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



In July 1990 the House of Lords suggested that the language barrier 'could be
the last restraint on economic freedom in the world market1 and expressed
concerns at the then Government's view that any major changes to the primary
school curriculum in the area of foreign languages would be unlikely before the
year 2010 (Hansard Volume 521, No 120, Friday, 13 July 1990).

Recommendations were made that:

"...foreign language teaching should be offered in primary schools. Planning
should start for that now. Teacher training colleges should include foreign
languages as an essential component of B.Ed. courses."

(Baroness Lockwood, Hansard Report 521, 1990: 561)

In the wake of the debate in the House of Lords the 1990 National Curriculum
Report on Modem Foreign Languages stated that:

"We firmly believe that it is now desirable to identify the steps which need to be
taken to make widespread teaching of modern foreign languages in primary
schools possible and we have noted the recommendation of the House of
Lords' select Committee on the European Communities Report to this effect."
(DES, National Curriculum Working Group Report, 1990, para 3.13)

Since the early 1990s calls for the introduction of a foreign language into the
primary school curriculum have increased and much pressure from professional
associations such as the Association for Language Learning (ALL) as well as
from parents (see front page of the Times Educational Supplement, 15 October
1995), has been put on Governments, past and present, to make such an
introduction. In May 1992 the National Association of Headteachers (NAHT)

16



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