Language Teaching and the Older Adult

The Significance of Experience

Danya Ramírez Gómez

• Editore: Multilingual Matters
• Anno: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781783096312
• Argomento: Langues et linguistique
• Categoria: Enseignement des arts du langage

The aging of the population and the increasing number of older adults pursuing foreign language courses call fora greater understanding of the ways in which these individuals learn foreign languages. This book offers a pioneering contribution to the literature on foreign language education for older adults (aged 60 and over), termed foreign language geragogy. It details an empirical, multidisciplinary study on Japanese older learners of Spanish and focuses on the influence of learning experiences on vocabulary learning strategy use. It discusses the constraints that preconceptions impose on learners, researchers, instructors and administrators, and it offers a set of practical recommendations for foreign language activities for elderly individuals. It also introduces the notion of 'learner re-training', an instructional mechanism that contributes to older learners' self-acknowledgment and autonomy development in foreign language learning. The book is directed at teachers and trainee teachers of foreign languages to older adults, and also at education professionals and researchers in the field of foreign language learning in general.

1Introduction

Every stage of (…) learning – serious learning – comes from asking why things work like that, why not some other way

Noam Chomsky, 2013

Aging is a global phenomenon. According to the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations, the elderly population is predicted to reach approximately 1.2 billion in 2025 and 2 billion in 2050, which will be more than 20% of the world population (United Nations, n.d.). This trend, however, is not uniform and developed regions exhibit a more dramatic position. The UN has forecast that the elderly population in Europe will reach 37% of the total population by 2050, and that some countries – such as Austria, Spain, Japan and the Czech Republic – will have populations with at least 40% of older adults by the same year.

This demographic change has significant social and economic effects. According to Goodman and Harper (2007), developed countries will soon face three main problems. First, in the next 10 years, two working individuals (15–64 years old) will be supporting one retired adult, which imposes a heavy financial burden on the working age group. Secondly, governments will encounter serious challenges in supporting the older population, particularly in terms of public health and welfare. Thirdly, there will be a reduction in overall consumption. This situation suggests – as many governments have already acknowledged – that there is a pressing need for policies and other mechanisms that foster the social, physical and psychological wellbeing of older adults while enabling these individuals to continue actively participating in society.

One of these mechanisms is the provision of educational programs for older adults. Learning benefits the individual personally and socially by promoting health and integration while increasing quality of life; among various disciplines, foreign language (FL) learning is currently undertaken by a rising number of older adults (cf. Kim, 2008). Indeed, several studies have recently evinced the cognitive benefits of learning a second language (L2; see sections below), which has increased the appeal of this activity among older adults and may position it in the near future as a powerful preventative and therapeutic mechanism to palliate cognitive decline. Notwithstanding, this field has not yet developed methods and teaching materials directed specifically at this age group and adapted to the group’s cognitive, psychological and social characteristics. In fact, empirical research on older FL learners is limited and still at a descriptive stage.

I believe this is the result of three main factors. First, it is a reality that most FL learners belong to younger cohorts. Older adults, as an important FL student body, are a relatively recent phenomenon spurred on mainly by the extension of the Healthy Life Expectancy (HALE; discussed later). This, along with the fact that these learners are found mostly in non-formal education settings – which complicates conducting research focused on them, helps explain the minimal attention received by older FL learners as a separate age group.

Additionally, the studies focused on older adults have traditionally been conducted from the loss-deficit perspective (Wagner, 2009), which centers on the causes of cognitive decline. In other words, these studies have often addressed what older adults ‘are not able to do any more,’ and they have not explored in depth the mechanisms that older learners may use to compensate for any deficit. Such a ‘negative’ view of older adults’ cognitive abilities may have persuaded scholars to concentrate their attention on learners who are theoretically not limited by age-related changes and who are, supposedly, more likely to accomplish high-level results in the learning process.

Finally, proposals such as the critical period hypothesis (CPH) have been tremendously influential. The CPH, in particular, posits that individuals who start their first-language (L1) acquisition process late (i.e. after the beginning of puberty) are less likely to master the language. This notion has guided research on L2 acquisition (i.e. L2 learning in the L2 community) ­­and FL learning (i.e. L2 learning in a formal setting in the L1 community)­­, and it has led scholars and instructors to assume that an early onset of the L2/FL learning process is more advantageous than starting the process after puberty, let alone in old age. From this perspective, the limited research on FL learning in older learners seems justified. However, as I will discuss in the following sections, recent works on this issue render CPH notions inapplicable to L2 acquisition and – more importantly in our discussion – to FL learning.

In sum, the research on older FL learners is limited; therefore, there is no evidence-based FL methodology specifically directed at this age group. Regardless of any justification for this situation, the absence of teaching techniques adapted to older learners naturally causes feelings of frustration and incompetence in many of them (discussed later). The current need for mechanisms that foster older adults’ education and wellbeing warrants the creation of an FL teaching methodology specific for this age group, particularly taking into consideration the recent evidence of the cognitive benefits of FL learning. This book responds to this call and proposes, through a comprehensive exploration of these learners’ characteristics, a series of parameters for the development of an FL teaching methodology for older learners or, as I will call it throughout the book, FL geragogy.

