Teaching English to senior students: account of a challenge/an experience

As teachers, we have been taught that one must be aware that each age group presents different demands and requirements, which depend not only on its age, but also mental and physical maturity, motivation and engagement. In language teaching, particularly English as a foreign language (FL), it is usual to structure these groups as (very) (young) children, teenagers, adults and, more recently, senior students. With the advent of senior universities, where people enroll after they retire, there is a myriad of subjects on offer, meeting their various interests or passions. Despite their enhanced motivation, senior students seem to lack what is expected from younger students or even young adults, especially their ability or availability to work out of class and consolidate content. Although there is a number of blogs or English teaching pages for senior students, the fact remains that there is little more than a set of advice to deal with this group, however heterogenous, and research has not yet focused on the challenges posed to teaching these students. My aim with this paper is to reflect upon the differences among students from different age groups, drawing on my personal experience as a teacher of English in a local senior university, and to propose a set of activities that have achieved success among my senior students

Teaching English to senior students: account of a challenge/an experience Conference Paper