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

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