Many people believe children should begin learning a foreign language in primary school instead of secondary school. Do you think the advantages of learning a foreign language in primary school outweigh the disadvantages?

Today in many countries primary school students study foreign languages. This essay discusses the reasons why the merits of this trend in terms of improving memory skills and being bilingual at an early age, outweigh the drawback of it slowing down the learning of the native language. There are several benefits of learning a foreign language at a young age. A major advantage is that learning a different language in elementary school helps them become bilingual at a younger age. Multilingual elementary-aged students tend to be more adaptable to changes, and problem-solving. Bilingual children outperform monolingual ones in after-school activities and scientific research. For instance, studies have shown that multilingual juveniles can complete mental puzzles quicker and more efficiently than those who only speak one language. In addition, developing memory skills in a foreign language at an early age is much easier. This is because learning a foreign language helps build stronger neural connections between the right and left sides of the brain, resulting in better memory skills. However, the main drawback of learning a second language can lead to a loss of the native language. In detail, studying a different language may be confused by the difference in grammatical conventions of the first and the second languages. Also, learning a foreign language can interfere with learning other subjects like math, science, and chemistry. In conclusion, I believe that the pros such as improving memory skills and bilingualism at an early age dominate the cons of this trend in terms of slowing down the process of learning the native language.