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



In 1996 the then Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA) held an
international conference where many of the issues surrounding an early start
were raised and where the general tone was as much optimistic as it was
cautious (for details see Conference Report published by SCAA, 1997).
Practical conditions, such as teacher supply, however, seemed to be the major
consideration in the majority of the talks given while the underlying assumption
that younger is better remained largely unchallenged.

Common wisdom thus holds that the younger the child starts the better and
readers of both the popular press and educational publications have been
subjected to slogans such as 'younger is better*, 'let's do it' and 'catching them
young'. However, an initial perusal of the literature on age in language learning,
as well as teaching and observing children in a number of primary schools,
suggest that 'younger* is not necessarily 'better*. If a repetition of the costly
mistakes of the past, such as the Pilot Scheme (1963-1974) is to be avoided, it
would seem vital that some of the beliefs and assumptions surrounding foreign
language learning at primary school should be carefully re-examined and that
lessons from the past as well as from the present should be learned before the
introduction of any programme on a national scale. The following Chapter will
briefly present the historical background to early language learning in the UK
and a summary of the current situation. The Pilot Scheme for the teaching of
French at primary school will be introduced as it had a major influence on
developments in the 1970s and 1980s.

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