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

An acceptance of the importance of the environment in the rate of first language
development does not, however, disprove Chomsky's theory of first language
acquisition and the existence of genetically determined stages in first language
development. A valid theory of the total process of first language development
is thus likely to include innate, behaviorist and interactionist components.

Imitation and repetition are likely to have their place while interactions with other
speakers allow the child to ^,learn' the social aspects of language, conversational
conventions and appropriate use of language. These 'components' of language
development quite clearly have implications for second language teaching
methodologies. In any case, the debate on the balance of innate and
environmental factors, the importance of individual components and the role of
the child in language development is far from concluded, possibly precisely
because of all the potential educational and political implications should the
scales be tipped in favour of the one or the other.

2.2.4 Critical Periods in First Language Acquisition

It has already been stated that in a Chomskyan sense, 'knowing' a language
means 'knowing' the grammar of a language, its phonology, its morphology and
its syntax and it is for these aspects of language that, as Chomsky argued,
innate principles of language mature into such knowledge under the influence of
linguistic experience. It is for these aspects of language that critical or sensitive
periods exist in the 'child's path to spoken language' (Locke, 1992). Children do
grow up in very different environments but these leave the onset of language
development relatively unaffected (Lenneberg, 1967: 35) and while the rate of

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