Meeting 26/01/21: Online language learning for older learners

Hello PEGasus team!

We had our first meeting of 2021 and what a fantastic way to start the year. We had the pleasure to host Dr. Karyne Soares and learn about her Ph.D. research and experience with teaching English online to senior learners in Brazil.

Karyne has a Bachelor’s degree in Law and Applied Linguistics for English Language Teaching (Letras) both from the State University of Paraiba (UEPB), a Master’s degree in Language Teaching from the Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG), and her Ph.D. research was on Applied Linguistics, in the area of Language Teacher Education, at the Federal University of Paraiba (UFPB). In addition, Karyne has 28 years of experience in language education and currently lectures at UEPB.

Karyne also teaches English as a Foreign Language (EFL) at the Open University to Maturity (Universidade Aberta à Maturidade – UAMA), which is a UEPB lifelong learning programme that aims to provide a space to improve the quality of life of the elderly through Human Aging Education. The curriculum includes classes on a variety of subjects with multi and interdisciplinary actions. Their goals are to strengthen the autonomy and inclusion of the elderly by promoting healthy and active aging through education.

Throughout her Ph.D., Karyne qualitatively analysed the effects of teaching EFL to senior learners at UAMA on two pre-service teachers’ practices. Her data consisted of transcriptions from the simple self-confrontation interviews (CLOT, 2007) she carried out with each pre-service teacher. The results showed the impact of teaching experiences in contexts of inclusion, favoring the reframing of teaching practices and thus the pre-service teachers’ professional development.

Her Ph.D. work and teaching were all done face-to-face until March 2020, where she had to move her teaching online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The transition to e-learning proved to be challenging but very rewarding. Some of the challenges she faced included learners’ technical difficulties, anxiety towards and low self-confidence with technology, and lack of or low digital literacy.

Some of the main outcomes of her e-learning experience included:

• students were able to keep their minds active;
• students felt less isolated and much more connected with the “world”;
• students’ sense of capacity and autonomy increased;
• students were engaged and motivated to keep learning English throughout both academic semesters;
• students’ digital confidence and abilities increased;
• there were meaningful learning results in terms of communicative competence;
• students’ oral language skills were enhanced (more than in previous face-to-face years).

These were some of the initial outcomes from the online English learning meetings and classes provided by Karyne and UAMA. After this one year of learning online, some of the students were also able to move from being non-users or digital visitors to residents (see White and Le Cornu, 2011), with one of the learners becoming a case study in Lucena (2020) who discusses the power of social networks to leverage the opportunities and quality of democratic participation, citizen engagement, and collaboration online.

References

Clot, Yves. (2007) A função psicológica do trabalho. 2nd ed. Tradução de Adail Sobral. Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes.

Lucena, Cláudio. (2020). Redes sociais como pontes para a colaboração. Cadernos Adenauer xxi, nº4, Participação e instituições democráticas no combate à pandemia. Rio de Janeiro: Fundação Konrad Adenauer, dezembro, 115-131.

White, David S. and Le Cornu, Alison (2011) Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement. First Monday, Volume 16, Number 9.