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

Titone's work on θart^ly bilingual reading as ® support to blingual development
seems to confirm Cummins^f hypothesis

"...of the correlation between early reading and oral proficiency on one side,
and ∞gnitive development on the other." (reported in Pinto, 1996: 28/9)

Successfulforeignlanguage learning in a Schocllenviranmeritwould seem to
depend OnchIdren^fS Ievelofcognitive matιrity «swell as on Itheir first language
skills It is not within the scope of this thesis to enter further into the debate on
literacy and whether Iiteracydevelops different modes Ofthiriking (for an
extensive discussion see Olson, Torrance & Hildyard, 1985). Forthe purpose
of learning a foreign language within the a ri ficidl constraints of the classroom,
however, being able to read and wrte would seerm very important for a number
of reasons. Proliferate children for whom language s very much context-
embedded and who can only function in the here and now (Donaldsoiii, 1978)
are unlikely to be very efficient learners in the Classroomwhere much anguage
learning is 'decontextualised' in the sense that language s not often supported
by the contextual 'here and now' clues. While pre-literate children might cope
with some aspect of foreign language Iearnng with relative ease, such as
repetition and imitation based on spoken language only,tthey are ikelyto find
other aspects of foreign language learning more difficult. The abil ty to read»
however, provides the child with an additional medium for language input and
written language ⅛r□vdesthe Childwith much more favourable Oppoittunites':

". .for becoming aware of language in its own πglrt than his earler encounters
with the spoken word are Ikelyto have done."' (Donaldson 1978: 91)

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