teaching children a foreign language early
Certain primary schools begin teaching their students another language. While I accept that there are several drawbacks of this trend, I tend towards the viewpoint that it has beneficial impacts on students.
On the one hand, by learning a new language in primary school years, pupils can face up to two major issues. Firstly, students are more likely to get confused with their own mother tongue language. A recent study by National University shows that more than 40% of primary students in Vietnam have difficulties in speaking Vietnamese when learning it and English simultaneously. Secondly, studying a foreign language can cause children stress. Rather than concentrating on several areas of knowledge such as Math or Science, they also have to focus on another language, which can increase pressure on them, particularly those who do not show an aptitude for foreign languages. For example, to my brother, learning English has become an obsession, because this means he is compelled to do more homework, which makes him have less time to relax.
On the other hand, personally, I believe that these setbacks are outweighed by the benefits. One benefit is that school boys and girls are about to pick up new words faster because they have tendency to develop their language ability at the fastest speed. Hence, they will be able to prepare certain lexical resources before they are forced to cope with considerably more complex grammars. Another benefit is that children have more chances to explore foreign cultures. By understanding clearly the cultures of several countries, they are less likely to experience cultural shock and easily adjust themselves to live in these countries. Additionally, learning another language is an effective way to improve children's flexibility and memory. New York Times revealed that more than 60% of primary students who learn more than one language tend to be more active and memorise facts or figures better.
In conclusion, although teaching a foreign language at primary school has some disadvantages, it seems to me that this is more likely to have positive influences on children.
@thaongoc
your essay is very good on the whole but there are some points to consider
i think you can't use another language instead of foreign language, it is not a synonym
"... boys and girls are about to pick up new words faster" i think you mean are able to pick up
you need to revise your grammer i guess
Holt Educational Consultant - / 15466 Ngoc, please provide the full original instruction for your essay prompt the next time that you post an essay so that I can better review your response for instruction adherence and discussion relevance. Your current work will be reviewed without those elements considered. The opening statement that you present falls short of the required 3 sentence minimum for a proper paragraph. As such, it does not accurately represent the prompt requirements in terms of discussion topic and discussion style. Since these are some of the most important elements of the test, it can actually help you to pass of fail the test, don't expect to get any helpful scoring marks in this section of the essay scoring consideration.
Your essay tries to discuss too many elements per paragraph. Within a 30 minute time frame, you will not be able to do this in the actual setting. Focus on developing only one line of reasoning per paragraph that you can completely discuss within 5 sentences. Do not try to discuss more than one per paragraph because the examiner needs to see evidence that your understanding of the prompt requirement will be properly reflected in the reasons that you are giving. That cannot be done when you present 2 or 3 evidences per paragraph with only one explanatory sentence to support it.
Your concluding remarks do not properly summarize the given topic for discussion, summarized data, and a repetition of your personal opinion as the closing sentence of the discussion. A properly developed concluding sentence should easily reflect the information provided by the opening statement in a more complete and informative manner covering the maximum 5 sentences.
Hi, there are some points that I don't agree with your argument
1. According to linguistics, children can learn up to 3 languages or more without falling into a state of confusion.
During my teaching time, students who started learning English at very young age perform better than adults in terms of vocabulary, reaction, memory ..... In fact, children do not have a lot of other things to care about and due to their psychology matter, they learn by playing and the amount of language input is small so they won't find it hard to excel in other languages.
2. Your benefits and drawbacks tend to conflict each other. One proposal in the disadvantage is to confuse with their mother tongue language, second is they learn in their fastest pace.
3. Culture is a very broad context and most of textbooks do not prepare such exposure for student to cope with in their future life.
@hailung
Thank you for your comment.
- But as i know, many students who learn foreign language early have difficulty in speaking their mother tongue language. They find it difficult to express their ideas.
- I think my benefits and drawbacks do not conflict each other. When small, children can learn fastest but they still can feel confused with their mother tongue, right?
- I only say that children "are less likely...", not do not have to cope with the problem about culture in the future.
Yep, it's my opinion. Would you mind helping me to improve my essay? Thanks so much.
