Language learning over 50 at the Open University in Poland: An exploratory study of needs and emotions

ABSTRACT

This exploratory, retrospective study, which focuses on the needs, attitudes, and emotions of learners attending English as a foreign language courses at the Open University of the University of Warsaw is part of a larger scale project which aims at answering calls voiced, among others, by Boulton-Lewis (2010) to gather more data from older adults and investigate their attitudes to learning; by Storm and Storm (2015) who highlight the importance of understanding the needs of retirees; and of Yates and Kozar (2015), who say that current research into age effects tends to remain without translation into practical teaching. Fifty-four learners enrolled in English as a foreign language courses were asked to fill in a questionnaire and 16 of them were asked to take part in a semi-structured interview. The analyzed data allow us to point to needs, attitudes, emotions, and challenges of those learners and the need to further explore them in order to offer better tailored courses and to equip teachers with the knowledge and skills necessary to support older adult learners.