Lifelong learning and limiting factors in second language acquisition for adult students in post-obligatory education

Abstract

Lifelong learning has become a key factor for adult students attempting to improve their working conditions. However, such learning has ceased to be considered a personal challenge and, instead, has become a socio-economic imposition of a hypercompetitive society. This research study analyses three major factors affecting adults’ post-obligatory education: the pressures of lifelong learning on adult students who resume education at an advanced age due to professional needs, learning limitations stemming from their inability to adapt to new teaching methodologies and their inability to learn linguistic skills. This study particularly focused on the subject of English as a second language (L2) taught in Vocational Training Programmes in Spain. Adult learners usually become aware of multiple limitations when they study English as a second language because they have not studied the subject for years. They typically share a heterogeneous classroom with young teenage students who have a higher L2 linguistic level. This is a qualitative multi-case study in which 25 semi-structured interviews with adult students were analysed. The results suggest that adult students lack adaptation skills to the more communicative and current methodologies of foreign language teaching and that there the curriculum needs adaptations to accommodate the plurality that the age factor implies in the classroom.

Keywords

• lifelong learning
• adult education
• english teaching methodologies
• second language (l2)