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

Progress in the language from one stage to another appeared to reflect an
increase in the number of words and phrases rather than the ranges.

Pupils used more of the same from one year to another but in many cases
'without a corresponding range in verbs, articles, connectors and questions'
(Low et al., 1995: 177). This was the case despite the fact that at primary
school pupils had been 'exposed to a greater range of vocabulary and
structure than pupils in S1 and S2 taught by the same teachers' (Scottish
HMSO, J1354, 12/95: 3).

A degree of improvement in the number of words and phrases is to be
expected after two further years of teaching simply as result of more exposure
to the target language. However, simply exposing children to the target
language is unlikely to be sufficient for either syntactical or lexical progression.
This seems to be the case even in immersion contexts where:

"...young learners do not necessarily benefit from ∞gnate relationships in
instructional contexts where there is no particular focus on these. This
suggests that instruction could be helpful." (Harley, 1996: 8)

As has already been discussed in ChapterTwo, evaluating lexical development
is not a straightforward matter and it would seem that the concept of 'availability'
has been interpreted in its widest sense in the S∞ttish National Pilot. 'Knowing'
a word is not simply a question of being able to recall its ∞re meaning.

Remembering a word during what appears to be a brainstorming session can
not be equated with having that same word 'available' in terms of being able to

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