Learning a foreign language such as English can open many doors to our future. Some people argue that children should be taught a second language at primary school, while others believe that it should be done at high school.
There are some benefits to teaching school children a second language. Pupils are usually more eager to learn new things and they look at things as a game. Consequently, we can use this as an opportunity to teach them the second language through recreational activities. In addition, at grade school, pupils have more free time because the primary school curriculum is designed so that it does not put pressure on children. This free time can be used for language learning. Hence, foreign language learning can have some advantages.
Nevertheless, there are some disadvantages to teaching pupils a foreign language. Teachers at primary school are usually trained to teach pupils basic knowledge, such as addition, subtraction, and alphabet. These teachers are not qualified to teach the pupils a second language. If these teachers endeavour to do this reluctantly, this might interfere with the children’s mother tongue and add more stress and pressure for them. In addition, at elementary school, children have just started to learn, if they are forced to learn many things at once, this might be hard for them, and in turn, when they go to secondary school they are no longer keen on learning the second language. Therefore teaching children another language in addition to their mother tongue has some drawbacks.
In conclusion, teaching children a second language can be easy because of their motivation for learning new things, having said that, this can cause some problems for children in terms of their first language and their interest in learning the foreign language in the future.