Is it good for children to begin learning a foreign language at primary school ?
In recent years, due to globalization learning foreign languages has become a tendency. Many educational specialist as well as parents suppose that primary school is better environment for children to begin learning a foreign language than in secondary school. This policy has been adopted by some educational authorities, individual schools bringing either pros and cons.
The significant advantage of learning a foreign language is the younger children are the faster and more completely they learn. Because, children are very curious about new things and good at mimicking. Furthermore, they are not afraid to make mistakes whilst practicing a new language. Thus the more they practice the more improved they will get. On the others hand, if adults easily fall into the pattern of their native language,making learning a new foreign language hard. Children however are still learning their native language, therefore they do not have an established patterns to fall back on. As a result, new materials is a lot easier for them to learn.
Efficiency of learning a new language however not only depends on children themselves but also on others factors such as teachers and teaching methods. Most of elementary teachers are generalist leading to teaching methods would be lack of proficiency. And if children are not gained fundamental foreign language basically, then they won't be flexible enough to cope with variety levels of that language in higher schools.
Thus, beside encouraging children to study a foreign language at young ages, educational specialist, schools, and parents should take care of material resources ( books, tv programs, etc.) as well as suitable teaching methods. Otherwise, children hardly achieve goals in learning new languages in afterwards schools.