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

"...at least for child second language learners first language
transfer∕interference was unimportant in the acquisition of syntax."
(Hatch, 1978a: 39)

The 'L1=L2^, hypothesis had a profound influence not only on starting age but
also on teaching methodology. Claims were made that, at least for children,
language instruction and the teaching of syntax was not necessary and that one
should 'leave the learning to the children' (Dulay & Burt, 1973: 257). All that
would be needed for successful second language acquisition and learning was
to replicate the conditions of first language development:

"Teaching a new language means creating for students a part or all of their
new language environment." (Dulay, Burt & Krashen, 1982:13/14)

However, not all morpheme studies have shown the same conclusive results.
Larsen-Freeman (1975) found that accuracy orders varied with tasks and asked
for caution in claiming an invariant acquisition order for second languages.

Wode (1978) claimed that the results of his stud es suggested that while a
second language might be acquired in a certain developmental sequence, first
language and second language acquisition sequences for a particular language
might still be different. Wode also claimed that all children learning a second
language relied on prior knowledge of their first language. The claims made by
the early morpheme studies have also been challenged by Hatch (1978) who
suggested that in carrying out these studies morphemes which should have
been separated were grouped together, such as definite and indefinite articles,

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