Later-life language learners' vicarious participation in recorded online tutorials

This chapter brings together research into later-life language learners and research into learning through vicarious participation, with a focus on learning in blended environments. This is relevant in view of the increasing interest in language learning across the lifespan and discussions around the distinctive qualities of language learning in older adults (Pfenninger, Festman and Singleton, 2023), as well as addressing calls to cater specifically for the needs of these students in language teaching and course design (Derenowski, 2021). The study reported here is the first to make a conceptual link between vicarious learning and language learning in later life and, at a practical level, argues that a learning design which explicitly includes opportunities for both live and vicarious participation in target language interactions may contribute to addressing older language learners’ needs.