LINGUIST List 28.3692
Thu Sep 07 2017
Disc: Review of 'Language Teaching and the Older Adult'
Editor for this issue: Kenneth Steimel <kenlinguistlist.org>
Date: 04-Sep-2017
From: Danya Ramirez Gómez <danyaramirezg
gmail.com>
Subject: Review of 'Language Teaching and the Older Adult'
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http://linguistlist.org/issues/28/28-3463.html The review of the book ''Language Teaching and the Older Adult: The Significance of Experience'' contained a few mistakes. The following include a selection of the most relevant and their clarifications:
SEGMENT: “In a citation form Birdsong (1999), she refers to native-like reading proficiency by adults who started learning an L2 after puberty, and by this reference she intends to claim that such a thing can happen to older adults as well in spite of many opposing theories.”
CORRECTION: When referring to the work by Birdsong, the book does not mention “reading” at any point (p. 9). Also, the reviewer mentions this reference in isolation, and fails to indicate that all this section of the book addresses the debate on the critical period hypothesis. The claim made by the book is not based only on Birdsong’s work.
SEGMENT: “Ramírez Gómez concludes from her study that the learners’ reliance on the instructor and formal education were likely to produce a high level of performance and that such studies can reveal some aspects of FL learning that have not been discovered in other studies carried out on young FL learners.”
CORRECTION: This is not a conclusion of this book. This is the conclusion of Arturo Escandón’s work, which is among the references and is actually contradicted by the results of this book.
SEGMENT: “She defines education as “the art and science of teaching children;”
CORRECTION: The book does not define “education” as such. It defines “pedagogy” as the “the art and science of teaching children” (p. 94).
SEGMENT: “Ramírez Gómez says that when FL learners are asked to negotiate meaning, they are taking the responsibility for decision making rather than considering only their personal needs.”
CORRECTION: I am not sure in which part of the book this is stated, particularly the notion of “negotiation of meaning.” The discussion on this topic (pp. 98 - 100) points out that negotiation is positive because it may lead learners to take responsibility for their learning, and also – among others – because negotiation allows instructors to identify and address the learners’ needs.
SEGMENT: “By raising this issue, she demands exploration of field dependency and non-instrumental discipline which can help older adults reconstruct their life after retirement.”
CORRECTION: “Field-dependency” is a construct that is mentioned briefly in this book as one individual difference addressed in the literature that could have an effect on learning (p. 21-23), and that has been studied in relation to age (p.23). On page 117, the book argues that, according to “critical foreign language geragogy” – one theoretical framework for this book, FL education for older adults should not have only a field-dependent objective (that is, be concerned only with linguistic performance), but it should also attempt to improve older adults’ lives.
SEGMENT: “Chapter 5, Learner Re-training, mostly discusses older learners’ attitudes and preconceptions about the FL learning experience and remarks that although, because of aging, older adults lose or weaken some of their skills and abilities, if they have a positive attitude about FL learning, they succeed in it.”
CORRECTION: This is an oversimplification that results in a contradiction to what the book suggests as a whole. In this book, learner re-training posits that older learners may succeed in reaching higher FL performance levels through the development of strategic behavior and self-acknowledgment (among other factors). Having a positive attitude is important, but succeeding is not the result only of a change of attitude. This is clearly stated in the book, and it is one of its main claims.
SEGMENT: “The chapter ends with some activities intended to improve four skills in an FL learning program, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing.”
CORRECTION: The book does not offer any activities intended to improve the traditional four skills. It offers mechanisms to adapt common activities (already created and used by instructors) so they may enhance older adults’ learning process.
SEGMENT: “The author develops an FL geragogy and includes it in 3 successive chapters namely 4,5 and 6.”
CORRECTION: The book is clear about it not being able to develop an FL geragogy on its own. It emphasizes that this cannot be done only through this work.
Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics
Sociolinguistics
Page Updated: 07-Sep-2017