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

"What one should not do, unless we frankly admit that we are in the business
of substituting honeyed words for sound argument, is in∞rporate into one's
curriculum outline buzz-words that, while being vague and confused, are
known to appeal to teachers, or references to popular but incoherent aims, and
fashionable but unproven activities, simply in order to render the proposal
attractive. The question of what is politically persuasive has to be kept entirely
separate from our thinking about the curriculum itself...A persuasive curriculum
is not necessarily a good one; a curriculum that fails to gain acceptance is not
necessarily a bad one." (Barrow, 1984: 220/221)

In 1998 the Nuffield Foundation was commissioned to launch a national inquiry

into language needs in the UK over the next 20 years with the aim of identifying
'whether our present capability in languages is sufficient to sustain the country

in economic, political, strategic, social and cultural terms' fWhere are we going
with Languages', The Nuffield Languages Inquiry, 1998).

Such developments give rise to a number of questions. Should the aims of
learning a foreign language be purely 'utilitarian' and should the school
curriculum be about skill training at all? Are primary schools 'market places'
where parents should dictate the curriculum? Crucially and most importantly,
however, is 'younger* indeed 'better*? It would appear that the reasons
generally given as to why children should Ieam a foreign language do not justify
the notion that they should do so from a young age.

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