Content Introduction Chapter The Role of Translation and Mother Tongue in flt

Group or Team Working
Team working promotes cooperative learning for the reason that students learn from their peers by developing certain strategies, such as working together for problem-solving activities, gathering information, etc. The criteria for grouping the teacher should follow are (Madrid, 1996: 140-141):
• Though students are given enough freedom to form the groups, the teacher should ensure there are the same number of less successful and successful students in groups of six or seven students.

• Keeping the same groups for a long time results in the saving of time when organising the class.

• The fact that there are one or more successful learners with a higher level in each group prevents the teacher from having to go one by one making sure they have understood the instructions and checking what they are doing is correct.

• Carrying out group tasks requires the teacher to prepare them strongly and beforehand.

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2.1. Young Learners and Foreign Language Learning. Young learners are a specific group (not only) in FLT. Clark (1989, p. 7) writes that the system of their L1 is not fully developed, they may still be learning the rules of their own language. They are still developing their communication skills, as well. As he points out, young learners hence do not have the same range of language skills to draw upon on the learning of L2 as secondary school learners. Cameron (2011, p. 13) points that children enter the FLL with differently developed skills and learning abilities in their L1. Nevertheless, Scott and Ytreberg (1990, p. 4) assert that children of eight have a language with all the basic elements in place and are competent users of their mother tongue. They further assert that they have a sort of language awareness which they bring with them into the foreign language classroom. Pinter refers to Piaget's theory of cognitive development noting that children from seven to eleven years of age are in their concrete operational stage, when their ability to apply logical reasoning is restricted to immediate context (Curtain and Pesola, 1988, p. 66). According to Scott and Ytreberg (1990, p. 4) young learners learn best when their L2 learning shadows the process of mother tongue acquisition. They contemplate that as far as children's foreign language learning (henceforth "FLL") is concerned, there are many similarities between learning L1 and L2 although the age and time available differ. The theory that the way young children learn a foreign language is similar to their L1 acquisition and it can be applied in a classroom environment is doubted by Cook (2010, p. 133) who considers this a popular misconception. Cook (ibid.) argues that a classroom exposure to a few lessons a week differs from every-day