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

". .not only d d the adults dramatically outperform children on all measures of
retention, but there was an inverse relationship between age and listening
Comprehenson. Adults performed on average near the maxinum score in
Comprehenson of Russian, while second graders (age 8) were the lowest of all
groups tested." (Asher, 1969 15/16)

Asher suggested that the short attention spans of the younger children might
have been responsible fortheir low score. A later study byColen & Hosenfeld
(1981) investigating learners Ievelof involvement Suggeststhat

"Attending to content matter seemed to range at any given classroom moment
from 25% to 82%, according to the age of the learner ani! the interest value of
the material, among Otherthings." (cited in Allwrght & Baley, 1991:129)

Studies in child development suggest that young dhildren generally have very
short attention spans. They tend to be easily d str≡cted, they tend to switch off
easily and boredom and Ifatigue set in more quickly. Attention spans are subject
to maturational growth. Olderchildren tend to have better concentration and
attention spans and are Iikelyto get more out of the available target language
exposure. The ability to Ifocus on relevant nformation while ignoring distracting
or Irrelevantcues improves during the school years (Harris, 1993, Williams &
Burden 1997):

"Research by developmental psychologists has shown that children's ability to
focus their attention, to select what is important for them to altend to and to
adapt their attention to the demands of the situation improves with age."
(Wiliams & Burden, 1997: 16)

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