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

'the child has forgotten' or 'the child is simply confused'. A further investigation
of these possibilities is not within the remit of this study but would provide s∞pe
for further research into the reasons why children fail to answer questions in the
foreign language classroom.

Not all children found pronunciation easy and not all children picked up accents
easily. Both teachers were near-native models and children were exposed to
native-speakers on tape on a regular basis. One group in School Two also had
a native-speaker in their class but some children did not acquire anything
approaching 'native-speaker¹ accents. This suggests that some, for whatever
reasons, do not just simply pick up accents and intonation patterns but that
even young children might benefit from explicit help. A number of questions
remain unanswered however. If excellent perceptive abilities, for example, are
a prerequisite for achieving accent-free speech, is this why some children just
'pick it up' whereas others struggle? What role do language pairs play? Are
native-like standards acquired in a particular second language generally
transferable to a third and if so what would be the implications for choice of
language or languages at primary school? A question which would seem
especially important in the English context where children's future language
needs are difficult to predict.

The writer therefore does not doubt that the majority of children had learned
something, such as some items of vocabulary or a set of pre-fabricated chunks
of language and that some did acquire 'good' accents. The writer also does not

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