English Language Programs for Seniors: Motivational Constructs and Teaching Objectives

Abstract

This study examines English language programs offered at a senior citizen center in a working-class neighborhood in Seoul, Korea. Based on classroom observations and interviews with senior citizens and teachers, the study addresses the functional significance of English for an overlooked aging demographic population and discusses the interplay between language learning and social participation as well as language-related ageism and identity issues. The findings of the study indicate that English language anxiety (Lee, English on Korean television. World Engl 33(1): 33–49, 2014) is also observed among senior citizens. However, unlike young professionals, senior citizens’ language anxiety is more domestically prompted and locally based; the elderly fear that they cannot successfully participate in meaningful communication with their grandchildren or act as informed consumers in Korea these days without some knowledge of English. The teachers in the study identify their main teaching objective as helping senior citizens feel less limited in dealing with the increasing presence of English in contemporary Korea. The study concludes that learning English later in life fulfills positive functions of self-actualization and social participation for senior citizens and enables them to reconstruct and reimagine their vigorous past.