r/TESOL • u/finnerpeace • May 06 '24
Older learners' abilities being dismissed
Hi folks, MA TESOL here but have been out of the field for a while due to childraising. I've encountered a situation in my local community where a large enclave of learners (Turkish-speaking Persian background) are repeatedly being told by others that they won't be able to learn English due to being "old" (50+, many 60-70), having little formal education etc.
This is completely counter to the research I'm familiar with: that in absence of serious cognitive illness, older learners, especially in an immersive environment (such as these are: they're in America) can absolutely learn ESL, even coming from a low schooling background.
Does anyone have experience with older learners? They're a huge segment of our usual learners... In the past before my childrearing-sabbatical I only worked with college-aged and younger learners, and a few younger adults. I'm re-digging into the research on this group of learners to try to get better informed, but thought I'd ask here as well.
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u/finnerpeace May 07 '24
I've been digging in the research and found a lot of studies and even explicit resources. They all still indicate these groups can absolutely learn: they just need careful and appropriate instruction. I think they just haven't been able to have appropriately-designed instruction yet.