A Critical Examination of the Beliefs about Learning a Foreign Language at Primary School

"Dis∞urse is not a single, generic, homogeneous event throughout society.
Within a society different discourses exist, both among members within of [sic]
the same social group as well as among different social groups...even the
same individual engages in a variety of different discourses."

(Bialystok & Hakuta, 1994: 185)

The child acquiring his first language in the target culture acquires spoken
discourse competence through experience, by observing people in
communicative and social interactions and through interacting with other
native-speakers. Children find out how language acts are performed, what
conversations sound like and the rules which govern behaviour like turn-taking
and this process of learning to use language appropriately in different contexts
is lifelong:

"This process of learning to use language appropriately continues throughout
life, developing as new situations and new Sociolinguistic demands are
encountered." (Holmes, 1978: 134)

In the context ofsecond language acquisition research Ellis (1997a) suggests
that studies investigating learner discourse show that:

"...the acquisition of dis∞urse rules, like the acquisition Ofgrammatical rules,
is systematic, reflecting both distinct types of errors and developmental
sequences." (Ellis, 1997a: 44)

An experimental study by Scarcella & Higa (1982) showed that adolescent
learners coped better in natural ∞nversations than younger children and that

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