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

acquire 'because it runs deeper into the centre of the student's personality than
any other aspects of language’ (Stevick ,1976: 64). In any case, as Singleton
(1995) argued, the success of all the exceptional older learners suggests that
most studies show 'a tendency rather than an absolute rule'.

2.3.3 Maturational Constraints and the Acquisition of Syntax and
Morphology

While there might be near consensus on pre-puberty being the best time for
native-like acquisition of pronunciation in a target language environment, the
question of maturational constraints in the acquisition of the syntax and
morphology of a second language is far more complex.

A number of studies carried out into the acquisition of syntax and morphology of
a second language have produced much controversial data (Scovel 1969,
Ervin-Tripp 1974, Oller & Nagato 1974, Fathman 1975, Ramirez & Politzer
1978, Snow & Hoefnagel-Hohle 1978, Neufeld 1979, Krashen, Long &
Scarcella 1979, Patkowski 1980, Johnson & Newport 1989, Ioup, Boustagui,
Tigi & Moselle 1994, Ioup 1995, Martohardjono & Flynn 1995, Radnai 1996).
Several point to the superiority of the older learner in the area of syntactical and
morphological development and the adolescent generally seems to perform
better than the both the adult or the younger child.

Scovel (1969) who had claimed a critical period for the acquisition of a
native-like accent in a se∞nd language nevertheless hypothesized that it was

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