Third Age Learners of Foreign Languages

Danuta Gabryś-Barker, Danuta Gabryś-Barker

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781783099429
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Teaching Language Arts
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

People are increasingly reaching the so-called third age, a period when seniors search for a renewed purpose to life and spend time undertaking activities that they consider motivating, such as the learning of a foreign language. The study of language learning among aging populations has become a fast-growing area of research and this book is one of the first attempts to bring together what we know about this age group and their profiles as foreign language learners. Contributors to the volume discuss the issue from various psychological, neurological and pedagogical perspectives. Each of the chapters provides an updated theoretical background and offers some initial conclusions on the basis of original empirical studies carried out. Chapters challenge certain familiar preconceptions and assumptions about senior learners, offer the reader ideas for future research in this under-studied area and provide some practical advice for applying the proposals and solutions offered in real foreign language third-age classrooms.

Part 1

Foreign Language Learning in the Third Age

1A Developmental Perspective on Third-Age Learning

Rebecca L. Oxford

I am sixty years old, and glory is my work.1

Adapted from Mary Oliver

Though I am old with wandering…

I will … pluck till time and times are done

… The golden apples of the sun.2

William Butler Yeats

Introduction

Researchers are paying significant attention to lifelong language learners (e.g. De Bot & Makoni, 2005; Gabrysˊ-Barker et al., 2016; Martinez, 2012). The term ‘third-age language learners’, which might seem a little more precise than ‘lifelong language learners’, is now gaining currency as well. In general, the term ‘third agers’ refers to healthy, motivated individuals who are retired, i.e. no longer working full-time.

This chapter addresses a topic that is dear to my heart, mind, and aging body: a developmental perspective on third-age language learning. I have repeatedly taught university courses on life-span human development, or developmental psychology. It is exciting to unite my psychological background with my applied linguistics experience when examining third-age language learning. The first section of the chapter introduces ‘third age’ and related concepts. The second section offers research findings about physical, cognitive, emotional, and cultural issues relevant to the third age. Three broad ways to encourage and aid older language learners are the focus of the third section. The fourth section discusses the role of organizations (educational institutions and group living facilities) in teaching languages to third agers and some techniques that could be used. The chapter has a personal postscript containing hopeful ideas and poetry linked to third-age language learning.

Introducing the Third Age

This introductory section discusses labels and concepts, age-grading of the third age, gifts of the third age and third age=golden age (?).

Labels and concepts

The concept of ‘third age’ emerged from a hypothesized sequence of three stages that can be summarized by the acronym ‘EER’: education (first age), employment (second age) and retirement (third age) (Moen, 2011).3 The third age, supposedly occurring after full-time work has ended, is sometimes called ‘young-old’ age, as compared to the fourth age, which is called ‘old-old’ age, or flatly ‘old age’. The term ‘third age’ describes relatively healthy ‘young-old’ people who are now retired, while feeling energy, excitement, purpose and well-being. Theorists typically view the third age as a time before any serious disability arises for a given person; the ‘fourth age’, discussed later, includes such a disability (Carr & Komp, 2011).

Many view the third age as a life phase. However, the concept of a life phase is an interpretation, a construction, a social status and a cultural field (Carr & Komp, 2011; Gilleard & Higgs, 2011), and thus tied to an array of sociocultural issues. Discussing the third age in a group of people from Berlin, Bali and Birmingham or Tunis, Texarkana and Taipei would necessitate intensively probing into cultural belief systems, socioeconomic statuses, educational levels, genders, religions and other issues. That calls for another book, or at least another chapter.

Moen (2011) raised concerns about the conceptual sequence of first–second–third ages, because this sequence is very lockstep and age graded. She called for considering alternative, more flexible life paths rather than hard-and-fast delineations of stages. She enthusiastically called for greater career options for third agers. However, she noted that outmoded politics and policies, risky economies and the loss of community-based safety nets keep many elders from having meaningful career options in their third age.

Age grading of the third age

Some scholars try to give the third age a certain number of years, while others state that the third age begins and ends at given ages. These efforts are part of ‘age grading’. For instance, Lawrence-Lightfoot (2009) identified ‘the third chapter’ (roughly equivalent to the third age) as lasting from age 50 to 75, whereas for Smith (2000) the third age is from 70 to 84. Erik Erikson’s (1982) famous model of psychosocial development did not use the term ‘third age’, but the model’s eighth and final stage, identified as starting around 65, involves the crisis of identity versus despair and might include the third age.

For several reasons, I personally doubt that chronological age is a good proxy for the concept of the third age. First, individual lives, including schedules for retirement, are very different for various people, making third-age timing difficult to predict for a given person, much less for a professional group or for a culture. Second, some people, like me, retire several times, and the start of the third age might depend on which retirement is counted as ‘real’ and why. Third, scientific advances make possible an ever-increasing number of third-age years, so the length of the third age is difficult to anticipate. For these reasons, it is better to consider individual or small-group cases and circumstances than to trust generalized or supposedly universal third-age years.

