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

CONCLUSION

This study set out to examine the beliefs about learning a foreign language at
primary school and to investigate whether 'younger is better¹, particularly in the
context of the British primary school. An extensive investigation of the literature
on age in language learning in Chapter Two suggested that 'younger¹ in the
sense of 'pre-puberty' might be better for the assimilation of native-like accents
and intonation in a second language. Studies on the age factor in second
language development suggested that in the area of morphological, syntactical,
lexical and discourse development, however, older generally means faster
although in natural contexts, younger children are likely to overtake eventually.
In the classroom, however, foreign language learning is likely to depend on a
complex interplay between a host of factors, biological, cognitive, affective and
environmental and the 'age' at which foreign language learning begins would
require careful consideration of the time when learning is likely to be most
effective and the time when learning is likely to become difficult or impossible.
Considerations when foreign language 'learning' should start would thus depend
on aims and objectives. If one were to introduce a foreign language into the
primary school curriculum for phonological reasons only, for example, a number
of ∞nsiderations would seem important. Research discussed earlier suggests
that native-like accents can still be achieved if children start learning at the age
often. Just how long it takes to establish native-like levels of pronunciation in
the classroom and the exact role of language pairs, for example, is still open to
question but if native-like accents could be achieved possibly in one or two
years, what is the justification for starting from a very young age?

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