Original practice question
Some people think children should start learning a foreign language at the beginning of primary school. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
- 1
Position
Agree if the early lesson is short, spoken, and taught by someone who can actually speak the language. Disagree if it is a grammar worksheet supervised by a class teacher who cannot.
- 2
Body paragraph 1
- Point
- Young children can copy sound and routine before they are embarrassed, which is the part adult beginners find hardest.
- Explanation
- A fifteen-minute oral pattern, every day, uses that advantage. It does not require an analytic grammar. Pupils who hear the sound early are less likely to treat the language as an exam subject that starts, frighteningly, at eleven. The gain is an ear, not a certificate.
- Example
- A year-two class that sang the same classroom instructions in the second language and could follow them by the summer, without a written test.
- 3
Body paragraph 2
- Point
- A worksheet from a teacher who does not speak the language teaches errors with confidence.
- Explanation
- Primary timetables are full. Dumping a foreign language onto a general teacher, with a book and no oral model, spends the years that were supposed to be the advantage. Later specialists then undo the pronunciation. Starting early is not a good in itself. The speaker in the room is the policy.
- Example
- A class teacher following a tape they could not correct, so the pupils rehearsed a wrong vowel for a year.
- 4
Conclusion
Start early with a short oral lesson and a competent speaker. Do not start early with a grid and a hopeful generalist.