AFFECTION AS AN ARGUMENT FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING OF THIRD AGE STUDENTS

Abstract

This research proposes a qualitative study of students of
the third age in order to understand the role of affection in their foreign
language learning processes. Two groups of Brazilian third age students
studied English as a foreign language under the communicative approach,
having group 1 a focus in the development of the basic linguistic abilities
and group 2, a focus in learning through affection. The analysis of the
two learning situations have the objective of verifying the role of
affection, the way it comes in the interlanguage of the students, in the
activities developed in class, in the students’ needs and in the necessary
knowledge the teacher in such situation needs to handle as well as the
theories involved. The data suggest that an approach which interweaves
cognition and affection offers the most adequate learning situations for
old students of foreign languages.