AGE OF SPEAKING START AS A KEY FACTOR IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING
When studying first language acquisition scholars often leave out of consideration the importance of when a child starts to intensify their linguistic performance. Our observations have shown that the earlier a child starts to speak - that is when they start to regularly talk in single-word utterances - the quicker and better they are at learning foreign languages later. Such correlation may be due to both psychophysiological and social factors. Thus, children born in the third millennium tend to be late speakers. The author presents statistical study of Russian-speaking students, who learn English, focused on verification of the existing correlation between the age when a child begins to speak and how fast they learn language material. The findings amply demonstrate the correlation between the specific character of first language acquisition and linguistic competence.