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



that words fulfil in sentences and they need to be abe to notice relationships in
syntax and semantics. I a the-absence of these abilities, the learner will be
red meed to reproducing only what he has seen or heard and fail to produce
language appropriate to what is requ red.

4.34.1 Attention to Form and Cognitive Maturity

One off the earliest and stroπgest cases for adults' Superority over children in
the formal aspects Oflanguage development was made by AusUbeI (1964).
He suggested that, although child него rrightbe 'superior to adults in acquiring
acceptable accents', older Itearners were far better aS re∞gnising and
manipulating language patterns, dtmdkiπg conscious grammatical
generalisations and applying these. Attention to form was said to be lacking in
young children who have to operate the less efficient process of learning
'through extensive repetiton and corrective feedback'(Ausubel, 1964:421).
The child's 'lack of conscious attention to the formal properties of language' was
alls© identified by Wong-Fillinore vΛhα suggested that chidren were not so much
concerned with Iearnng the language Itselfbutwith being accepted by their
native-speaking peers. Socialising was more important than the formal
properties ofthe Ianguagettheywere acquiring:

"They never seemed particularly motivated to Ieam the new anguage
as they were to get along with the people who spoke ⅛."
(Wong-Fillmore, 1979’ 208)

213



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