IATEFL VIRTUAL CONFERENCE 2021: Teaching Older Learners

 IATEFL VIRTUAL CONFERENCE 2021

In this series of posts, I'll summarise some of my personal highlights from this year's IATEFL conference. Obviously, this reflects my own areas of practical concern and interest. One example of this would be the increase in groups specifically aimed at older learners in my school, and the unique challenges that arise when working with this age group.

For a more general overview of my main takeaways from this year's conference, please also have a look at my guest post on Larry Ferlazzo's blog.

Teaching Older Learners

These are my notes on a couple of sessions dealing with the issues of teaching older learners, one of the few areas in ELT which has seen an increasing demand in recent years!

Talk 1: Too old to learn? Teaching senior language learners

Sarah Curtius (Freelance) Sunday 20th June, Session 2.8

Sarah’s research was aimed at developing awareness of issues involved in teaching senior learners for teacher trainers in adult education.

According to the World Health Organisation, seniors are classified as those aged 60 and above, but seniors are a very diverse group. Sarah listed some of the aspects that need to be taken into account (slide below)

Physiological

Some physiological aspects begin to decline before 60, e.g. eyesight and hearing.

Cognitive

There is a measurable decline in working memory and speed of processing with age, BUT it is not true to say that older learners are less capable of learning. Sarah suggests that Intelligence becomes ‘crystallised', but that this in fact is the seniors’ superpower, as they have a wealth of acquired skills, learned facts and life experience. Older learners can use this previous knowledge to their advantage in a way that younger learners can’t: they already know how to do many things and they can build on this accumulated knowledge.

Methodology

To address some of the issues older learners may have, Sarah highlights the following key steps:

- Simplify complex tasks and instructions and don’t overburden short term memory

- Break down tasks into smaller steps

- The value of repetition. Slow down and repeat as often as necessary

- Present vocabulary in context and link new items to elements they are already familiar with

All of which is good advice at whatever age you’re teaching, I think.

 

Expectations and psychological aspects

Learners’ expectations are influenced by their previous learning experiences of language classes, usually at school. In the case of older learners’ this was probably predominantly via the grammar-translation method. Consequently, they tend to focus on detail – e.g. wanting to know the meaning of every word in a text.

Often, one of the biggest barriers to success with this age group is the learners themselves. They are aware of the physiological decline and may come to class with the pre-conceived notion that they are too old to learn a language. Careful and open discussion of older learners’ strengths and weaknesses may help to combat ageist assumptions

Sarah summarized her talk in the final slide:

Talk 2: Teaching the third age

Aysen Cem-Deger (Freelance) Monday 21st June, Session 3.2


This talk examined the teaching of older learners in a Turkish context at 'the University of the Third Age' in the University of Izmir.

Aysen gave us an overview of some of the issues involved in teaching older learners, known as ‘geragogy’. There is a summary and references in the slide below:

Aysen made some observations based on her own experience:

- There is great diversity among learners in this age group, but they are also adept at peer-teaching, which is useful to exploit to make sure each learner has the maximum individual attention.

- Older members of society are highly respected in Turkish culture, a factor which may explain lower levels of language-learning anxiety in these groups compared with learners of different ages in other contexts.

- Adopting an alternative persona, e.g through role play or drama activities, seems to help learners of this profile lose inhibitions and speak more freely.

As can be seen in the above slide, Aysen coincided with Sarah Curtius in the need to combat age-related prejudices. The brain learns differently as it gets older, but not necessarily less effectively!