The Correlation Between English Learning Onset Age And English Competence-Based On The Investigation Of Non-English Major Postgraduates' Present English Competence

Research into the influence of learners' individual differences on their second language learning has been one of the main topics in the second language acquisition (SLA) field, and the effect of age differences on eventual attainment has always been one of the most controversial issues. Most of the studies that carried out by foreign researchers were based on the investigations of the second language learning in the identical cultural context and the subjects were younger than 15 years old. That is quite different from the elementary pupils under the Chinese cultural context to learn English. Facing the tendency of learning English at a lower age, the present study sets out to investigate the correlation between onset age and postgraduate students' English competence in the hope of promoting comprehensible understanding of onset age factor in foreign language learning. The present study is the first one that employs 246 non-English postgraduate students from 3 universities as the subjects to investigate the relationship between onset age and English competence.The Excel program and the Statistics Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 13.0 software processed all data and procedures for data analysis are as follows:1. First, put the onset age and their different English competence in order by the Excel Program, then SPSS is used to analyze the data. After that calculation of the mean scores and standard deviations of the three groups of subjects' English scores and their onset ages are obtained.2. Second, in order to know whether the standard deviations are significant or not, theauthor employs one-way ANOVA. The correlation result shows that the subjects' postgraduate entrance English scores and their oral English competence are positive correlated (Kendall's tau-b r=.259; Sig.=.000; Spearman's rho r=.349 Sig.=.000).3. Correlation analysis of the subjects' entrance English scores and their oral English competences.The results from data analysis show that those whose English learning onset age is earlier have better English competence than the later ones. This indicates that the relationship between onset age and English learning achievement is significant. The result supports the view that the optimal age for foreign language is from 5 to 12 years old. The findings have provided the real diagnosis data regarding the determination of English learning onset age and the early English education. The above findings will offer enlightening guidance for foreign language educators and young parents to decide learners' onset age and help improve English learning.