English? Yes, but when, why and how?

Deciding the appropriate age to start learning English has been for long time, and still continues being a source of debate. Here, in the in the Basque country, since the implement of the “Eleanitz” project, in the early 90s, children start learning English at the age of four. But are we sure that this is the optimal age to start?

Some people argue that there is no necessity to start so early. In many other countries of Europe, kids start much later and they get even better results than here. Why does this happen?

In our opinion one of the keys would be the exposure to the foreign language. Maybe, in some countries start later, however, they spent much more time in contact with English. This aspect of giving much time to English in higher stages of the school has been seen like a threat to the euskera for many people, and this was the reason, to start teaching children English so early. The younger they start, they will have an earlier contact to English and they will not need so many hours of English in later stages. In conclusion, “Eleanitz” decided to give a graduate exposure for long time, instead of a higher exposure in older ages, when euskera is supposed to be more present.

After saying this, is quite obvious that having a high exposure is indispensable to acquire a language, but this does not guarantee a good competence of the language. It is also indispensable to have high quality learning. A naturalistic approach is meant to be the best way to introduce children to a foreign language, in other word,s the opposite of a grammar focused teaching.

In conclusion here are two key factors to take to account when learning a language. So if you have a high exposure and quality learning, you could learn English at any age.

Keeping in all this in mind, we had to decide for our project in which age should start kids learning English. Considering what we have explained before about exposure we think kids should start as early as possible, so four years would be a perfect age to start with it at school. 

Furthermore we have found other important reasons that support this idea of the early starting. One of them would be the pronunciation, children at this age have an advantage to acquire a good pronunciation. And the other one is that children at this age, learn by playing and do not feel under pressure.