Some experts believe that it is better for children to begin learning a foreign language at primary school rather than secondary school. Do the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?
Traditionally, children have begun studying foreign languages at secondary school, but introducing them earlier is recommended by some educationalists. This policy has been adopted by some educational authorities or individual schools, with both positive and negative outcomes.
The obvious argument in its favour is that young children pick up languages much more easily than teenagers. Their brains are still programmed to acquire their mother tongue, which facilitates learning another language, and unlike adolescents, they are not inhabited by self-consciousness.
The greater flexibility of the primary timetable allows for more frequent, shorter sessions and for a play-centred approach, thus maintaining learners’ enthusiasm and progress. Their command of the language in later life will benefit from this early exposure, while learning other languages subsequently will be easier for them. They may also gain a better understanding of other cultures.
There are, however, some disadvantages. Primary school teachers are generalists, and may not have the necessary language skills themselves. If specialists have to be brought in to deliver these sessions, the flexibility referred to above is diminished. If primary language teaching is not standardised, secondary schools could be faced with a great variety of levels in different languages within their intake, resulting in a classroom experience which undoes the earlier gains. There is no advantage if enthusiastic primary pupils become demotivated as soon as they change schools. However, these issues can be addressed strategically within the policy adopted.
Anything which encourages language learning benefits society culturally and economically, and early exposure to language learning contributes to this. Young children’s innate abilities should be harnessed to make these benefits more achievable.
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Comments
I have tested several essays,
I have tested several essays, some are written by some professional trainers, and this one comes for Cambridge IELTS 9 test 1 writing task 2, writing by an examiner, which is band 9. It seems that this algorithm has serious flaws.
The score is based on the
The score is based on machine learning technology and the average score of 20,000 essays by our users. The e-grader will give penalties if the value is less or over the average scores. for example, in this essay:
No of words: 267.0 315.596192385 85% => More content wanted.
the average value is 315 words, while this essay has only 267 words, so this essay will never get 9.0 out of 9 in the view of e-grader.
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we agree this algorithm is not perfect. You can compare the score to average score of other users however.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, may, second, so, still, thus, while
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 13.1623246493 114% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 7.85571142285 89% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 10.4138276553 86% => OK
Relative clauses : 4.0 7.30460921844 55% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 18.0 24.0651302605 75% => OK
Preposition: 27.0 41.998997996 64% => OK
Nominalization: 2.0 8.3376753507 24% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1625.0 1615.20841683 101% => OK
No of words: 267.0 315.596192385 85% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 6.0861423221 5.12529762239 119% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.04229324003 4.20363070211 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.27790039644 2.80592935109 117% => OK
Unique words: 175.0 176.041082164 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.65543071161 0.561755894193 117% => OK
syllable_count: 506.7 506.74238477 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.9 1.60771543086 118% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 5.43587174349 110% => OK
Interrogative: 0.0 0.384769539078 0% => OK
Article: 3.0 2.52805611222 119% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.10420841683 143% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 0.809619238477 494% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 1.0 4.76152304609 21% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 16.0721442886 93% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 20.2975951904 84% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 47.7555814074 49.4020404114 97% => OK
Chars per sentence: 108.333333333 106.682146367 102% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.8 20.7667163134 86% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.93333333333 7.06120827912 56% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.38176352705 114% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.01903807615 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.67935871743 115% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 3.9879759519 50% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 3.4128256513 88% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.286652286671 0.244688304435 117% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0827370388755 0.084324248473 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0673652608693 0.0667982634062 101% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.143977357179 0.151304729494 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0503327890011 0.056905535591 88% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.2 13.0946893788 124% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 28.84 50.2224549098 57% => Flesch_reading_ease is low.
smog_index: 11.2 7.44779559118 150% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.5 11.3001002004 119% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 17.75 12.4159519038 143% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 10.22 8.58950901804 119% => OK
difficult_words: 97.0 78.4519038076 124% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 9.78957915832 133% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 10.1190380762 87% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 10.7795591182 121% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 78.6516853933 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 7.0 Out of 9
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.