Older adults’ reported use of metalinguistic awareness in beginner-level L2 learning: comparing a monolingual and a multilingual instructional approach

Research comparing different teaching approaches with older adult participants is still in short supply. Moreover, there is no existing work on how older adults utilise their metalinguistic awareness in the context of different instructional conditions. We compared a monolingual and a multilingual approach to the teaching and learning of beginner-level Italian in speakers of German and English (N = 50) who participated in a tailor-made 10-week online course. Participants were pre- and post-tested for Italian knowledge and metalinguistic awareness, and demographic background information was gathered. Here we present results from a sub-sample of ten participants (ages 62–69) who provided think-aloud and stimulated recall protocols while resolving a set of second language (L2) tasks comprising grammar, reading comprehension, and translation exercises, and who reported their thoughts about their language learning experience during semi-structured interviews. Through triangulation of complementary evidence from participants’ actual performance and their reflections on that performance, our findings demonstrate that learners activated their meta- and crosslinguistic knowledge effectively by drawing on their multilingual reservoirs regardless of teaching approach. Metalinguistic awareness appears to partially determine strategy use and thereby facilitate subsequent learning of the L2.