Saturday, 21 December 2013



Dear colleagues,

In this post, I am going to say a few words about the games and how important they are to motivate your students and to make the learning atmosphere looks better. I like to use the games as warm-up activities, because I can see a lot of positive results. Games help teacher to create contexts in which the language is useful and meaningful. The learners want to take part and in order to do so must understand what others are saying or have written. Many games cause as much density of practice as more conventional drill exercise. What matters, however, is the quality of practice. Many games provide repeated use of a language form. By making the language convey information and opinion, games provide the key feature of `drill` with the opportunity to sense the working of language as living communication. If it is accepted that games can provide intense and meaningful practice of language, then they must be regarded as central to a teacher’s repertoire. Games can be found to give practice in all the skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking), in all the stages of the teaching/learning sequence(presentation, repetition, and so on) and for many types of communication(encouraging, criticizing, explaining, etc.). It is generally accepted that young learners and adults are very willing to play games. Early teenagers tend to be more self-conscious. Games which can be played in pairs or groups may be particular and useful. It is clear to all observes of classroom practice that the teacher’s own belief in the usefulness and appropriateness of a game affects the learner’s response.
Of the four types of grouping, pair and group work are very important if each learner is to have sufficient oral practice in the use of language. In class work it is easy to demonstrate that learner says only one or two sentences in a lesson or in a week. The greatest `mistake`(if oral ability is an aim) is for the learner not to speak at all. Pair work is easy and fast to organize. It provides opportunities for intensive listening and speaking practice. Pair work is better than group work if there are discipline problem.
Group work games require four or six players. Membership of groups should be challenged between groups and they should be of mixed ability. Groups can operate perfectly well without a group leader. Any games or activities which involve language and which your learners enjoy are language-learning materials. It is usually difficult to find a new game for specific language practice just when you need it. When collecting games it is important to note what language need only be understood by the players.
When preparing your lesson, you start by planning the main items you want to include: the teaching of new grammar, or the reading of a text. But once you have prepared the main components of yours, you may find you still need some extra ingredients to make it into a smooth unit. You may need, for example:
1)       A quick warm-up for the beginning to get your students into the right mood for learning,
2)       An idea for a brief vocabulary review,
3)       A light filler to provide relief after a period of intense effort,
4)       A game or amusing item to round off the lesson with a smile.

  Here are some examples of games and five-minute activities:

Grammar: Varied
Level: Text for weeding 1: lower intermediate
 Text for weeding 2: advanced
Time: 12-25 minutes
Materials: One text for weeding per pair of students
In class
a) Give the students a text with distracted words you have prepared in or use text for weeding 1 or text for weeding 2.Ask them to work in pairs and weed out the extra words.

b) Ask the students to compare their work in groups of six.

c) Dictate the list of `weeds`.
Students are listening to their knowledge of collocation, grammar and syntax by the rowing out the intruders.

DIY word order
Grammar: Word order
Level: Beginner or Advanced
Time: 15-25 minutes
Materials: Any text
Preparation: Select a text
In class
a) Ask the students to skim the text and to echo their favourite words. Ask some of them to say their words to the group and explain why they like them.

b) Ask each student to secretly choose their favourite sentence from the text. They than cut or fold out and tear a piece of paper into enough oblongs piece.

c) Each student mixes up the pieces and places them on their chair and then the students’ mill around. Remind them to remix the pieces before moving on.

Hinged sentences
Grammar: Syntax and punctuation
Level: Intermediate
Time: 20-30 minutes
Materials: One hinged sentences sheet per two students.
In class
a) Give out the hinged sentences sheet and ask the students to scan through for any that make sense as they stand.

b) Students work in pairs or alone and rewrite each of the twelve sentences into two separate sentences that share a hinged word or phrase.
Example: He loves her children are great-He loves her./Her children are great.
In this case `her` is `hinged` word.

Your words – My grammar
Grammar: Present perfect continuous
Level: Lower – Intermediate
Time: 15-20 minutes
Materials: None
In class
a) Write a sentence in the target structure on the board:
Who’s been eating my porridge?
Explain to the students that you want them to write sentences that have exactly the same grammar as the above sentence. The first word must be an interrogative pronoun, the second an auxiliary verb, the third no change, the fourth a main verb + ing, etc.
e.g. What’s been killing her flowers?

b)ask the students to write their sentences on the board. Ask the class to decide which sentences are right and which wrong.
It is important to start with a short, simple sentence.

