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

The adolescent 'fails to differentiate between the objects towards which the
thoughts of others are directed and those which are the focus of his own
concern' and becomes preoccupied with his appearance and behavior. This is
said to lead to increased self-consciousness, feelings of vulnerability and a
lower self-image:

"In our terms it leads to the increased affective filter and a subsequently
lowered ability to acquire a second language." (Krashen, 1981: 169)

Krashen & Terrell further claim that while affective variables do have an effect
on second language acquisition before puberty, they do not seem to be strong
enough to limit ultimate attainment in children:

"...given sufficient exposure, most children reach native-like levels of
competence in second languages." (Krashen & Terrell, 1988: 47)

However, one cannot conclude that simply 'lowering affective filters' and
providing children with 'comprehensible input' (Krashen, 1981: 8) will lead to
better results without taking methodological considerations into account in the
classroom. The importance of 'comprehensible language output' in successful
language development was emphasised by Swain (1985,1995) as it provides
'the opportunity for meaningful use of one's linguistic resources' (Swain, 1985:
248). It will later be suggested that 'comprehensible language output' can be
absent in the primary classroom, sometimes as a result of assumed 'sound'
pedagogical approaches. It will also be argued in Chapter Four that within the

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