AGE AND ACQUISITION

Introduction
The increased pace of research on first language acquisition in the last half of the twentieth
century attracted the attention not only of linguist of all kinds but also of educators in various
language related field. In language art education, for example, teacher trainees are required to
study first language acquisition, particularly acquisition after age five, in order to improve
their understanding of the task of teaching language skills to native speakers. We have all
observed children acquiring their first language easily and well, yet individuals learning a
second language, particularly in an educational setting, can meet with great difficulty and
sometimes failure. We should therefore be able to learn something from a systematic study of
that first language learning experience can help us understand things better.
What may not be quite as obvious, though, is how should second language teachers interpret
the many facets and sometimes conflicting findings of first language research? o childhood
and adulthood, and differences between them! hold some keys to language acquisition models
and theories?. This written is to address some of those questions and to set forth explicitly
some of the parameters for looking at the effects of age and acquisition.