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

Whether the evidence supports such a strong claim will be the focus of the
following pages. As has been stated, during first language development
children proceed through a number of developmental stages each
characterised by a critical or sensitive period beyond which development, while
not completely impossible, is at least deemed to be qualitatively different.
Whether critical periods and a so-called 'biological clock' do indeed exist in the
context of second language development will be the subject of the following
discussions.

2.3.1 A Critical Period in Second Language Development?

The literature on the age factor in language learning has produced much
ambiguous data with arguments put forward both in support of the notion that
'younger is better¹ as well as against and thus hard to reconcile. Conflicting
and controversial research results would seem to leave many researchers 'in a
state of baffled agnosticism' (Singleton, 1989: 46). A critical survey of the
literature on age in second language development will form the focus of the rest
of this chapter. At the start it seems important to suggest that much of this state
of 'baffled agnosticism' is created by a lack of precision and clarification in the
use of concepts such as 'acquisition' and 'learning' or 'puberty^, and
'adolescence', with the first a biological intrapersonal concept and the second
more a social interpersonal one. The literature also seems to display a degree
of imprecision in the formation of questions. What exactly does younger or
older mean? What does good, better or worse mean? If 'younger is better* then
what is it better for? Is faster necessarily better? Is slower necessarily worse?

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