There have been some interesting studies on the topic of age and language acquisition. For example, Ervin-Tripp (1974, in Collier 1987) completed a study of oral language skill acquisition which led to the conclusion that, initially, older children acquire new language faster than younger children. He found that after nine months of instruction in French, 7-9 year-olds performed better than 4-6 years-olds in comprehension and conversation. In a similar study, Fathman (1975, in Collier 1987) found that after one year of study in a new language, 11-15 year-olds were significantly better at acquiring English as a second language than 6-10 year-olds. In Fathman's study, however, after three years of study the younger students outperformed the older ones on the same types of measures. Many other studies have also shown that older students hold an early advantage in the acquisition of language, but that younger learners eventually catch up and outperform the older one after several years" time.
As a science teacher, I was very interested to see if age had any effect on a student's performance in the content areas. Collier (1987) completed an in-depth study on that very topic which had some interesting results. Collier used a sample of 1548 5 to 15 year-olds who were immigrants to the U.S. They all were at grade level when they entered the U.S. and had no prior exposure to English. All the sample students were from middle to upper class families in their home countries and had strong middle-class aspirations once they were in the U.S. The students were tested in forth, sixth, eighth, and eleventh grades on reading, language arts, science, social studies, and mathematics. Collier found that the students who were 8 to 11 years old on arrival to the U.S. were the first to reach native student levels of competency. It took these students four to five years to reach the 50th percentile on all the content tests.
