Barriers In Foreign Language Acquisition In Different Periods Of Adulthood

Abstract

The article is devoted to specifics of foreign language acquisition (FLA) and aptitude in different stages of adulthood. Based on psychophysiological and social characteristics of certain ages we classified adult learners into four age groups: 15-20, 21-35, 36-50, 50+. The goal of the study was (1) to compare the general level of the FLA barrier in all four age groups and (2) to check what types of barriers prevail in each age group. According to the typology suggested by the author, barriers were divided into 6 types: psychological, didactic, psychophysiological, linguistic, social adaptation, competence. The research consisted of two phases: the first phase implied interviews with English teachers working at Russian language schools and universities and analyzing profiles of “bad language learners” collected in the interviews; the second phase implied comparing general level of barriers and their distribution in different age groups using the author’s questionnaire “Diagnosing barriers in foreign language acquisition”. 89 barriers were analyzed in the first phase; 132 students learning English as a foreign language took part in the second phase. The research has proved that the general level of barriers does not have any strong correlation to age (the questionnaire results in all four age groups were comparably equal). However, different types of barriers were dominant in different age groups. In the group 15-20: psychological and competence barriers; in the group 21-35 and 36-50: competence barriers; in the group 50+: psychophysiological barriers.