Some experts believe that it is better for children to begin learning a foreign language at primary school rather than secondary school. Do the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?

Submitted by Molor-Od on Mon, 01/13/2020 - 00:06

Traditionally, children have begun studying foreign languages at secondary school, but introducing them earlier is recommended by some educationalists. This policy has been adopted by some educational authorities or individual schools, with both positive and negative outcomes

The obvious argument in its favour is that young children pick up languages much more easily than teenagers. Their brains are still programmed to acquire their mother tongue, which facilitates learning another language, and unlike adolescents, they are not inhibited bylself-consciousness.

The greater flexibility of the primary timetable allows for more frequent, shorter sessions and for a play-centred approach, thus maintaining learners' enthusiasm and progress. Their command of the language in later life will benefit from this early exposure, while learning other languages subsequently will be easier for them. They may also gain a better understanding of other cultures.

There are, however, some disadvantages. Primary school teachers are generalists, and may not have the necessary language skills themselves. If specialists have to be brought in to deliver these sessions, the flexibility referred to above is diminished, If primary language teaching is not standardised, secondary schools could be faced with a great variety of levels in different languages within their intake, resulting in a classroom experience which undoes the earlier gains. There is no advantage if enthusiastic primary pupils become demotivated as soon as they change schools, However, these issues can be addressed strategically within the policy adopted.

Anything which encourages language learning benefits society culturally and economically, and early exposure to language learning contributes to this. Young children's innate abilities should be harnessed to make these benefits more achievable.

Votes
Average: 7.8 (1 vote)
Essay Categories
IELTS Writing Task II - IELTS Academic

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, may, second, so, still, thus, while

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 13.1623246493 114% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 7.85571142285 89% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 10.4138276553 86% => OK
Relative clauses : 4.0 7.30460921844 55% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 18.0 24.0651302605 75% => OK
Preposition: 26.0 41.998997996 62% => OK
Nominalization: 2.0 8.3376753507 24% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1613.0 1615.20841683 100% => OK
No of words: 266.0 315.596192385 84% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 6.06390977444 5.12529762239 118% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.03850299372 4.20363070211 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.24616386707 2.80592935109 116% => OK
Unique words: 174.0 176.041082164 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.654135338346 0.561755894193 116% => OK
syllable_count: 503.1 506.74238477 99% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.9 1.60771543086 118% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 5.43587174349 110% => OK
Article: 2.0 2.52805611222 79% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.10420841683 143% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 0.809619238477 494% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 1.0 4.76152304609 21% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 16.0721442886 75% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 22.0 20.2975951904 108% => OK
Sentence length SD: 77.2781322382 49.4020404114 156% => OK
Chars per sentence: 134.416666667 106.682146367 126% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.1666666667 20.7667163134 107% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.91666666667 7.06120827912 70% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.38176352705 114% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.01903807615 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.67935871743 115% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 3.9879759519 25% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 3.4128256513 29% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.288292455903 0.244688304435 118% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0963697948924 0.084324248473 114% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.065000242257 0.0667982634062 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.14466555065 0.151304729494 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0501015772072 0.056905535591 88% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.2 13.0946893788 139% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 23.77 50.2224549098 47% => Flesch_reading_ease is low.
smog_index: 11.2 7.44779559118 150% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.4 11.3001002004 136% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 17.87 12.4159519038 144% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 10.49 8.58950901804 122% => OK
difficult_words: 97.0 78.4519038076 124% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 16.0 9.78957915832 163% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 10.1190380762 107% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 10.7795591182 102% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 78.6516853933 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 7.0 Out of 9
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.