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?
In globalized era, children have to be able to speak in any foreign languages to communicate with the outside world. Some experts argue if children these days should learn a foreign language as soon as they start school. While I believe that this idea has advantages and disadvantages, yet I personally argue that it has more positive effects instead of the negatives.
First of all, if ones wants to get outcome soon, they have to start sooner. The early children who learn a foreign language in their golden age tend to be a fast learner. This is because in the early ages, their brain has a sensitive nerve cell to memorize everything quickly. According to Anna Maria's research, an educational experts found that around 95% of the brain growth is in the first or second ages. As a result, it is the best occasion for children to recognize words so that they are able to speak more than one language in the early stage. More broadly, children who learn a foreign language in their early years are more likely to achieve high result, as they do not worry to be afraid about mistakes when they start to speak. A study of this topic in 1998 reported that the early children do not afraid of making grammatical errors on their speaking. Hence, they have a better chance to get right pronunciation or accent of a language through their repetition words and sentences.
However, the drawback of this is in their native language developments. Although they are able to speak and write in a foreign language frequently, they tend to develop their mother tongue. This is because they just focus on memorizing foreign words and implementing them into their routine communication with their peers or relatives. Taking Indonesian students as an example. When they take international schools as their formal education, they are forced to speak and write in English every day. Then, Bahasa as their native language is not performed well in their daily activities.
Overall, I think that it is really essential for children to learn a foreign language in their early stages due to its benefits in their life. Therefore, I firmly believe that learning a foreign language at primary schools is the best time for children to develop and gain more knowledge. (384 words)
