Scott Alkire<\/strong> Although philosophers and educators have known for hundreds of years that children pick up new languages more easily than adults, what is not known is how that facility might be fostered in older learners. This article presents an interview with a linguaphile who began studying Korean at age 60. It highlights both the difficulties and possibilities of late language learning. Key themes include the emotional strain of performance-based lessons that can threaten the ego of the older learner, the importance of learner autonomy, and the role of meaningful interaction \u2014 particularly conversational practice \u2014 in fostering progress. The interview also identifies reduced urgency, cultural resistance, and limited opportunities for social engagement as factors that may hinder acquisition. Reflecting on her dual role as learner and teacher, the interviewee emphasizes the value of empathy, flexible pedagogy, and student agency, concluding that successful language learning depends less on any single method than on the alignment of motivation, instruction, and opportunities for authentic communication.<\/p>\n Keywords<\/em><\/strong>: Korean, Yonsei Institute, older language learners, Korean dramas, immersion<\/p>\n The following interview with Margaret Muench, emerita ESL faculty from San Jose City College, shows how older multilingual learners can bring a wealth of experience to the task of learning a new language, yet face an undeniable set of constraints as well. Professor Muench also reflects on the role of cultural engagement \u2014 particularly via Korean dramas, including those featuring American actors \u2014 as a valuable portal for language learning.<\/p>\n Thank you for agreeing to this interview, Professor Muench. I would like to begin by asking you: What sparked your interest in learning Korean?<\/strong><\/p>\n It began when I started watching Korean dramas, as they are called. This was in 2008. My first drama was \u201cThe Emperor of the Sea\u201d \u2014 a 51-episode drama about a famous merchant whose influence supposedly brought prosperity and justice to the Silla Kingdom in Southern Korea around 800 AD.\u00a0\u00a0The scenes and costumes and manners and sound of the language seemed beautiful to me. I enjoyed other dramas as well.<\/p>\n In your career you had successfully learned two foreign languages, lived in France, Africa, and Guatemala, and taught ESL full-time at the college level. What were your feelings about learning a new language?<\/strong><\/p>\n Although I am fluent in French and speak good Spanish, I was nervous about whether or not, at this later stage of life, I could learn Korean. I was 60.<\/p>\n Nevertheless you decided to take it on. How did you approach learning it?<\/strong><\/p>\n I decided that a good way to do it would be via a sabbatical from my college. In my application I proposed learning Korean language and culture in language classes in both California and Korea. My sabbatical was approved, and I started by studying at a private language school in Milpitas called Adroit College. Classes were small (about 5\u20138 students per class) and ran for three hours one evening a week for 10 weeks.<\/p>\n In your report you mentioned skipping Beginning Korean 1. Please explain.<\/strong><\/p>\n Beginning Korean 1 had already started when I enrolled, so I decided to get private tutoring to learn the relevant material. The tutoring prepared me well for Beginning Korean 2. However, I had to repeat later courses, and take duplicate courses at another college.<\/p>\n These are the courses I took at Adroit:<\/p>\n In addition to these courses, I took two quarters of Korean at De Anza College in Cupertino: Beginning Korean 1 and 2.<\/p>\n To what do you attribute the need to repeat courses? I assume it was a combination of factors.<\/strong><\/p>\n The classes at Adroit were relatively unstructured. The instructors did not assign homework and they did not pressure students to perform in class. Marked progress in Korean was not a priority. The classes were meant to be enjoyable more than anything else.<\/p>\n In 2009 you went to the Yonsei Institute in Seoul for further study. How did you do on the placement test?<\/strong><\/p>\n I did fairly well on the test, and was qualified to take the Level 2 course. But as I wrote in my sabbatical report, I decided to move to Level 1. The Level 2 class was really stressful. We had the same teacher and same method (teacher-ask, student-respond) for four hours straight. We had to answer questions and perform in the class over and over again. My brain (was it age? laziness? fatigue? insufficient motivation and confidence?) just couldn’t concentrate that hard and that long, and I disliked the feeling of being put on the spot to perform each time the teacher demanded it.