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

"A re∞rd of natural speech will show numerous false starts, deviations from
rules, changes of plan in mid-course, and so on." (Chomsky, 1965: 40)

The 'initial state' of the language faculty, according to Chomsky (1981), consists
of Universal Grammar (UG) a set of innate general organisational principles of
grammar ∞mmon to all languages and of open parameters associated with
these principles. The principles of an innate Universal Grammar enable the
child to acquire a language during the process of normal maturation. While
maturation of the language faculty follows a genetically ordered and timed
course, children apply innate knowledge of grammatical principles and fix the
open parameters to attain a mental grammar of the particular language to which
they are exposed:

"The genetically determined fundamental principles provide for the 'plasticity' to
acquire any one of a wide diversity of languages; the open parameters make it
possible to acquire a specific language on the basis of limited linguistic
experience." (Botha, 1991: 34)

Implementation of a principle may vary from language to language but each
implementation of a principle or setting of a parameter will determine specific
aspects of the grammar of a language.

2.2.3 Language Development, Interaction and the Environment

An acceptance of the theory that children Ieam a language because it is their
biological destiny to do so, however, does not deny the relative importance of
the environment for at least some aspects of language development and

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