Developing senior learners’ autonomy in language learning. An exploratory study of Hungarian adult educators’ support strategies

This paper outlines findings from a research project on Hungarian foreign language (FL) teachers’ conceptualizations of helping senior language learners to develop their autonomy in learning. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in order to explore the applied instructional approaches to teaching older adults and developing their learner autonomy in- and outside the classroom. In particular, we investigated interviewees’ perspective on one-to-one counseling for autonomous learning, a method for out-of-class development. Results show that instructional methods entail characteristics of communicative language teaching but also consider older learners altered cognitive abilities and their different interests of language learning. As for the conceptualization of learner autonomy-development, learner-centeredness as an overarching notion is present when deepening general language skills but also when promoting learner autonomy. We also found that participating teachers would draw careful attention to the importance of raising self-awareness in learning, particularly when promoting learner autonomy in one-to-one counseling.