Strong Is the Force With Older Learners
By: Heather Kretschmer
A long time ago, in a classroom far, far away . . .
. . . I was teaching English to a group of beginners on the very first day of class. It was my first step towards fulfilling the student teaching requirement for my MA TESL degree. Although I had taught language classes before, I was still a fairly inexperienced teacher.
I arrived armed with activities that would help students learn and practice some basic greetings in English. My students, all adults ranging from their 30s to retirement age, were quite eager to learn. Walking into the classroom, I could sense their excitement and anticipation.
So, I launched into introducing the greetings. I don’t remember exactly which phrases I started to introduce or how I introduced them, but I vividly remember the retired members of the class stopping me about 30 seconds in.
Retirees: “Wait! You have to teach us the alphabet first!”
Well, I wasn’t expecting this reaction at all. All of my students were literate native speakers of German, and both English and German use Latin-script alphabets.
Me: “Ahhh, the English alphabet is basically the same as the German alphabet.”
Outraged retirees: “We can’t learn English without learning the alphabet first!!”
Bowing to the inevitable, I wrote the alphabet on the board and taught the class how each letter is pronounced in English. Then, we moved on to greetings in English, which my students very happily learned and practiced without further protest.
It didn’t bother me to adjust my original plan to make room for teaching the alphabet. The adults in this class were learning English because they wanted to, and while we had a textbook, there was no pressure to complete a certain number of units by the end of the course.
But their insistence to see the letters of the alphabet and learn how to pronounce them did surprise me. After all, adults rarely need to spell words aloud, except for difficult or uncommon names. But later I realized they wanted to learn the alphabet because of their prior language learning experiences. I was teaching in the former East Germany 10 years after reunification. My learners had all taken Russian in school, which meant they learned the Cyrillic alphabet first before doing anything else in Russian. By skipping the alphabet in English, I was not meeting their expectations of what they thought should be covered in a foreign language class. And my older learners were not shy in letting me know.
This anecdote illustrates that language learning experience plays a powerful role when it comes to our learners’ expectations. Adult learners bring a wealth of experiences to the classroom. After experiencing years of schooling as children, they have developed schemas of what happens in a classroom. That doesn’t mean that the teacher always has to tailor classroom activities to fit students’ schemas. In fact, violating adult learners’ expectations can be a fruitful path toward learning if the teacher is aware of their expectations and sets up activities in a way that makes sense to the learners.
For example, if time travel were possible and I could go back to that classroom moment with the benefit of hindsight, I would begin class by telling the learners the agenda for the class session. I would explain briefly that we would begin with greetings and then learn the alphabet with a fun game as our final activity that first class. If they still wanted to cover the alphabet first, I would respond with something like, “let’s see if you are able to learn some greetings in English without knowing how to pronounce the letters of the alphabet. If not, I’m happy to teach the alphabet earlier in the lesson.” This would show flexibility on my part and invite them to be flexible as well.
In our More video, Marina González shares her experiences teaching English to older learners in Argentina. She emphasizes how important it is for teachers to examine their own attitudes towards older learners, many of whom face ageism. To highlight the prejudices older people encounter, she shares Maggie Kuhn’s perspective:
There are six myths about old age:
- That it’s a disease, a disaster.
- That we are mindless.
- That we are sexless.
- That we are useless.
- That we are powerless.
- That we are all alike. (link)
González bluntly states that prejudiced teachers will be very unlikely to succeed with older learners unless they do some deep reflection to change their mindset. Instead of bringing bias into the classroom, teachers should lead with empathy and patience. As González reminds us, “teaching older learners is an act of love.”
Courses for older learners must be designed around their needs and desires. Older learners who choose to learn a foreign language often pursue specific goals. For example, some want to travel to visit their children in a different country and be able to communicate with grandchildren who may speak a different native language.
For others, learning a language keeps them mentally sharp. Worried about cognitive decline, they turn to language learning as a way to train their memory. In our Main video, cognitive psychologist Alan Castel presents differences in memory between younger and older adults. As we age, we tend to become more selective in what we commit to memory, and we use our schemas to remember new information. Older adults remember what is most important to them. And Castel notes that as we age, staying curious is essential.
Fostering curiosity fits nicely with Marina González’ advice on designing language courses for older learners. She recommends getting to know the learners and choosing materials that reflect their interests and motivations. In addition, incorporating a variety of activities that will help train learners’ memories is necessary. These include organizing vocabulary into categories, matching words to images, and reviewing language using songs or chants. She notes that “working on memory is not only remembering but first noticing,” and that games are a great way to get learners to notice target language and remember it. Furthermore, listening to and remembering other learners’ stories also boosts memory.
And by giving our older adults space to tell their stories, we quickly see that they are not mindless, sexless, useless, powerless, or all alike. They are valuable members of our language classes, and listening to their wisdom helps us create good learning opportunities for them–and allows us to grow in the process. Keep reading to discover different ways of supporting older learners in the language classroom. You’ll learn about how younger and older learners are similar and different, what adult learners need, and what’s in store for us as we age. Then, you can apply your new knowledge . . .
. . . very soon, in a classroom close, close by.
Heather Kretschmer teaches Intermediate English and Business English at the University of Göttingen in Germany.