Читать книгу New Perspectives on Older Language Learners - Miriam Neigert - Страница 10

If, as seems presently true, the young-old will not form a strong age-group identification of their own, they might become the major agents of social change in building the age-irrelevant society. If they create an attractive image of aging, thus allay the fears of the young about growing old, and if they help to eradicate those age norms which are currently meaningless and those age attitudes which are currently divisive, they will do the society an untold service. Theirs is an enormous potential.

- Neugarten, 1974: 198 –

Ageing is something all humans have in common from the day they are born. This makes age a crucial part of our identities. In this chapter, however, we will see that there is more to age than the number of candles on our birthday cakes, that is, our chronological age. In the following, it will become clear in what ways age and ageing are multi-dimensional and constructed. The overall aim of this chapter is to give a clearer picture of the young-old and their age-specific characteristics. Referring to Neugarten’s quote above, the age group ‘young-old’, which has been largely overlooked in language teaching and learning research, is still widely exposed to persisting age-bias. How this affects their language learning self-concept and in what ways instructors can foster their language learning shall be at the core of this study.