Scope and Structure of this Book

Developing an FL geragogy evidently requires numerous studies that may support it. Consequently, this book does not presume to establish such a methodology on its own and does not provide answers to all questions. Many of the claims made in this work may actually be proven inappropriate or may be improved in time. This is completely acceptable. Thus, this book has three main objectives. First, it is intended to describe the current state of the field of FL geragogy – what has been said and what has not. Secondly, based on an empirical, mixed-method study of vocabulary-learning strategy (VLS) use, it is aimed at emphasizing the relevance of personal experiences in the learning process of older adults and the need for a more customized type of instruction. Finally, this book seeks to spark a discussion that is long due and to promote a constructive exchange of ideas that enables the definition of parameters for developing an efficient FL geragogy.

Following these objectives, the claims in this work are not built on a unique approach to FL education. Rather, they are supported by various frameworks and lines of research, from sociocultural theory, to modern notions on cognitive aging, to social psychology and educational philosophy. They also involve elements such as empirical research on learning strategies, the definition of a teaching mission and the proposal of instruction mechanisms and concrete techniques for teaching older adults. This may seem excessively broad and, consequently, superficial. However, the advancement and recognition of FL geragogy as an academic field in its own right necessitates a study that comprehensibly overviews the necessary directions for research.

The scope of this book has been decided based on the idea that constructive debates on FL teaching require the discussion of several aspects of learning. FL learning must be seen not only as the process of mastering a skill, but also as an experience with the potential to transform the individual’s relationship with his environment and with himself. This book is also based on the notion that developing and implementing an evidence-based FL geragogy may benefit older learners beyond the classroom, and that the process of learning an L2 may be as favorable as being competent in that language. I believe this is the meaning of the term ‘education’ in foreign language education.

The various topics addressed in this book have been organized as follows. The following subsections of this introductory chapter review the main ­literature on L1/L2 development, individual differences and memory, all in their interaction with age and aging. This review does not intend to be exhaustive. Rather, it is aimed at offering a bird’s-eye view of the debate on these issues. This section also covers the few accessible studies on FL learning in older adults. The objective is to show the limited state of research in this field and to discuss in more depth the possible reasons for the lack of scholarly attention received by FL geragogy.

Chapter 2 focuses on the type of learner in question: the older adult. This chapter briefly describes the principal physical, cognitive and psychological age-related transformations commonly observed after retirement – ­particularly those that may influence FL learning – and the possible effects of older learners’ experiences during the learning process.

Chapter 3 presents a mixed-methods study on the FL learning process of Japanese older learners of Spanish. As I will discuss later on, memorization of new lexical items recurrently emerges in the literature as one of older learners’ greatest concerns when studying an L2. This work addresses the influence of learning experiences – measured through the sociocultural notions of orientations and trajectories – on the use of VLSs. It indicates that the influence of older adults’ experiences on their learning process differs from the influence of younger learners’ experiences on their own learning. Consequently, this analysis suggests the existence of learning profiles applicable to older FL learners, and it highlights that these profiles determine the relevance acquired by the variables of VLS use.

Chapters 4, 5 and 6 comprise a three-part section that focuses on the application of the conclusions in Chapter 3, and they offer practical tools for teaching and designing FL courses for older learners. Specifically, drawing from the literature on adult FL education, lifelong learning and general education for older adults, Chapter 4 provides some theoretical notions in which to embed the planning of courses and the overall approach that I believe should be given to FL geragogy. Chapter 5, in turn, based on the exploratory principles of critical FL geragogy (CFLG; Ramírez Gómez, 2016), introduces the construct of learner re-training. This is an instructional mechanism aimed at implementing CFLG principles and establishing concrete parameters to foster older learners’ self-directedness and empowerment. Finally, Chapter 6 proposes several techniques and habits to deal with some of the most common challenges of the older-learner FL classroom, discussed in Chapter 2. These techniques and habits are presented both from a general perspective and based on the four traditional FL skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. The objective is to provide instructors with a practical tool that quickly assesses how to adjust a certain activity to older learners.

A few issues need to be addressed at this point.

First, let us clarify some of the key terms frequently used throughout this book. ‘Older adult’ refers to individuals who are 60 years old and over, who are either totally or partially retired, and who do not require full-time nursing care1 – in other words, what today is called a ‘third-ager’. ‘Older learner’, in turn, is defined as an older adult who studies an FL. Also, ‘L2 acquisition’ is understood in this work as learning a second language in contexts of immersion, i.e. in the community of the L2, while ‘FL learning’ is defined as learning an L2 in a formal setting in the L1 community (or any other community other than that of the target language). In many studies, these two concepts are exchanged and the term ‘L2 acquisition’ is understood simply as learning a second language, no matter the learning context. Due to the nature of this work, I will distinguish between both terms whenever it is possible and useful to do so.

Another aspect of this book that is appropriate to clarify at this point is its rationale. While working on this study, I have frequently encountered scholars and FL instructors who question the need for an FL geragogy. The doubts of these scholars and instructors relate mainly to two issues: What warrants the distinction between teaching an FL and teaching any other discipline to older adults? and What warrants the distinction between teaching an FL to younger adults and to older adults? Probably, the reader has the same questions.

As explained later, older learners – no matter the educational field – may experience similar psychological, physical and cognitive age-related changes. These similarities suggest that studies on the affective variables of FL learning may share conclusions with those studies on the affective variables of the learning processes of other disciplines, such as history, mathematics, arts and civic education. However, FL learning comprises the acquisition of a skill, not only content-based knowledge; it requires the constant use and practice of certain cognitive abilities – such as memorization and analysis – that may not be used to the same extent when studying other d...