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

This study is concerned with the formal learning of a foreign language within the
artificial constraints of the classroom, a learning environment where
context-specific variables are crucial. Nevertheless, it has become necessary
'to sift through the body of research and theory in second language acquisition
in order to identify what might be relevant to language pedagogy' and to
establish 'the pedagogical utility of research carried out by Universal Grammar
inspired second language acquisition researchers' (Ellis, 1997b: 73). A review
of the literature thus seems to suggest that some of the most considerable
'leaps in logic' were made in the area of young children learning second
languages.

Setting aside for the moment the validity of the goal of 'native-speaker likeness'
for all second language learning, an attempt will be made to establish, from the
available literature, whether native-speaker like competence is indeed possible
if the learning of a second language starts after puberty or whether, as
Long (1990) for example claimed, the acquisition of linguistic abilities in a
second language is successful during sensitive periods but irregular and
incomplete after these. In other words, do critical (or sensitive) periods and
maturational constraints exist beyond which the 'learning' of a language
becomes, if not impossible, at least problematic, and if they do exist, do they
exist for all aspects of language? Evidence from the literature will be examined
that could support the belief that 'younger is better* for learning a second
language, particularly a foreign language in the classroom. Within this debate,
a distinction between contexts in terms of who learns which language and

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