Teaching English to Seniors

Last updated on March 12, 2025

Writing about the topic of teaching English to seniors will certainly enable me to reminisce about some of the best moments in my career as an English language teacher.

Encounters with Senior Students

I don’t wish to dwell on the issue of how old a senior citizen is as I don't think there’s a standard definition which can be applied worldwide. Indeed, legal definitions of senior citizenship can differ across jurisdictions. With that in mind, I’d just like to recall the moments I had in the classroom with wonderful people who were much older, wiser and more experienced than me. I haven’t taught that many students over the age of 50 either privately or in language schools. Therefore, to give this post a decent amount of substance, I shall make reference to the students I’ve taught over the age of 50.

In my first two teaching posts - in Dębica (Poland) and Bijeljina (Bosnia and Herzegovina) - I didn’t have the opportunity to teach people who were over 50. However, my next two teaching posts - in the Polish cities of Płock and Łódź - opened my eyes to the wonders of teaching English to seniors.

Jarosław in Płock

So I taught in Płock for the 2010-11 academic year. I have quite vivid memories of teaching a wonderful chap called Jarosław Zaroń who then ran the Płock branch of the Mazovian In-Service Teacher Training Centre (Mazowieckie Samorządowe Centrum Doskonalenia Nauczycieli).

The difference between Jarosław and some of the younger adults I had taught lay in the fact that Jarosław never failed to greet me with a firm handshake and a serious look of respect in his eyes. I couldn’t help but admire him because he was extremely eager to improve his English, even though he always seemed to have a lot on his mind with regard to his work. We got on ever so well and he even offered me the chance to teach some of the staff members at his teacher training centre in Płock. Of course, it was an opportunity I could not refuse.

Seniors in Łódź

I’ve written a bit about my time living and working in Łódź over on Finding Poland. It was in Łódź that I transitioned to teaching adult students after teaching mostly kids in the previous three language schools I worked in.

Przemek

Three students really stand out in my memory. The first is a guy named Przemek who worked as a Distribution Centre Director for L'Oréal. Przemek, who was in his early fifties when I taught him, was always respectful and was a real trier. I literally tore what little hair I had on my hair out because I couldn’t get to the bottom of Przemek’s inability to understand basic instructions and questions. His speaking was certainly of upper-intermediate quality. To be fair to Przemek, he tried to take all his shortcomings in his stride. His sense of humour also stopped him from becoming despondent over his weaknesses.

I clearly recall the class when I attempted to teach Przemek all about schwa and connected speech. My aim was to begin to put a bit more emphasis on listening in our classes. That only lasted for one session as, at the beginning of the following session, Przemek admitted that he didn’t think my new methods would help him in any way. I was actually furious because I probably felt undermined. In truth, I was simply helpless and there was nothing not one teacher of English in the world could do to help Przemek follow even the shortest stretches of fluent native speaker speech.

Despite this single episode of fractiousness on my part and the general helplessness I felt, I admired Przemek for being a trier. He always prepared admirably for classes and learned all the new words and phrases from the previous class. All in all, Przemek was just a good guy.

Włodek and Halina

I also need to mention Włodek and Halina, an elderly couple I taught in Łódź. They lived right on the western outskirts of the city and it took me some 35-40 minutes to get to where they lived by tram. I didn’t mind because they were such warm and hospitable people. Włodek usually gave me a lift home so that saved me an hour, taking into account the walk to the nearest tram stop and waiting for a tram.

I was quite strict with Włodek and Halina, never refusing the opportunity to test them on previously learned material and vocabulary. However, I think they respected my approach. They were very keen to absorb knowledge about the English language.

Apart from being such warm and friendly people, Włodek and Halina were also very modest. Judging by their house, it was obvious they were ok for a few bob. However, they never boasted about their possessions and lifestyle. Humility is one of the traits I admire most in people, and Włodek and Halina oozed it in abundance.

Waldemar Wojtal - The Piano Man in Gdańsk

In October 2024, I was contacted by quite a well-known Polish pianist, Waldemar Wojtal, who wanted to have face-to-face classes with me in Gdańsk.

Similar to Włodek and Halina, Waldemar is the epitome of humility. Naturally, I was intrigued to hear all about his background, awards, performances given around the world and professional work. However, Waldemar was reluctant to open up about his achievements and I respected him for that.

Remarkably, Waldemar is 73 years old. His determination to learn English stems from the barriers in communication he faces when instructing predominantly Chinese students.

I found Waldemar’s knowledge of the English grammar system and depth of vocabulary to be extremely impressive. He just needed someone to help him come out of his shell.

Overall, I very much enjoyed teaching dear old Waldek. It is such a shame I had to call off our classes as it emerged in December that I would be moving to the Polish city of Łódź.

Why do seniors make excellent language students?

Experience has taught me that teaching English to seniors is extremely rewarding. Now I will give some reasons as to why I hold such an opinion:

Cheerful demeanour and positive attitude

Some senior learners can be a bag of nerves at the best of times. However, the senior learners I’ve taught always had a cheerful demeanor and positive attitude toward learning English and life in general. My older students always treated me with the utmost respect.

Rich life experience

Teaching senior students can make for an educational eye-opening experience as seniors have a wealth of life experience which they’re usually only too happy to divulge.

Most of the senior students I’ve taught were evidently wealthy individuals who’d travelled extensively. I always enjoyed listening to their travel tales.

Intrinsic motivation

In my experience, senior learners tend to be more motivated to master English than children and young adults. What’s more, their motivation tends to be of an intrinsic nature. In other words, they learn English as it’s an inherently enjoyable and satisfying pastime for them. Make no mistake - they’re still desperately keen to absorb knowledge like a sponge and put the work in to improve their speaking skills.

