An Exploration of The Role of Age in Foreign Language Learning

Authors

1 Associate Professor at Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran

2 Assistant Professor at my university in France

3 Ph.D. student at Tarbiat Modares University

Abstract

      An Exploration of The Role of Age   in Foreign Language Learning   (pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and language skills)       Rouhollah Rahmatian [1]   Mohammad Hossein Otroshi [2]   Marzieh Mehrabi [3]       Received: 2011/05/22   Accepted: 2012/01/08       Abstract   In the process of teaching foreign languages, various factors affect the success of learners. One factor in this field which has always created great concern is the impact of age on learning foreign languages. That is, learners and teachers have always raised this question in mind: does the ability of learning a foreign language, increase or decrease with increasignage ? Accordingly, in this paper, the relationship between the learner age and success in the process of learning a foreign language is discussed. Studying the correlation of age and learning a foreign language components (pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and language skills) as well as learner physiological factors, suggest that there is a significant negative correlation between the aging process and foreign language proficiency and learning. Therefore, considering the appropriate age for language learning, improves the efficacy of the system of teaching foreign languages.     Keywords : age, foreign language learning, components and language skills, physiological factors   [1] Associate Professor ; Tarbiat Modares University. rahmatir@modares.ac.ir   [2] Maine University; France. Mhotroshi@gmail.com   [3] PhD Candidate; Tarbiat Modares University. marzieh_mehraby@yahoo.fr

Keywords