Some people believe that it is better for children to begin learning a foreign language at primary school rather than secondary school. Discuss both views and give your opinion.
The virtues of learning foreign languages are too visible to be neglected. But is it wise to burden children with foreign language lessons from their primary school? I rather doubt it. From my perspective, it should be optional rather than compulsory.
On the one hand, it is an undeniable fact that learning foreign languages can develop the cognitive skills of children. It has been proved that bilingual people are more prone to see issues from different angles and their decision process is faster than their monolingual peers. Apart from that, this can also fuel their communication skills, so making friends would not be challenging for them. Moreover, knowing additional languages improves their career prospects, thereby their employability will be enhanced in their later life.
Even if having considered all these facts, would they enough to making language classes mandatory before secondary school? By no means, our future dreams should not be at the cost of children's spare time. At their earlier ages, their freedom, desires, should be our first priority instead of imposing our preferences. We cannot want from them to sacrifice their childhood, all we can do is just to drum up more interest in such things which in turn will be very useful as time goes by. Taking into consideration that they have a long education life in times to come, it would be cruelty of us to demand more.
In conclusion, I reaffirm my position that we try to lighten children's burden at their earlier ages and spending extra time to learning a foreign language should depend on their choices.
children's burden
The virtues of learning foreign languages are too visible to be neglected. But is it wise to burden children with foreign language lessons from their primary school? I rather doubt it. From my perspective, it should be optional rather than compulsory.
On the one hand, it is an undeniable fact that learning foreign languages can develop the cognitive skills of children. It has been proved that bilingual people are more prone to see issues from different angles and their decision process is faster than their monolingual peers. Apart from that, this can also fuel their communication skills, so making friends would not be challenging for them. Moreover, knowing additional languages improves their career prospects, thereby their employability will be enhanced in their later life.
Even if having considered all these facts, would they enough to making language classes mandatory before secondary school? By no means, our future dreams should not be at the cost of children's spare time. At their earlier ages, their freedom, desires, should be our first priority instead of imposing our preferences. We cannot want from them to sacrifice their childhood, all we can do is just to drum up more interest in such things which in turn will be very useful as time goes by. Taking into consideration that they have a long education life in times to come, it would be cruelty of us to demand more.
In conclusion, I reaffirm my position that we try to lighten children's burden at their earlier ages and spending extra time to learning a foreign language should depend on their choices.