Der Altersfaktor in Theorie und Praxis

Controversial issues in language acquisition research are frequently adopted by language pedagogy in a simplified form. E.g., irrespectively of the existence of counterevidence, the critical period hypothesis is still widely considered to reliably explain the age factor in language acquisition. Departing from a case study of two Russian learners (AoA 8 and 14 yrs) acquiring L2-German, the plausibility of this hypothesis is weighed up against an explanatory model based on the learners< age-related propensity to acquire a language. It is concluded that current age-factor research does not allow to issue reliable guidelines for language training and that therefore research with a more practical focus is required.