Faces and character
Language: Describing people, speculating about age, character, etc. e.g.(He might be...)
Skills: Listening and speaking
Control: Free
Level: Intermediate – advanced
Time: 5 minutes for a discussion of each photograph you choose to show
Materials: Photographs or slides
For class you will need a minimum of three or four photographs of people you know or know about.The pictures should be large enough for class use. For pair work, the pupils must be equipped in a similar way. They could be asked to bring pictures from home of their family, friends or anyone else.
-Class work leading to pair work.
First discuss with the class how reliable people’s appearance is as a guide to their age, interests, background, character, etc. You might tell them that it was commonly believed in the last century that one could recognize a criminal by the shape of his ears. Finally confirm, qualify or reject these speculations by describing the person yourself.

Fortune – Telling
Language: Predicting future events, using will or going to
Skills: All
Control: Free
Level: All
Time: 30 minutes
Materials: Paper and pencils/pens
Procedure: Group work
The learners need not know each other well: Essentially, however, each learner writes a fortune for someone else. One version goes as follows: in a group of four or five learners each learner writes a fortune or prediction for each of the others. In other words, each learner writes four or five fortunes. He/She must read them out and comment, for example, on whether some of them are the same, or just what he/she had hoped for, or highly unlikely.

Reading someone’s mind
Language: Making statements about other people, using the phrase: I think you are... and adjectives
Skills: Listening and speaking
Control: Free
Level: Intermediate – advanced
Time: 10-15 minutes
Materials: None
Class work
Arrange the class in two circles, one standing inside the other. Each learner should face someone in the other circle. Tell the learners that quite and responsive concentration on another person can often produce a sensation of what they are like, what they are feeling. After half a minute or so ask them to tell each other what it was they felt and understood about the other person.
Note: Before starting this activity you can discuss with the learners the sort of feelings one can sense in other people and you could make sure they have the language to express these understandings:
I think you are...
rather, a little, very, extremely...
happy, anxious, worried, angry, frustrated...

There’s something wrong somewhere
Language: Describing pictures and identifying objects
Skills: Reading
Control: Guided
Level: All
Time: According to the length of the texts
Materials: A picture or pictures. For class use, a slide or a large magazine picture
You (or the learner) must write three texts about the picture or pictures, two of which contain some errors of fact. Make copies of the texts.
Class or group work
Display the picture or pictures. Give the learners the three duplicated description of the picture or pictures. The learners first find the description that is completely correct. They than underline all the mistakes in the others.
They provide all that is needed for a fully correct description. The learners put these bits together to produce a correct description.

Don’t say `yes` or `no`
Language: Asking questions and giving answers, especially asking questions with question tags(e.g...., isn`t it?....don`t you? you?) and giving complete phrases for answers. Using of course, of course not, perhaps, clearly...
Skills: Listening and speaking
Control: Guided
Level: Intermediate – advanced
Time:5-10 minutes
Materials: None
-Class work leading to a group or pair work.
This can be a team competition. Put a number of questions to each team. Each question must be answered without delay and without the use of either `yes` or `no`. The team which answers the most questions in this way wins.
The teacher asks questions of this type:
1) Your name is Peter, isn’t it?
2)You do live near the school, don’t you?
3) It was raining at nine o’clock this morning, wasn’t it?
The students should reply, e.g.:
1) Not at all, my name is Ann.
2) Not, quite, my home is a long way from school.
3) I don’t think so.
When the learners have seen how the game works, they can fire questions at each other to try to catch each other out.

Amazing facts
You and your students may like the idea of having a regular five – minute slot in your lesson called `amazing facts`. You or a student have five minutes in which to inform the class about something they may not be familiar with and which is likely to amaze them.
Instead of trying to fill a five – minute slot, a single amazing statement can be made. It might well provoke some discussion. Here is a brief example: `People often say that it is always raining in Britain`.

Chain story
Narration: Use of the past tense
Begin telling a stor.This can be the first few lines of a story from your course book, or improvised, or you can invite a student to start. Then, going round the class, each student has to add another brief `installment` to the story.
Before you start, ask each student to choose a word. It can be an item of vocabulary recently learnt or a verb in the past tense or freely chosen. Then each `installment` has to include the word the student has chosen.

