Children learning English from the age of 6 achieve better results in oral and written comprehension as teenagers than those who started lessons later.
- In France, a living language is taught one and a half hours per week to elementary school pupils.
- English is learned from CE1, and two foreign languages have been compulsory in middle school since 2010.
The earlier we learn a foreign language, the better our understanding will be in the years to come.
This is the result reached by an international team of researchers. In the review Systemshe explains that starting English lessons early in elementary school leads to better results once in high school.
A better understanding of English in adolescence
The study looked at nearly 3,000 college students who participated in a longitudinal study conducted in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, between 2010 and 2014. This same data had also been used in a 2017 study, and who had compared two cohorts, one of which had started English lessons in the first year (6-7 years old), the other in the third year (9 years old).
This previous study found that children who started English lessons earlier in primary school performed worse in reading and listening comprehension in seventh grade (13 years old) than children who had not started. English lessons before the third year.
But surprisingly, this new study shows that in ninth grade, which is around age 15, children who started English lessons early performed better than those who started late.
A more concrete practice of English in high school
“We believe the most plausible explanation is that lessons following the transition period in secondary education have been increasingly tailored to the needs of children who start taking English lessons at an early stage.explains Nils Jäkel. This explanation is consistent with research that considers the transition between school types to play a key role in the long-term success of teaching English across school boundaries.”
According to him, it is crucial to optimize the coordination of learning and the alignment of English lessons at the intersection between primary school, middle school and high school. It is also possible that pupils will benefit in the long term from more implicit language lessons in primary school.
“We see a significant need for research to elaborate the success factors of language teaching, and we recommend well-coordinated and evidence-based measures in education policy in general”conclude the researchers.
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