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

French before they even studied it seriously, the school decided to stop the
programme:

"This psychological phenomenon was our prime reason for urging that the
FLES programme be dropped." (Page, 1966:140)

The potential role of the audio-visual methodology in affecting learning
outcomes will be discussed in detail in Chapter Three. The remainder of this
chapter will briefly discuss the situation in the 1990s in England, Wales,
Northern Ireland and Scotland before the crucial question whether younger is
better will be addressed in ChapterTwo.

1.6 The Situation in the 1990s in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and
Scotland

Despite the withdrawal of national funding and support a number of schools
continued with the teaching of French to primary school children. By 1992 there
were about 20 Local Education Authorities (LEAs) offering a modern
language, usually French, to children of primary school age. Some had
survived from the 60s and 70s while others had been set up in the 1980s.

Some LEAs had produced guidelines, schemes of work and materials for
teachers (CILT, 1994, Information Sheet 55). In Scotland a large-scale National
Pilot introducing foreign languages into primary schools was implemented in
1989. The following paragraphs will briefly discuss the current situation in
primary schools across the UK.

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