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Why a Foreign Language Should be Taught in Elementary Schools

            
             Your sister's elementary school currently does not include any foreign language instructions in its curriculum. Many of the parents at the school would like it to be included, but the administrators and teachers feel that there are more important things to teach. Prepare a report on the potential benefits of introducing a foreign language at this level, and recommend an effective approach for making this change in the curriculum. Learning a foreign language has always been a point of discussion, particularly in the U.S.A., which is very much behind other countries concerning foreign language education. While in most European countries foreign languages are introduced at the elementary school level (mostly English but followed by a mandatory second foreign language later on), foreign languages in many American schools are actually only offered after 7th grade. Of course English is still the most widely spoken language in the world, but knowing other languages has several very important advantages, linguistically as well as culturally. All of these advantages can be used to the fullest when foreign language education is started in elementary school.
             "The critical period hypothesis (CPH) as proposed by Lenneberg (1967) holds that primary language acquisition must occur during a critical period which ends at about the age of puberty with the establishment of cerebral lateralization of function" (Snow and Hoefnagel- Höhle). Lenneberg's hypothesis only deals with acquisition of a primary language but studies have shown that his hypothesis also applies to the acquisition of a second language. Lenneberg's argument contained two parts. First, he stated that normal language learning occurs primarily during childhood (the critical period). At the time there was no direct evidence for his hypothesis, so Lenneberg used indirect evidence to support his data, like differences of aphasia in adults and children, and differences in language acquisition before and after puberty in the mentally retarded.


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