Abstract—This study investigates the effects of Age of Onset of Acquisition (AOA) on Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and its implications for pedagogy by drawing upon the empirical evidences provided by recent related studies. The findings show that current research purposes on the AOA issue have been expanded from testing the general AOA effect on SLA to the detailed impact on rate, achievement, nativelikeness of second language learning. Current research also becomes more specific with its language testing domains, including syntax, morphology, phonetics, semantics, and pragmatics. Although major study results agree with the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) that AOA effect on SLA exists, it is argued that the effect would differ in terms of different SLA domains, implying the importance and need of a more detailed and specific instructional curriculum for second language education.
Index Terms—Age of onset of acquisition, critical period hypothesis, second language education.
Fan Yang is with University of Electronic Science and Technology of China., Chengdu, 611731 China (e-mail: 1030279158@qq.com).
Cite: Fan Yang, "The Age Factor on Second Language Acquisition and Its Implications for Pedagogy — A Review and Future Research Directions," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 227-230, 2019.