When should children start learning English?

[bingo]

Hi, I'm hoping you can help. There is a debate here where I live about when children should start learning English. With regards to studying the Junior A course some people feel that 2nd grade (7yrs) is a suitable time to start wheras others feel that the children should have at least started the 3rd grade (8yrs). Any advice you can give me woud be much appreciated.

[becki]

I agree. Children should start learning a foreign language as early as possible. When they are young, they have a keener ability to perceive segment sounds in the second language, which allows them to have better pronunciation and sound more like a native speaker. In addition, children are less reserved and inhibited when it comes to language production, so they are able to learn faster and retain more information.

Becki