Tips for teaching senior language learners

Over the years, I’ve discovered that teaching English to seniors requires a quite different skill set to that of teaching teenagers and young adults. With that in mind, here are some tips for instructing senior learners of English:

1. Focus on building senior learners’ confidence levels and reducing their stress levels

Senior language learners tend to be more anxious and self-critical than younger learners. This might be due to previous unsuccessful attempts to learn a foreign language or their inability to overcome the intermediate plateau. Therefore, it’s vital for the teacher to take steps to reduce senior learners’ anxiety and stress levels with the end goal of building their confidence. Here are some ways teachers can go about doing that:

Find out what senior learners’ motivations are for learning English and be willing to adapt methodology accordingly
Allow senior learners to express themselves and talk about their life experiences. By actively taking an interest in students’ lives, staying focused during their monologues and making eye contact, the teacher will quickly gain the trust of senior learners
The teacher shouldn’t go overboard with error correction, at least in the first month of teaching senior learners. Senior learners may become extremely despondent if the teacher constantly interrupts to correct mistakes. Nevertheless, there’s no harm in making some notes on areas in which senior learners can improve their speech and then having a short review after class
Give senior learners more time to complete activities

2. Exercise patience

As I’ve already mentioned, senior English language learners are very eager to learn and are intrinsically motivated. Nevertheless, seniors do have their limitations. With most of my younger adults, I put a great deal of emphasis on the repetition and memorisation of vocabulary and lexical chunks. However, it’s tough going when it comes to revision with seniors because they tend to have a diminished working memory capacity. Moreover, they may need more time to process tricky idiomatic phrases and complex grammar structures.

In light of seniors’ limitations when it comes to processing new concepts and vocabulary recall, teachers should respect their individual pace of learning and adjust accordingly to it.

3. Learn to go with the flow

I’ve always been a very organised teacher. In my early years of teaching, my lesson plans were perhaps too detailed and there was never much room to deal with learners’ linguistic problems on an ad hoc basis. However, much has changed since that time.

Certainly, teaching English to seniors has taught me that a rigid approach to lesson planning is unnecessary. Learning has to be pleasurable for seniors. If an individual learner just wants to talk about a trip they had or their grandchild’s progress at school for 45 minutes, the teacher should just go with the flow.

4. Be a top listener

Related to the previous tip about going with the flow, and indeed tip 1 about building seniors’ confidence levels, teachers have to be willing to take your listening skills to the next level when teaching English to elderly learners.

Many of the seniors I’ve taught over the years commonly produced extended stretches of speech due to their outgoing nature and willingness to share their life experiences with me.

Listening skills extend far beyond listening to and enjoying learners’ tales, and indeed taking mental and physical notes on the quality of their language production. For example, the teacher should also do the following:

Maintain eye contact with the speaker
Refrain from interrupting, even if the senior learner is talking slowly
Empathise with the speaker - mirror the emotions the speaker has
Provide seniors with verbal and nonverbal feedback. Seniors can sometimes feel insecure about whether the teacher has understood what they’re saying. Therefore, the teacher can use verbal feedback by saying things like “I understand what you went through” or “I see”. Nonverbal clues include nodding the head.

5. Materials matter

I tend to work with TED Talks and online news articles with my young adult learners. However, most of my senior students have not been able to handle such materials. Even though I believe the advantages of using authentic materials with students heavily outweigh the disadvantages, I fortunately have a viable alternative option up my sleeve when it comes to teaching English to seniors. That is a coursebook series called Innovations.

The authors of Innovations, Hugh Dellar and Andrew Walkley, wrote their books with admirable aims. For example:

The grammatical syllabus has no place in English language teaching. There is no need to learn tenses in a linear fashion. If grammar is taught, it should have a genuine communicative purpose.
The authors paid heed to the concept of vocabulary recycling throughout each Innovations coursebook. In other words, key words and collocations reappear at regular intervals throughout a coursebook
The topics of the texts are rather ‘light’ and they generally encourage seniors to come out of their shell and share their own opinions and life experiences. For instance, in Innovations Elementary, topics of reading texts range from “Things I’d like to do” to “Living abroad”.

The same authors also wrote the Outcomes coursebook series which I have also used with senior learners.

Final Thoughts

Teaching English to seniors has provided me with some of the most rewarding and memorable moments of my career. Frankly, senior students don’t contact me all that often. However, I’m always excited when I get a letter from them.

To round things off, I’ll leave you with Hiro’s Story in a chapter titled ‘Age and good language learners’ by Carol Griffiths (2008) in the book Lessons from Good Language Learners. Griffiths also edited the book. Essentially, Hiro was a 64-year-old Japanese man who travelled to New Zealand to spend a month studying English. When asked his reasons for learning English, Hiro responded that it was just a hobby. According to Griffiths (2008: 44):

He felt that this was a good motivation for learning English, since being relaxed and unworried about the outcome would help him to learn more effectively.

As Hiro wonderfully put it: “I have worked hard all my life. Now I am going to have some fun!” Griffiths (2000: 44) writes that Hiro did not attend the school long enough to measure his rate of progress. However, based on his work over the month, it is likely that he would have been promoted to the next class after the monthly test had he been present for that (Griffiths, 2000: 44).

I truly believe that senior language learners can achieve a reasonable state of fluency if they have a mindset similar to Hiro’s.

Reference

Griffiths, C. (2008) ‘Age and good language learners’, in Griffiths, C (ed.) Lessons from Good language Learners, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 35-48