Why We're Never Too Old To Learn a Language – According to Science

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Many tutors we’ve spoken with have brought up that some of their most memorable lessons are with older students – the chill individuals who may not need English for anything specific and certainly aren’t being forced to learn it, but decide to study with us as a post-retirement hobby.

What keeps them learning? In observance of the UN’s International Day of Older Persons (October 1st) as well as Respect for the Aged Day in Japan (September 20th), we’ll go into some of the magic – and science – behind this today.

If you have any older learners who are in need of a confidence boost, these encouraging facts will do the trick!

Fact #1 We Don’t (Really) Lose Brain Cells as We Age

Contrary to popular belief, we don’t really lose brain cells as we age. As the British Psychological Society shares,

Although older brains get smaller, they retain most of their neurons (which become more densely packed). Using more modern techniques that adjusted for shrinkage, studies through the 1990s and 2000s either found no neuronal loss or minimal loss with ageing.

In other words, significant loss of brain cells is not a part of the normal aging process. In fact, studies from recent decades suggest that healthy adults are actually capable of growing new cells – even into their seventies! However, more research is required to determine the extent to which this occurs.

Fact #2 Our Brains Keep Changing Into Old Age

Another popular belief about the brain is that it stops changing after childhood. However, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Our brains actually possess a special property known as “plasticity” or “neuroplasticity.” This means that they’re highly flexible and adaptable – like plastic. You can see how this works in this video:

Basically, the brain rewires itself in response to new experiences, and there is evidence that older brains are still quite good at this. As this paper explains, even elderly stroke patients who have suffered permanent damage to a portion of their brain are capable of recovering:

Despite very significant damage that has led to loss of behavioral function, stroke patients show dramatic recovery with sustained therapy. This change in function can only be due to plastic changes in brain function, where new parts of the brain take over functions performed by areas that have been damaged. The plasticity evidenced in stroke patients is quite amazing, and indicates that the aging brain is very capable of neural reorganization.

Besides enabling us to recover from brain injuries, plasticity also helps us learn new things. And while we do lose some plasticity as we get older, our brains continue to change dynamically every day, allowing us to live and learn into old age.

Fact #3 We Learn More About Ourselves As We Age

Finally, brain function isn’t the only thing that affects language learning. This last fact is more related to the mind than the brain.

At the age of 73, polyglot Steve Kaufmann made this video, where he argues that he learns better with age, partly because the older he is, the better he understands himself. Intuitively, this makes sense. Self-awareness involves being aware of what you know (and don’t know) as well as how you learn (and don’t learn), both of which allow you to learn more strategically and effectively.

The argument that self-awareness helps learning also seems to be shown in a lot of educational research. Many studies have found that less successful learners tend to lack self-awareness compared to more successful ones.

Since self-awareness develops with experience, we’re likely to be more self-aware as we age, and that can help us learn!

👋 That’s It For Now

We hope this has given you a better idea of how we learn as we age as well as some fun facts you can bring up with your older learners to spark discussion.

For more topics that might interest elderly students, make sure to check out these Daily News articles:

Happy Tutoring!