Compare yourself
Getting to know each other, use of comparatives
In pairs, students find different ways of comparing themselves with each other, and write down or simply say the appropriate sentences.
1) You are taller than I am.
2) Tina has longer hair than I have.
3) Jane is taller than Luis.
To encourage more interaction, tell the students they may not use aspects (such as height or hair colour) that are immediately apparent, but only things they have to find out through talking:
1) Peter has more brothers than I have.
2) Marie knows more languages than Diane.
As a follow – up, share some of the things participants have found out with the rest of the class.

Find someone who
Brief pair conversations
The students have one minute to walk around the room and find at least one person in the class who was born in the same month as they were: they get one point for every person they find in the time. Then they have to find someone who was born on the same day of the month. At the end, see how many points each student has.

Yes/no questions and answers
Choose an object, animal or person, and tell the students which of these categories it belongs to. They have to guess what it is. Encourage `narrowing-down` questions, and give generous hints if the guessing slows down. The student who guesses the answer chooses the next thing to be guessed.

 Jumbled words
Vocabulary and spelling practice
Write on the board words the students have recently learnt, or ones they have difficulty spelling with the letters in jumbled order. For example, you might give an elementary class a set of words like gdo, sumoe, owc, knymoe, tca,tnhpeeal, ibdr and tell them these are al animals. In the time given they work out as many as they can of the answers:
dog, mouse, cow, monkey, cat, elephant, bird.

Draw a picture of Martian on the board. Place your two forefingers on either side of your head and tell the class that you are a Martian. Pretend that you are unfamiliar with everyday objects, for example: cars, coffee, ships, music. Pretend also that you do not have a very wide vocabulary in English. The students should try to help you to understand what each object or idea is , but you must continually ask questions as if you do not understand. For example:
Martian: What`s a car?
Student 1: People travel in cars.
Martian: What`s `travel in`?
Student 2:`Travel` means you go from one place to another place.
Martian: But what does a car look like?
Student 3:It`s like a box on wheels.
Martian: What`s a box? etc.

I hope that some of you will find these games rewarding and that they can be helpful, too. I wish you everything the best in 2014. year.

Best regards,

Saturday, 16 November 2013

Second language learning in the classroom

‒Sarah Caldwell-


I am here after a while. I am so busy in my school, I am busy with my private business (tranlsating and interpreting). I am so happy one to see that many people still do visit my blog. I am so glad that I can share everything with you and I have to say that I will share many rewarding things. Today, I will post a few things about learning the second language in the classroom. In this case, it is English because it is the second language in my country. My students start learning English from the third grade of primary school and they continue with it till the end of their university studies. I really like my students who are always ready to work and learn. They always want something new, so I try to do my best in order to meet their needs.

Second language learning in the classroom

Most people would agree that learning a second language in a natural acquisition context or `on the street` is not the same as learning in the classroom. Many believe that learning `on the street` is more effective. Natural acquisition contexts should be understood as those in which the learner is exposed to the language at work or in social interaction. The traditional instruction environment is one where the language is being taught to a group of second or foreign language itself. The teacher’s goal is to see to it that students learn the vocabulary and grammatical rules of the target language. The goal of learners in such courses is often to pass an examination rather than to use the language for daily communicative interaction. Supporters of communicative language teaching have argued that language is not learned by the gradual accumulation of one item after another.

Five proposals for classroom teaching

Theories have been proposed for the best way to learn a second language in the classroom. But the only way to answer the question: ‘Which theoretical proposal holds the greatest promos for improving language learning in classroom settings?’ is through the research which specifically investigates relationship between teaching and learning. Both formal and informal researches are needed. Formal research involves careful control of the factors which may affect learning. It often uses large numbers of teachers and learners.
Informal research often involves small numbers, perhaps only one class with one teacher, and the emphasize here is not on what is most general, but rather on what is particular about this group or this teacher. For each proposal, a few relevant studies will be presented, discussed and compared with one another.
These proposals are:
1) Get it right from the beginning
2) Say what you mean and mean what you say
3) Just listen
4) Teach what is teachable
5) Get it right in the end 

Get it right in the beginning

The `Get it right in the beginning` proposal for second language teaching best describes the underlying theory. It is the proposal which probably best describes the way in which most of us were taught a second language in school. The behaviorist view of language acquisition is in assuming that learners need to build up their language knowledge gradually by practicing only correct forms. Teachers avoid letting beginning learners speak freely because this would allow them to make errors. Here are some examples:
S1: And uh, in the afternoon, uh, I came home and, uh, uh, I uh, washing my dog.
T: I wash.
S1: My dog.
T: Every day you wash your dog.
S2: He doesn’t have dog.
S1: No, but we can say it.

