Abstract:

Teaching Foreign Language to Children According to Learning Theories- In parallel with the increasing struggles of both private and state institutions to teach foreign languages all over the world, in Turkey again in state and private schools age of acquisition of a foreign language has been reduced. The aim of this study is to discuss some issues related with teaching foreign language to children which has become a hot topic due to the start of Ministry of National Education’s (MoNE) teaching English to second grade primary school students as of 2013-2014 academic year. In this study we first addressed the considerations regarding the definition of child learners and which age group individuals are considered as child learner. Then we discussed general education theories and language learning theories about children and the methodologies inspired from those theories. We also tried to show to what extent the widely held belief that younger learners learn a second language better than relatively older learners do is true. Finally, we discussed the idea that foreign language teaching addresses the three aspects (cognitive, motor, and affective development of children) of the primary school curricula.

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