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



Tasks and test types, spoken or written, might favour learners of different ages
or conceptual stages, as suggested in the Ramirez & Politzer study (1978),
especially in formal settings where Tahta et al. (1981b: 366) reported that young
children may be very shy.

Lastly, what exactly does it mean to have 'native-speaker competence' in a
language? As Davies (1995) argued, if the native-speaker is defined as having
acquired his language as a first language in a 'bio-developmental' process then
native-speaker status in a second language is not possible anyhow. A removal
ofthis criterion, however, would leave the concept of proficiency to be defined in
terms of general 'native-like' competence. In any case, how important is it for
the foreign language learner who has no intention or need to integrate into a
target language culture to pass as a native-speaker? How necessary, and
desirable for that matter, is the goal of native-speaker 'likeness' for the child
native-speaker of English learning a foreign language in the classroom in
England? A question which will be discussed again in later chapters.

2.8 Conclusion

The literature on the age factor in language learning suggests that some
post-puberty learners can indeed achieve native-speaker competence at least
in some aspects of a language in both formal and informal learning situations.
Selinker (1972) suggested that the number of adult immigrants into the USA
who displayed native-speaker like competence in all aspects of second

125



More intriguing information

1. Migration and Technological Change in Rural Households: Complements or Substitutes?
2. The name is absent
3. Eigentumsrechtliche Dezentralisierung und institutioneller Wettbewerb
4. An Empirical Analysis of the Curvature Factor of the Term Structure of Interest Rates
5. MICROWORLDS BASED ON LINEAR EQUATION SYSTEMS: A NEW APPROACH TO COMPLEX PROBLEM SOLVING AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
6. Regional differentiation in the Russian federation: A cluster-based typification
7. The name is absent
8. The name is absent
9. Technological progress, organizational change and the size of the Human Resources Department
10. TOMOGRAPHIC IMAGE RECONSTRUCTION OF FAN-BEAM PROJECTIONS WITH EQUIDISTANT DETECTORS USING PARTIALLY CONNECTED NEURAL NETWORKS