In England & Wales there is no government stipulation for foreign language learning at schools. Each school has the freedom of making her own decision. On the whole most educators have been reluctant in starting foreign language learning at an early age. However, it is now planned that in 2010 school children will start foreign language learning at the age of 7.
Scotland has her own educational system, in many ways different from that in other parts of UK.
From 1989 on, ten-year-olders start to experiment learning a foreign language, mostly French. In 1997, after the experiment proved to be successful, all ten-year-olders started foreign language learning, averaging 80 minutes a week.
In Canada, 4-10th graders learn either French or English (in Quebec) as a second language, totaling 600 periods (averaging 4 periods a week).
In France, starting from the late 1980s they started experimenting foreign language learning at primary schools. In the 1990s the government stipulated that foreign language learning should start at the age of 7. Because of the lack of qualified teachers, in many places TV lessons and tapes were widely used, aided by group-coaching. At the end of the 1990s the government started an in-service training program for primary school English teachers.
In South Korea, school children learn English from the 3rd form on to the 6th form, for one period a week, learning totally about 700 words.
In Japan, for a long time English had been made an elective course at middle school until 2002 when it was made a required course at senior high. Also in 2002 English was listed, in primary schools, as one of the elective courses in the “comprehensive study time” . It is left to the principal to decide whether to have English or not.
Hungary has a relatively longer history of foreign language teaching at school. Before the 1990s it was mainly Russian and afterwards it became mainly German and English. Lessons start from the 3rd form on, 3-5 periods each week.
In Spain, foreign language learning started in 1992/3 at primary schools (8-10 years olders). The languages are mainly French and English, averaging 3 periods a week.
In Italy, experiment of foreign language learning at school started as early as in the 1960s. In 1978 the experiment became large scale. In 1985 the government stipulated that school children should start foreign language learning (English, French, German or Spanish) at the age of 8, or even 7 where conditions are better.
In Holland, after a long preparation and research (1968-1986) the government decided to start foreign language learning (only English) at school from ten-year-olders on. Because of ample preparation and a good language environment English language learning at school has been very successful in this country.
Although situations in different countries and regions differ from each, the general trend is that more and more countries in the West are beginning to have the English course at primary school level. The beginning year, however, differs and the number of hours in each week also differs.
What’s Happening in China
Great progress has been made since the Curriculum Reform started and the new Syllabus Standard was implemented in the year 2001.
There are at present about 112,463,000 Primary School Children in China.
Some Principles concerning Primary School English Education
1. Primary School English Education being the “Dragon Head”
In the year 1960 China’s late premier Mr Zhou Enlai said that the teaching of English from primary school to college should be so arranged as to form a continuous whole. He pet-named this “ 一条龙” , (a dragon) with head, body and tail, without any disconnection nor unnecessary repetition.
The head of this “dragon” should be the primary school period, which is the most critical time in the long run. During this period a good foundation should be laid.
This foundation includes: interest for the language; pleasant pronunciation; love for singing English songs and chanting children poems; love for playing games in English; love for performing in English; habit of greeting in English; habit of saying “thank you, please, excuse me”; habit of speaking English in the classroom and on the playground during the break.
2. Quality or Character Education should be fully incorporated into daily English lessons and outside of the classroom. School children should be nurtured the love of mankind, love of people around them, love of nature, love of animals, love of the earth, respect for the elderly, sympathy for the less fortunate, etc.
3. In the primary school classroom, stress should be put on enabling the children to do things in English, like playing games in English, etc. In other words, Task-based Approach also applies to primary school language learning, though on a rather everyday level.
The following principles should be applied, particularly in foreign language learning of the children:Learning by doing, Doing in learning, and Learning for doing.
4. In primary school classrooms more bodily senses should be made use of, such as the sense of seeing, sense of hearing, sense of touch, sense of smell and sense of taste.
5. Since children are good in imitating and memorizing things, the main teaching techniques should be, according to their age: listening to understand; acting according to teacher’s instruction; repeating after the teacher; playing games in simple English; acting little dialogus; chanting; singing; reciting little poems; describing pictures; writing simple captions for pictures; retelling stories; putting on little plays, etc.
6. At Primary school, no Grammar as such should be taught. However, the children should know:
1) The word-order of an English sentence is not the same as that of Chinese. They should know not to say “She not is my sister”.
2) The children should learn to say “ I was late for class this morning” and “I went to the park with my parents yesterday” instead of being taught that “went” is the past tense form of “go” and “was” is the past tense form of “am”.
3) The idea of “pattern” should be taught to the children instead of the analysis of the grammatical structure of the sentence.
In other words, children should be encouraged to reproduce what they have repeatedly heard and remembered but not to “make” a sentence by what “grammar” they have learnt, even less by translating a sentence in Chinese into English.
Some people think that it is not possible nor feasible to try to make the children think in English. In fact, it is not only possible but also highly feasible so long as we have the correct way of teaching—mainly by the Direct Method.
7.In vocabulary learning, the children should, whenever possible, be “shown” the meaning of words in contexts by gestures, body language, actions, pictures, real objects and demonstrations instead of being “told” in Chinese. The “direct method” should be used as much as possible.
The way of learning words or “remembering” them is to hear them repeated a lot and use them a lot in speaking (and writing), and whenever possible, in games and demonstrations. For instance, the words for different colors can be taught together with the names of fruits.
8. In teaching children pronunciation, apart from correct pronunciation of sounds in words, emphasis should also be put on word stress, sentence stress and the tones. They should be made to be aware of the rhythm of the language from the very beginning.
Phonetic symbols should not be taught at primary school. Instead, children should by and by be taught the basic Rules of Reading and made to understand that “ee”“ ea” are usually pronounced /i:/ in words, etc.
9. Even school children, though young, should be taught to have cross-cultural awareness. They should be told that in the English-speaking countries, expressions such as “please, thank you, excuse me” are used much more frequently than in China, which is a part of their culture and something we should learn from them.
10. Formative Evaluation should be practiced instead of Summative Evaluation. Tests and quizzes can be used to check the children’s command but not as a way of evaluating their achievements. The teacher should be clear of children’s strong points and weaknesses and problems from their daily performances and long-term progress.
11. Since children tend to be more sensitive and responsive to the outside world, out-of-class language acquisition should be paid more attention to. For instance, more outdoor games should be played in English, the classroom should be decorated in English, more English songs should be taught, etc.
12.Teaching material for children should be closely linked with their everyday life and things and matters they are interested in and concerned about.
Conclusion
A good beginning is a thing half done.
Interest in English is the most important starting-point for the children to learn the language well. Hence the foremost duty of a primary school teacher is to try his best to arouse the children’s interest, a sustainable interest for that matter, in the language and in learning it.
My Strong Belief
Once a child has been led onto the right track in his/her learning, there will be no need to worry about his/her later development.
(This paper is based on Professor Chen Lin’s talk on 2008 International Conference on Primary English which was held from Oct.18 to Oct.20 .)