Gifts of the third age

The third age offers many gifts, according to numerous theorists. Lawrence-Lightfoot (2009) described the third chapter (similar to the third age) as filled with passion, risk-taking, and adventure. To attain these gifts, the older individual must perceive abundance in his or her life (even if the person’s material possessions are not abundant), must seek meaning and purpose and must not focus on failure. Lawrence-Lightfoot’s depiction was somewhat similar to the much deeper perspective of de Hennezel (2008), whose intelligent, humorous, emotionally sensitive and valuable book on wellness drew from literature, philosophy, psychology, physiology and spirituality. In her book, de Hennezel stated that wellness during any part of aging, not just early aging, requires maintaining a physically healthy lifestyle, adapting to change, staying confident, learning how to say no and accepting limits with humor. She additionally said that wellness in aging necessitates sharing concerns with those who care, spending peaceful time doing what we desire, loving others and ourselves and continuing to enjoy sensuality. These are big requirements, but de Hennezel emphasized that they also bring joy, comfort and health. Still more profoundly, she noted that elders can change the way that they see aging and even death and can specifically recognize the fecundity of time. Author Victor Hugo, mentioned by de Hennezel, wrote that as his body declined, his mind grew, and therefore, old age brought a blossoming.4

Third age=golden age(?)

As noted earlier, Barnes (2011) described the third age as a period of subjective well-being. However, he might have gone much too far when he depicted the third age as ‘the golden age of adulthood’ (Barnes, 2011: 1). I personally never experienced a ‘golden age of childhood’ or any other golden age; in fact, I was thrilled to get a few golden days now and then. Thus, I cannot imagine rolling into a ‘golden age of adulthood’. The third age, despite its many positives, will probably not be experienced as ‘golden’ by all or most retirees. It is a time of great flux, and such a great change is not always experienced positively. Retirement itself can be a shock to certain individuals due to the lower income, reduced structure and loss of professional prestige, even if retired individuals pick up satisfying new work or projects. Also, sooner or later during the third age, many retirees experience new health issues or an exacerbation of existing ones, although they are not disabled.

Selected Issues of the Third Age: Physical, Cognitive, Emotional and Cultural

This section presents selected issues of the third age: physical and cognitive changes, emotions and related factors and cultural stereotypes.

Physical and cognitive changes in the third age

This discussion deals with physical issues (visual, auditory and motor) and cognitive issues (memory, learning and verbal knowledge) faced by third agers.

Visual, auditory and motor issues

A reduction in vision and hearing, as well as problems from disease and drug interactions, can affect cognitive performance (Sigelman & Rider, 2012: 268), including language learning, but many visual and auditory problems can be treated.

Even without disease, a gradual reduction in the efficiency of various physical systems begins in the twenties (Lakatta, 1990), though most people do not think about it until their fifties or sixties. Contrasted with younger adults, many older adults perform certain motor actions more slowly and with less coordination (Lima et al., 1991; Whitbourne, 2008). Elders who stay physically active maintain faster reaction times and greater strength than their more sedentary peers (Hatta et al., 2005). Faster reaction times would assist in target language communication.

Memory, learning and verbal knowledge

Older adults know many memory strategies (metamemory). However, compared with younger adults, they often express negative beliefs about their memory skills (Sigelman & Rider, 2012), and this undermines their efforts. On average, older adults learn more slowly and sometimes less well than those who are younger than them (Sigelman & Rider, 2012), but this depends on what they are learning. ‘Verbal [language-related] knowledge shows no decrease throughout mid- and older adulthood and may not decline until we are pushing 90’ (Sigelman & Rider, 2012: 266). If a third ager has highly functional verbal knowledge, then it is easier to learn new things that are verbal, such as a language. Though cognitive information processing often takes longer for third agers, this problem might be balanced by existing verbal knowledge and positive biographical, lifestyle and contextual factors (e.g. greater education, consistent physical activity and age-supportive social practices). In this way, third agers are often able to maintain the basic capacities necessary for language learning.

In contrast with third agers, people who have Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia, i.e. severe loss of memory and other mental disabilities, are not thus protected (Alzheimer’s Association, 2017) and become fourth agers. However, some fourth agers who have a serious physical illness or disability still have cognition that is adequate for language learning.

Emotions and related factors in the third age

To understand third agers, it is crucial to grasp the importance of positive and negative emotions, emotional intelligence, savoring and humor.

Positive and negative emotions

Some possible positive emotions for third agers are happiness, curiosity, interest, pleasure and joy (Frederickson, 2001, 2003, 2004) and, according to Seligman (2011), ecstasy, comfort and warmth.5 Positive emotions, in Frederickson’s view, broaden the individual’s attention and build innovative thoughts, actions, skills and psychological resources that are useful for the future. This is the ‘broaden-and-build concept’, in which positive emotions trigger spirals of emotional and physical well-being. It is possible to argue that positive emotions, as named above, are very important for language learning.

Potential insights from difficult emotions

Positive psychology, mentioned above, emphasizes the usefulness of positive emotions. It also denigrates ‘negative emotions’ (I will call them painful or difficult, not negative) for supposedly narrowing the individual’s response options to merely survival-type behaviors (Frederickson, 2001, 2003, 2004). Painful emotions, such as despair, grief or anger, can indeed reduce the response options of a third ager if these emotions completely overwhelm or suffuse the person, if these emotions are treated as permanent and if the person does not have, or ignores, a social support system. On the other hand, painful emotions can sometimes be a source of self-knowledge when a third ager is learning a new language or working on the crisis of integrity versus despair (Erikson, 1982). Cooper Thompson’s (2016) book stands as a reminder that the difficult emotions of a third ager can, if processed well, offer deep insights that are helpful to language learning.

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