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

From Scotland, however, it was reported that the slow learners and 'low
achievers' had a particularly clear advantage:

"The advantage of primary over se∞ndary beginners was evident across the
range of abilities, and was particularly marked in the case of slower learners."
(Johnstone, 1996:173) and "A particularly clear advantage for project over
non-project pupils was noted in the case of pupils identified by their teachers
as being low achievers." (Low et al., 1995: 1)

However, it is not clear by what criteria a child was deemed to be a 'slow
Iearner¹ or 'low achiever¹ and in the context of the Pilot Scheme the exact nature
of children's 'special needs' was never clearly defined. In any case, the initial
benefit 'particularly marked in the case of slower learners' (Johnstone, 1996:
173) did not seem to last and soon disappeared, just as had been the case in
the Pilot Scheme and as personal experience has shown to be the case.

Burstall et al. (1974) reported that a number of children decided that French
was not for them and dropped the subject at the earliest opportunity. Within the
context of a policy of foreign languages for all, such as the one in S∞tland,
'dropping' a foreign language becomes more difficult. Nevertheless, five
teachers from four different secondary schools in the Scottish Pilot felt that the
'lower ability' children, especially, were demotivated early on and that the effects
of having started early were most evident in S3 and S4. More specifically
teachers stated that:

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