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

evidence that children who have started to learn a foreign language at primary
school show greater empathetic abilities in later life than those who have started
to learn a language at ten or eleven.

3.3 The Scottish Evaluation of Learning Outcomes in the National
Pilot

3.3.1 The Framework for the Scottish Evaluation

The reader will remember that the National Pilot was launched in autumn 1989
initially with a cohort of pupils largely aged 11 in their last year of primary
school. The SOED commissioned a research team from the University of
Stirling to conduct an evaluation of the first four and a half years of the National
Pilot (SOED, HMSO, J1354, 12/95).

The evaluation of the initial phase of the Pilotfrom 1991 -1992 was reported in
Low, Duffield, Brown & Johnstone (Low et al., 1993). An evaluation of the
second phase from 1993-1995 and of the entire project was reported in a final
publication by Low, Brown, Johnstone & Pirrie (Low et al., 1995). The
evaluation of the National Pilot had two main aims:

"One, to assess the linguistic attainments of children involved in the
pilot projects, including ∞mparison with those not involved.

Two, to evaluate the project courses including the pedagogical
methods which 'enhance or inhibit the linguistic performance of the
children involved'." (Lowetal., 1995: 1)

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