assumptions to the adult online learning environment. Journal of Interactive Online Learning, 6(2) Retrieved from http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/issues/pdf/6.2.3.pdf
In 1984, Knowles suggested that adults need to be involved in the planning and evaluation of their instruction, that their experience is a foundation for learning activities, that they are most interested in learning subjects of immediate relevance or importance to some facet of their lives, and that their learning should be problem-centered as opposed to content-oriented (Pappas, 2017). Of these four of Knowles's principles of adult learning, all seem to be true to me as an adult learner of Japanese.
Living in Japan for over two decades, I have been most successful with learning Japanese when there was a need and interest in it. During those times it was my motivation and attitude that led to my progress and success; I do not credit any one teacher or learning methodology or instructional design. If my Japanese teacher lacked skill or knowledge, or if my self-study techniques were not optimal, I either did advance or would likely have made progress in spite of the fact. In more recent years, however, since I have already reached a more than adequate language proficiency for survival, my motivation to continue my studies has sharply declined. To make further progress, I now need to start learning language that is not necessary for my daily life. The excitement of learning has also faded. Nonetheless, last year I tried to pick up my studies again with the guidance of a language tutor.
This endeavor failed however, and not just because of a lack of enthusiasm on my part. First, study takes time, and in the case of lessons, money. In recent years I have lacked both, and other needs have taken priority. Second, my standards of what I want from a teacher are not aligned with those of teachers I have found. If I had had more time, I could have structured my own lessons and the teacher could have given me what I wanted and needed in the form of tutelage, but I wanted to pay for someone who would also be able to do that for me. Sadly, as a teacher myself, I think my standards are probably a little different from those of my teachers. Clearly my past learning and teaching experiences have influences, in this case perhaps tainted, my learning expectations. Because I have mastered practical language skills, I am now ready to delve into more academic, advanced language learning. However, the content-orientation has no immediate relevance to my daily life or to professional goals.
I think I will only regain my motivation when I a) have a real need to further improve my skills that needs to be better prioritized and b) find a teacher and/or method that matches my expectations.