<\/p>\n Most applied linguists agree that younger learners acquire foreign languages with relative ease compared to older learners. What specific challenges did you face as an older learner?<\/strong><\/p>\n I faced several challenges, which I described in my sabbatical report.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In Korea I did get to know a number of Koreans, and did things with them, but only sporadically. I had no Korean friend that I saw on a regular basis, someone that I could call up at any time, someone that I could share my daily life with. My language skills remained so poor that I never got to feeling at ease with anyone. I’m sure that with more time I might have deepened some of those relationships \u2014 I was there for only four months \u2014 but the time and effort involved would certainly be greater for the older me than for the younger me.<\/li>\n Speaking of fear, you told me about a student at Yonsei who was clearly uncomfortable with question-and-answer exercises. Yet the teacher persisted in putting him on the spot.<\/strong><\/p>\n Ironically, that teacher was my favorite at Yonsei. In my report I wrote, \u201cCommitted to the Yonsei method, she executed it with liveliness and enthusiasm, sweeping us along, giving us no time to question it, making us committed too, inspiring us to work hard. She paid attention to the individual student, helping or challenging each of us at our particular level. It was good, and I learned a lot!\u201d<\/p>\n But I also wrote that there was \u201ca mystery toward the end with this teacher. I still think about it \u2014 the student who crumpled. It was another American student, the only one who was having more trouble than I was. For some reason, she stopped helping him out. When he had to perform a dialogue he couldn’t remember or answer a question he didn’t understand, she started letting him squirm in front of everyone. Sometimes she laughed at his struggles. The student started to be absent, started to do worse and worse. Another method might have worked better for him, and he did begin to complain about the Yonsei method, determined to go to another institute for the following term. But I don’t believe that’s the reason his learning stalled. How could he possibly do better, with any method, when he worried about being humiliated every day?\u201d<\/p>\n So being asked to perform was routine at the Yonsei Institute.<\/strong><\/p>\n In the classes that I took, yes. The teaching was very traditional. The institute didn’t use a language lab. They didn’t use video. They didn\u2019t utilize or promote language-learning apps. We had listening tapes; that was it. The rest was teacher-centered classroom instruction, meaning lectures and question-and-answer exercises.<\/p>\n Perhaps the student who crumpled would have done better in relatively unstructured immersion activities.<\/strong><\/p>\n I think so. I myself felt more confident in unstructured immersion activities \u2014 that is, conversing naturally with a Korean-speaking partner.\u00a0That was true in both Korea and California. I met with a different student each day of the week. In our sessions we usually spent about 30 minutes using English and 30 minutes using Korean. These conversations were the main times I felt successful in using the language. My partners and I got used to each other; we took time to explain and re-explain and draw pictures and laugh and drink coffee together; we shared pictures and gave gifts to each other; we used the target language to actually communicate. [Note: Murphey (1995) describes a similar strategy in \u201cMeaningful Communicative Repetition,\u201d\u00a0English Teaching Forum<\/em>.]<\/p>\n Did your years as a college ESL instructor help you in any way as a student of Korean?<\/strong><\/p>\n By being a student again, I became more acutely aware of how I and other students learn \u2014 and don\u2019t learn \u2014 from teachers, curricula, modalities, native speakers of Korean, and non-native speakers of Korean.<\/p>\n You mention learning \u2014 or not learning? \u2014 from non-native speakers of Korean. Do you mean instructors?<\/strong><\/p>\n No, actors. I wrote in my report that after I came back to California, I learned from a Korean drama called \u201cJejoongwon,\u201d about the establishment of the first Western-medicine hospital in Korea. One of the main characters was American.<\/p>\n Without looking at the subtitles, I could understand about double what he said compared to the Koreans. That made it exciting to watch. And there were other American characters, including a woman, all of whom spoke fluent Korean with English accents.