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

for the training Ofteachers seems unlikely and as a consequence no more than
60% of schools were said to have trained staff by the end of 1996 (MPLS
Update, HMSO Scotland, J1354, 12/95). These developments are likely to
have serious implications for future outcomes of the projects and highlight the
dangers of setting up pilots under conditions which cannot be maintained once
special arrangements are withdrawn.

In any case, teacher skills, knowledge and understanding are very closely
linked to aims and methodologies of a scheme and whether one prepares
children for future language learning, whether one aims to develop
communicative competence or whether one attempts to raise children's cultural
awareness, would quite clearly require different competences from a teacher.
Rapaport & Westgate had already suggested in 1974 that a clear difference
needs to be drawn between linguistic and cultural aspects of language
development, methods and outcomes:

"Linguistic and cultural objectives may overlap, but they remain very different
as far as their respective ∞nceptual frameworks are ∞ncemed. The one
involves patient accumulation and mastery of the forms and modulation of a
communication system; the other refers to cultural factors of which language is
only a part and for the exploration of which a developed ∞mmand of the
language in question is not essential." (Rapaport & Westgate, 1974: 13)

While younger might be better for the development of the latter, it would still
seem questionable whether younger is necessarily better for the former.

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