Resumen

BONILLA TRANA, Mariel  y  DIAZ LARENAS, Claudio. Senior learners’ communicative strategies in English as second language. Rev. Int. Investig. Cienc. Soc. [online]. 2014, vol.10, n.1, pp.61-74. ISSN 2226-4000.

Policies in favor of elderly people in Latin America include the need of enhancing an active aging process in which they can be able to participate in social issues through being immersed in lifelong learning, however, little has been done to incorporate older learners in continuing education as, for instance, to study their needs as learners. This paper aims to determine the communicative strategies used by senior learners of English as second language in an English course of communicative nature. Data were analyzed through semantic analysis of 10 subjects’ discourse during the completion of communicative tasks from the Key English Test examination. The results show that learners use a variety of mother tongue strategies that they transfer into second language, when they experience oral communication breakdowns with the purpose of maintaining the flow of the conversation.

Palabras clave : Learning a second language; English; communicative strategies; elderly people.