<\/p>\n I began to realize how useful American actors speaking Korean are. I could catch what they were doing to approximate the Korean sounds. Their sounds, their intonation, seemed halfway between a beginning Korean speaker’s speech and a native Korean’s, and they served as a really useful learning bridge.<\/p>\n When I listened to native Korean actors, I would get discouraged because native Korean speech seemed so distant and unattainable. But to be able to speak like the American actors would be enough. More than enough. And they made it seem attainable.<\/p>\n In terms of instructors, I assume you preferred native Korean speakers.<\/strong><\/p>\n I never had an instructor who was not Korean. But my intuition is that, yes, a native Chinese-speaking or native Japanese-speaking instructor teaching Korean would present unnecessary additional challenges.<\/p>\n I would now like to ask you about writing. Learning to write in an L2 is seldom enjoyable. Was there anything in your lessons that motivated you?<\/strong><\/p>\n The writing assignments provided sufficient motivation for learning, but the real learning took place outside of class. I remember thinking that the teacher had no idea how much effort I put into a writing assignment \u2014 looking up words, grammar rules, and my notes on fixed expressions (no Google Translate back then).\u00a0I also remember resenting getting back corrections or negative feedback \u2014 it was too late to do any good.\u00a0I did not want to go back over my errors, I just wanted to go forward.<\/p>\n What p<\/strong>edagogical adjustments did you make in your own teaching based on your experience learning Korean?<\/strong><\/p>\n I believe that almost any methodology can work if the teacher is committed to it and the student is motivated. That said, I made some changes in how I relate to students. Below is a distillation of what I wrote in my sabbatical report:<\/p>\n All of these are things that I wanted more of as a student. They seem like obvious things, but they are easy for a teacher to forget. Too much stress and too much arbitrary control by the teacher can hurt a student’s internal motivation. Finding ways to foster that inner motivation, to help students feel that they have the power to learn and succeed within themselves, are among the best things a teacher can do, particularly for older students.<\/p>\n A<\/strong>t the beginning of our talk you mentioned how watching Korean dramas inspired you to learn the language. You are still a fan of them. I\u2019m curious: What is it about them that attracts you to Korean culture?<\/strong><\/p>\n In these dramas, when the “good” characters review their life, they tend to ask, “Did I serve enough?\u00a0Did I help my friend (or family or country) enough?\u00a0Was my life used well enough to protect what I value?”<\/p>\n Americans, it seems to me, tend to ask, “Did I live life fully enough?\u00a0Did I dance, love, risk, etc. enough?”\u00a0Our focus tends to lean more toward individual fulfillment \u2014 whether we lived fully and pursued what we wanted.<\/p>\n When things go wrong in Korean dramas, the “good” characters generally accept responsibility.\u00a0If a friend betrays them, it is because they did not care enough, did not inspire enough, did not help enough.\u00a0If a battle is lost, it is because they did not lead enough or plan well enough. The “good” characters look to see how they (not someone else) could and should have done better to avert a bad outcome.<\/p>\n I find the value of personal responsibility attractive, at least how it is expressed in the dramas.<\/p>\n Thank you, Margaret.<\/strong><\/p>\n Note<\/strong>: Interview edited for clarity and length.<\/em><\/p>\n Scott Alkire<\/strong> teaches writing at San Jose State University and serves as editor of the World Languages Translation and Niche Book Club. TESL-EJ Publications has published three of the club\u2019s translations, all by the late Dr. Kat\u00f3 Lomb: Polyglot: How I Learn Languages<\/em>\u200b (3rd ed., 2025); Harmony of Babel: Profiles of Famous Polyglots of Europe <\/em>(2nd ed., 2018); and With Languages in Mind: Musings of a Polyglot<\/em> (2nd ed., 2021). Kat\u00f3 Lomb has been called \u201cpossibly the most accomplished polyglot in the world\u201d by linguist Stephen Krashen.<\/p>\n Alkire, S. (2026). Learning Korean at age 60: Insights from a linguaphile. Teaching English as a Second Language Electronic Journal (TESL-EJ), 30<\/em>(2). https:\/\/doi.org\/10.55593\/ej.30118s1<\/p>\n Murphey, T. (1995). Meaningful communicative repetition. In\u00a0English Teaching Forum, 33<\/em>(4), 37-38).<\/p>\n
\nSan Jose State University, USA
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sjsu.edu><\/p>\nAbstract<\/h3>\n
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