Learning strategies and autonomy of older adult learners of English: Re-conceptualization of successful language learners

Emi Itoi

Tadashi Ishida, founder of LLL, has been teaching English to senior citizens over 60 years old of age in Tokyo for many years. He invited me to his English class last November. There I had a chance to observe one of his classes. It was a very interesting experience. I would like to share what I saw there with you in this report.

There are two main topics I would like to discuss herein. The first one is the concept of the successful language learner. The second is the autonomy of older adult learners.

Soon, the so-called Dainkai-no-sedai will be retiring, and Japan will be a society of the aging. What will those retired people do with their pension, time, health, and energy? I hope some of them will start studying English. They will be interested in learning English so that they can enjoy their lives much more.

However, we do not know enough about the older adult learner of English in Japan because they rarely study English in formal academic programs. Instead, some go to culture or community centers. Others go to Eikaiwa schools that provide them with special courses for older adult learners. Still others stay home and study English by listening to English radio programs or watching TV programs in English. As far as I know, there has not been much research on older adult learners of English in Japan.

When you read journal articles or books about language teaching or language learning, you will find the word success, or you might read about successful learners. Researchers and practitioners tacitly agree that success means that learners show some degree of improvement or reach a certain goal. For example:

Good, successful, or effective language learners are those who perform well on tests or examinations, or who are rated as such by their teachers(Gan, Humphreys, & Hamp-Lyons, 2004, p. 229).

Students' appraisal of their past performance does not only depend on the absolute level of success they have achieved but also on how they interpret their achievement (Dornyei, 2001, p. 117)

However, even if someone tries very hard, they sometimes see little improvement, and feel that they are in a slump. Improvement of English skills is not linear. That is, improvement might be only one of many other aspects of success in language learning. If you are teaching older adult learners, you might see little improvement as they get older, or there may be negative improvement because some older adult learners' short term memory deteriorates with age or other physical difficulties, including hearing problems and weak eyes, become more pronounced. Do researchers and practitioners call these older learners unsuccessful language learners because they show little or no improvement? I believe that these older learners cannot be unsuccessful learners because they have been trying hard and enjoying learning English.

I wonder what the ultimate goal of language learning is for them. I have never thought that I am a successful learner of English. But at the same time, I do not think that I am an unsuccessful learner, either. It is very difficult for me to ascertain what a successful learner is. So success is relative unless you have a clear, concrete goal of language learning, for example, passing an exam.

For me successful language learning has something to do with the learners' fulfillment or satisfaction through language learning. It might be possible to measure one's fulfillment or satisfaction of language learning objectively if necessary. However, recently I have started wondering if older adult learners have Honne and Tatemae and about what they want from language learning.

Let me explain what I mean by this. Last November, I visited an English class for senior citizens in Tokyo. I conducted a simple questionnaire survey. One of the questions was Why do you make a point of studying English here?「ここで英語を学習していて重視していることはなんですか。」Out of 25 learners, 11 chose socializing. They put socializing above improving English (See Table 1). I thought that some of them presented just their Tatemae feeling in their answers. Of course many older adult learners come to English classes to look for new friends. That may be their main purpose. But I also believe that some of them are very serious about studying English and improving their English ability. They might be a competitive learner. Or they might wish to contribute to society using English in the future. The point is that those who are serious about studying English might be reluctant to openly state that they want to master English or improve English because they themselves doubt that they can master English at their age, or because they are afraid of negative feedback from their family or friends, such as It's impossible to learn language at your age or That's useless. Once an older person decides to study English, they often face more barriers than encouragement.

While observing the class, I noticed several characteristics that I usually don't see among my college students. One of them was their very explicit peer correction. A teacher at the beginning of the class wrote down key sentences for the day on the white board and the students copied them into their notebooks. The sentences were a simple question and an answer pair, such as What did you do yesterday? I went shopping yesterday. After practicing these sentences a couple of times orally, they went out to the corridor where there was more space. They formed three groups, making two lines. They practiced the key sentences repeatedly, changing their partners. During this oral practice, I often heard explicit corrections such as You are wrong. You should say … No, no. You can't say that. Past tense. You have to add d to make it past tense. Those who were corrected didn't seem to be upset or bothered. It was a very friendly atmosphere. It seemed like they enjoyed correcting each other. They even seemed to be enjoying making mistakes.

To my surprise, after the one-hour lesson, they all stayed another hour to study English without a teacher. That showed a real attitude toward autonomous studying. Two of the students played the role of facilitator. The first facilitator sat in the front of the room and read an English sentence. Others followed him and repeated the sentence. Then the facilitator asked the meaning of the sentence. They all translated it into Japanese in chorus, which was a unique way of learning English. I think this kind of group autonomy is very important and one of the best ways to learn English. Students help each other, and learn together. However, if these students had known some strategies other than translating English sentences to Japanese in chorus, they could have learned better and the effect of their group autonomy could have been maximized.

Then I realized that I didn't know anything about the kind of English education they received 60 years ago. Before and immediately after WWII, what kind of English education did we have in Japan? Fortunately I found some old English textbooks at the college library (See to Table 2). I anticipate that analyzing them will help me understand not only English education at that time, but also the current situation of older learners.

I would like to meet more older learners in various places in the future and understand the current situation of older adult learners of English in Japan.