Abstract
Ageing is a natural process undergone by every human being. However, it also brings about social exclusion among older people in the communities to which they belong. Seeking to address this situation and find ways to reintegrate the elderly into society, institutions have provided special courses, particularly for foreign language learning. This report results from the experience of teaching Italian to older students, and it aims to spotlight the motivating factors that brought these learners to foreign language lessons, and also their beliefs, difficulties, needs, as well as their conception of target language culture. Here we highlight some of the conflicts that were evident inside the classroom and that are in line with current studies.
Keywords:
Foreign language learning; Italian language; elderly.