Some people believe that children should begin learning a foreign language at primary school rather than at secondary school. Do the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?

The principal benefit of starting early is that young learners acquire a foreign language far more naturally than teenagers. Before the age of around ten, the brain absorbs new sounds and grammar patterns almost effortlessly, which is why pupils who begin in primary school tend to develop a more authentic accent. In Morocco,

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, those who learn French from their first years of schooling usually speak it with far greater ease than those who meet it only later. Closely linked to

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is the growth in confidence that early exposure brings. Because young learners are less afraid of making mistakes, they experiment freely with what they hear and,

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, build the habit of speaking rather than merely memorising rules.

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, the policy does carry certain disadvantages. The most obvious is the pressure it adds to an already crowded timetable, since time devoted to French or English is time taken from reading, mathematics or play.

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, many primary schools lack teachers who are themselves fluent, and poor instruction can leave children with errors that are difficult to correct later. The rural schools of the Atlas region,

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, often struggle to recruit qualified staff for

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subject.

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, these problems are matters of planning and investment rather than flaws in the idea itself, and they can be addressed through proper teacher training.