TEACHING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TO OLDER LEARNERS

Abstract

The field of older adult education is still under-researched, with many terminological ambiguities, clichés, and prejudices. The training of educators for older adults and the specific area of older adult English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher education are particularly rare. Many factors can influence the teaching performance of EFL teachers working with older adults and how this performance is perceived. This study examined pre-service (presumably inexperienced U3A EFL teachers) and in-service teachers (experienced U3A EFL teachers) who were teaching EFL to selected older adults (aged from 64 to 75 years) at the Karkonosze University of Applied Sciences in Jelenia Gora, Poland, U3A. Their teaching performance factors were analyzed. By utilizing a critical foreign language geralogy and a strengths-based approach inspired by positive psychology, the research emphasized the role of general teaching experience and/or age-targeted teaching experience. This led to the validation of desirable teaching performance factors as factors that defined U3A EFL teaching performance as successful and positively evaluated by the given older adult learners, albeit on a small scale.

Key words: EFL, Course book, activation program, backgrounds, ventilation, learning modalities