A Study on the Relationship between Age Onset of English Learning and English Achievement

Abstract

In spite of the same learning environment and teaching resources, the achievement of different second language learners is varied. Because of their different achievement, much emphasis was put on the study of the learners' individual differences. Undeniably, the superiority of the younger learners to the older learners in the second language acquisition has been a hot research topic. This study sets out to explore the relationship between the age onset of second language acquisition and its relative achievements. An investigation was made through a questionnaire to identify the subjects' age onset of English learning, and then an archival study was performed to compare the achievements of the learners with different age onset. The original scores of the subjects' College Entrance Examination, and College E nglish Test (band 4) were taken as raw data for statistics analysis. The result indicates that there is significant difference among different types of subjects with different age onset and the achievements of second language acquisition. Meanwhile, the author also tries to explore the possible reasons that could account for the differences among different groups. The results are of some significance in deciding the age onset for a child to learn a foreign language.