Older adults are still perceived in Poland as rather passive once they retire. Such image has been built on stereotypes about older people, who are still quite often seen as not willing to participate in any programmes offering various activities, which in turn leads to their social isolation. On the other hand, there is still some pressure on the elderly as younger generation expects them to help with bringing up their grandchildren or simply look after them when parents are at work. Nevertheless, many recent interdisciplinary research studies have shown that being active in the third-age might help in maintaining cognitive functions and leads to successful aging and overall wellbeing. The aim of our study was to investigate teachers' perspective on teaching older adults in the context of (glotto-)stereotypes about Polish seniors.37 lecturers of foreign languages, divided into two groups (one with and one without teaching experience to seniors), were examined.The teachers responded the questions about 1) aspect of health and their experiences in learning foreign languages 2) psychological aspect 3) the role of the teacher, 4) Aspect of methodology and didactics. The results have shown how vital the role of the teacher is in the third-age classroom and to what extend the teacher can influence the whole learning process. It might also be seen that experienced teachers are more aware of the psychological aspects of working with seniors. Furthermore, throughout the whole learning process, teachers must act as both tutor and negotiator reacting/ responding to seniors' needs, limitations and behaviour - regarding both the relationship between students and the teacher and among the students in the classroom. Noteworthy, Polish lecturers appeared surprisingly open to teaching older adults, although none of them (from the research group) had undergone education in this direction or received professional training in geragogy..
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