Say what you mean and mean what you say

This proposal emphasizes the necessity for learners to have access to meaningful and comprehensible input through conversational interactions with teachers and other students. When students are given the opportunity to engage in conversations, they are compelled to negotiate meaning, that is, to express and clarify their intentions, thoughts, opinions and so on. The negotiation leads learners to acquire the language forms-the words and grammatical structures-which carry the meaning. The claim is that as learners work toward a mutual understanding in the negotiation process, language acquisition is facilitated.
S: Me and Jo see, we don’t have the same as hers.
T: That’s fine. Yeah, because there’ll be different answers.
S: Why...uh, we do that with a partner?
T: Simply so you can control.

Just listen

This proposal is based on the assumption that it is not necessary to drill and memorize language forms in order to learn them. Here, the emphasize is on providing comprehensible input through listening and/or reading activities.
`Just listen` is one of the most influential - and most controversial - approaches to second language teaching because it not only holds that second language learners need not drill and practice language in order to learn it. According to this view, it is enough to hear and understand the target language. One way to do this is to provide learners with a steady diet of listening and reading comprehension activities with no (or very few) opportunities to speak or interact with the teacher or other learners in the classroom.

Teach what is teachable

The proposal referred to as `Teach what is teachable` is one which has received increasing attention in second language acquisition. Researchers supporting this view also claim that certain other aspects of language-vocabulary, some grammatical features- can be taught at any time. A learner’s success in learning these varational features will depend on factors such as motivation, intelligence and quality of instruction.

Get it right in the end

`Get it right in the end` is similar to the `teach what is teachable` proposal. Its proponents recognize a role for instruction, but also assume that not everything has to be taught. This proposal emphasizes the idea that some aspects of language must be taught. ‘Get it right in the end’ also differs from ‘Just listen’ in that it is assumed that learners will need some guidance in learning some specific features of the target language. It is assumed that what learners learn when they are focusing on language itself can lead to changes in their inter-language systems. The supporters of this proposal will prevent learners from making errors. It is sometimes necessary to draw learners` attention to their errors and to focus on certain linguistic points.
S1: Make her shoes brown.
T: Wow, her shoes. Are those mom’s shoes or dad’s shoes?
S1: Mom’s.
T: Mom’s. How do you know it is mom’s?
S1: Because it’s her shoes.

I hope that some of you will find this rewarding for your work. If you have some questions and proposals, please feel free to contact me at: 
Looking forward to hear from you.
Best regards,

Monday, 30 September 2013

Stages of child language acquisition

"The process of learning does not require only hearing and applying, but also forgetting and remembering again"
Dear bloggers,

I am here again. This post will be the continuation of the previous one. I will also post about the stages of child language acquisition. I also want to see your comments and your recommendations about this theme.

Stages of child language acquisition

From approximately 0 to 4 months, child sounds are limited to reflexive crying.This is their only way to express their feelings.This is their first production of what scholars call vegetative sounds.By roughly 4 to 6 months of age babies start to make many more sounds.Before speaking words, babies go through a period of babbling, in which they are practicing the sounds, intonations and rhythm of language. By 9 to 12 months the child`s babbling becomes more melodic.Intonation starts to sound more like adult patterns. By 10 to 12 months babies start to distinguish between the phonemes of his or her language and other languages.In this period, they also start to recognize words and even begin to understand their meaning.Children learn to pick out sound patterns that are repeated through normal adult conversation and eventually attach meaning to them.Baby talk or `motherese` is a natural, instinctive way that parents help this process along.By approximately 14 to 20 months of age, children begin with content words(these would include `mama` or `dada`or `book` or `car`).Of course, they usually do not sound like one would expect.`Book` may sound like `boo`.It is common at this stage to leave off consonants or consonant clusters from the beginning or end of a word.At this stage, a single word may represent an entire thought, i.e.`boo` may mean a `read me a book`. Between 18 to 24 months, spoken vocabulary starts to catch up.At this stage children begin to learn words by imitating.

