Brain‐based Challenges of Second Language Learning in Older Adulthood

This chapter reviews the brain-based, cognitive-linguistic changes that come in the third age of life and how they may impact new learning, with a particular focus on learning a foreign language. It reviews what is known about foreign or second-language acquisition (SLA) and how second language (L2) teaching pedagogies may be designed to enhance learning in older adults (OAs) in response to their changing brains. Working memory is an important component of language aptitude and is a strong predictor of written and auditory L2 sentence processing as well as discourse comprehension. Neuroimaging research on healthy adults shows that first and second languages largely use the same neural processing systems despite some differences in neural representation. The neural bases for first and second languages are not stable, but rather change as L2 develops, and age of acquisition (AoA), proficiency, and L2 exposure all impact L2 neural organization.