Birgit Harley

Age in Second Language Acquisition Birgit Harley

It is commonly held that young children pick up new languages "naturally" and with remarkable ease, while older learners generally have a long hard struggle to achieve even moderate fluency. The major purpose of this book is to carry out an examination of empirical studies in light of the various theoretical perspectives that have been brought to bear on the age issue. The analysis leads to a number of conclusions concerning the need for future research on specific aspects of L2 acquisition by older and younger learners. The study in Part 2 concentrates on some specific aspects of oral language proficiency as demonstrated in an interview setting to: (i) determine whether there are differences in L2 acquisition that can be associated with particular starting ages; (ii) and provide information of value to educators concerned with designing curriculae for such communicative L2 programs commencing at different age levels.