From approximately 2 years of age, children begin to string two content words together to indicate location, i.e.`daddy gone`, possession `doggie mine` or action `mommy juice`. Multi-word sentences begin somewhere between ages 2 and 3.At this point they understand word order and context.Through practice they begin to master the morphology of language and start adding affixes, like `ing`, so `mommy walk` becomes `mommy walking`.

Learning Language

Children do not learn language simply through imitation and practice.Children`s early speech seems best explained in terms of a developing system.Second language learners pass through sequences of development.Many of these sequences are similar to those of children learning their first language.
Children`s earliest language is often called `telegraphic`.At this early age, children leave out many of the small words, like prepositions and articles.A child`s knowledge of the grammatical system is built up in predictable sequnces.Grammatical markers such as –ing of the present progressive or the –ed of the past tense are not acquired at the same time, but in sequence.The acquisition of certain grammatical features follows similar patterns in children in different environments. Child language is not viewed as an incorrect version of the adult system, but as a system in its own right.Not all errors made by second language learners could be explained in terms of first language transfer alone.
Second language learners` errors could be explained better in terms of learners` attempts to discover the structure of the language being learned rather than an attempt to transfer patterns of their first language.Many error types are common to both learners.Both make errors of subject-verb agreement(for example,  `a cowboy go` and `three robbers in mountain sees` by learner 1 and `Santa Clause ride` and `they plays` by learner 2). Such errors are clearly not due to first language interference but rather are `developmental` in nature.These are referred to as development errors which might very well be made by children acquiring English as their first language.

Development sequences

Research on language acquisition has revealed that there are important similarities between first language learners and second language learners.In both first and second language acquisition, there are sequences or `stages` in the development of particular structures.Developmental sequences are similar across learners from different backgrounds: what is learned early by one is learned early by others.Children`s language learning is partly tied to their cognitive development, that is, to their learning about relationships among people, events or objects around them. But among second language learners it is more remarkable that developmental sequences are so similar.Virtually every English sentence has one or more articles (`a` or `the`), but many learners have great difficulty using these forms correctly.Natural second language learners acquire grammatical morphemes in much the same way that first language learners do.
Although a review of all the `morpheme acquisition` studies that the learner`s first language has a more important influence on acquisition orders than some researchers would claim.Second language acquisition has revealed that learners pass through stages of acquisition which are very similar to those of first language learners.Perhaps more remarkable is the consistency in the acquisition of word order in questions.This development is not based on learning new meaning, but rather on learning different linguistic forms.Second language learners learn to form questions in a sequence of development which is similar in most respects to first language question development.Learners who receive grammar-based instruction still pass through the
same development sequences and make the same types of errors as those who acquire language in natural settings.

I hope that some of you will find this rewarding for your work and studies. See you soon with new posts.

Kind regards,


Friday, 23 August 2013

Games and language learnin - 2nd part


In the very beginning, I want to thank to all those who visit my blog. Thank you so much. On the other hand, I have to say that I was a little bit lazy during my annual leave, so I did not post anything for a while. In this post, I will emphasize the things which are very rewarding during the process of learning the second language. I used to say some things about it in my previous post, so this is the continuation of it.

The natural order hypothesis

This hypothesis states that we acquire the rules of a language in a predictable sequence.The rules which are the easiest to state are not necessarily the first to be acquired. Krashan asserts that the natural order is independent of the order in which the rules have been taught.Most of the evidence for this hypothesis comes from the morpheme studies, in which children`s speech has been examined for accuracy of certain grammatical morphemes(mostly noun and verbs `endings` such as plural-s and past tense-ed in English).

The input hypothesis

Krashan asserts that we acquire language in only one way by receiving comprehensible input, that is, by understanding messages.If the input contains forms and structures, then both comprehension and acquisition will occur.Krashan admits that comprehensible input is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for acquisition.

The affective-filter hypothesis

 The `affective filter` is an imaginary barrier which prevents learners from using input which is available in the environment.`Affect` refers to such things as motives, needs, attitudes and emotional states.Thus, depending on the learner`s state of mind or disposition, the filter limits what is noticed and what is acquired.The filter will be `up` or operating when the learner is stressed, self-conscious or unmotivated.It will be `down` when the learner is relaxed and motivated.What makes this hypothesis attractive is that it appears to have immediate  implications for classroom practice.Teacher can understand why some learners may be successful while others are not.The difficulty with the hypothesis is that it is difficult to be sure that the affective factors cause the differences in language acquisition.

