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Studies on pragmatic development, especially on the development of pragmatic fluency, are still scarce in the area of Interlanguage Pragmatics. The present study analyses whether EFL learners (N = 144), from Primary to University levels, who have not been instructed in pragmatics nevertheless show development in pragmatic fluency. A wide variety of measures were used to analyse the learners’ production in open role-play. The results in the present study show that pragmatic fluency indeed develops as proficiency increases (the learners develop their use of gambits and routines, they are capable of changing topics by themselves and they produce appropriate time responses) but also that, in contrast, the development in the use of patterns stops at Grade 11 and there is no development in the opening and the closing phases. These results are discussed in the light of cognitive models of second language acquisition.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the development of the written production of six groups of learners (N=520) in a formal instruction setting and to investigate the effects of onset and age on the levels of attainment in writing performance. The written production was measured after 200, 416 and 726 hours of instruction. Both intragroup and intergroup analyses were carried out (a) to analyse the long-term effects of an earlier start in second language writing in a school setting, (b) to analyse the patterns of development between the four writing component measures depending on learners’ age, and (c) to test whether the relationships found between the measures in the four areas of writing differ depending on learners’ age group. This study concludes that (a) at the end of the instructional period Early Starters still have not surpassed Late Starters, (b) there seem to be two patterns of writing performance depending on learners’ age, and (c) the correlations found between the writing component indicators change depending on learners’ age group.

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Most studies concerning the issue of age have focused on the language outcomes of subjects who started acquiring a second language during childhood, or later on during adolescence or adulthood in naturalistic contexts. However, relatively few studies have been concerned with school contexts where a foreign language is a compulsory subject in the early stages of the curriculum. The aim of the present study is to address the question of the effects of starting age (8 versus 11) on the acquisition of English as a foreign language in a school context, with specific reference to written production. Data are analysed after 200 and 416 hours of instruction, that is, when learners are 10 and 12, and 12 and 14 respectively. Results suggest that an earlier start does not have clear benefits in the acquisition of EFL as reflected in written language.