Factors affecting second language learning

It was pointed out that all normal children, given a normal upbringing, are successful in the acquisition of their first language.Some learners never achieve native-like command of a second language.The factor which makes it difficult to reach conclusions about relationships between individual learner characteristics and second language learning is how language proficiency is defined and measured.Some studies report that learners with a higher level of motivation are more successful language learners then those with lower motivation.Other studies report that highly motivated learners do not preform any better on a proficiency test then learners with much less motivation to learn the second language.A link between intelligence and second language learning has been reported.Intelligence levels were a good means of predicting how successful a learner would be at language learning. One factor which often affects motivation is the social dynamic or power relationship between the languages.


There is evidence in the research that some individuals have an exceptional `aptitude` for language learning.The most widely used aptitude tests are the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT). The test measure characteristics such as:

1)the ability to identify and memorize new sounds,

2)the ability to understand how words function grammatically in sentences,

3)the ability to figure out grammatical rules from language samples,

4)memory of new words.

One of the most serious problems is that it is not clear what the abilities are that constitute aptitude.


A number of personality characteristics have been proposed as likely to affect second language learning.It is often argued that an extroverted person is well-suited to language learning.Another aspects of personality which has been studied is inhibition.Inhibition discourages risk-taking which is necessary for progress in language learning.However, in general, the available research does not show a clearly defined relationship between personality and second language acquisition.

Learning styles

This research suggests that different learners approach a task with a different set of skills and preferred strategies.We have all heard people say that they cannot learn something until they have seen it.Such learners would fall into the group called `visual` learners.Other people, who may be called `aural` learners, seem to need only to hear something once or twice before they know it.However, there is clearly some truth to the intuition that certain way of approaching a task are more successful for one person then for another.

Age of acquisition

Age is a characteristic which is easier to define and measure than personality, aptitude or motivation.The relationship between a learner`s age and his or her potential for success in second language acquisition is the subject of much lively debate.It has been widely observed that children from immigrant families eventually speak the language of their new community with native-like fluency.The critical period hypothesis suggests that there is a time in human development when the brain is predisposed for success in language learning.Developmental changes in brain change the nature of second language acquisition.Language learning which occurs after the end of the critical period may not be based on the innate structures believed to contribute to first language acquisition or second language acquisition in early childhood.Older learners depend on more general learning abilities.These general learning abilities are not as successful for language learning as the more specific.It is difficult to compare children and adults as second language learners.

Children are intrinsically better learners.The reason for children`s apparently speedy learning may be the sheer amount of the time they are usually exposed to the language.Adult`s capacity for understanding and logical thought is greater, and they are likely to have developed a number of learning skills and strategies which children do not yet have.Another reason is that most adults are learning voluntarily.Teachers commonly notice that they cannot get children to concentrate on certain learning activities.The problem is not the concentration span itself, but rather the ability of the individual to persevere with something of no immediate intrinsic interest to them.Older learners do exhibit noticeable superiority, because they tend to be more self-disciplined. One implication for teaching is the need to devote a lot of thought to the interest value of learning activities for younger learners.It is easier to motivate children.You can raise children`s motivation and enthusiasm more easily than that of older.On the other hand, you can also lose it more easily: monotonous activities quickly bore and demotivate younger learners.Younger learner`s motivation is more likely to vary.In general, children have a greater immediate need to be motivated by the teacher or the materials in order to learn effectively.Prizes and similar extrinsic words can help, but more effective on the whole are elements that contribute towards intrinsic motivation.Three very important sources of interest for children in the classroom are: pictures, stories and games.The teaching of foreign languages to adults is arguably less important, worldwide, than the teaching of children.Teaching adults is on the whole easier and less stressful.It is, however, often directed towards special purposes(for business, for academic study and so on). Even in an adult class, the teacher`s status as an authority is usually maintained.In return for conceding authority to the teacher in the classroom, adult learners demand ultimate returns in terms of their own benefit in learning outcomes.

Patrowski found that age of acquisition is a very important factor in setting limits on the development of native-like mastery of a second language.Older learners will not have native-like language skills and are more able to differ greatly from one another.The motivation to learn and individual differences in aptitude for language learning are also important determining factors in both rate of learning and eventual success in learning.

I hope that some of you will find something constructive in this post. 
Best regards