There are just my rough thoughts on English in the Primary / Elementary Schools in relation to the age and acquisition discussions going on. I add no references, will do so later. *** The question about there being a critical age (or not) for the acquisition of a foreign language has long been discussed and we will leave this discussion to the true experts (Birdsong, Singleton, Pfenninger, etc…). So let us assume that they are right and that English for the sake of English has no place in Swiss elementary schools. I can agree with this. It is clear to me that there is no point in having English at the elementary school level for the sake of language competence in English itself. However, there are reasons for having English at the primary school which might make sense. These reasons could be that: a child’s metalinguistic awareness is augmented (proof ?) by having an early language; a child knows German or his or her mother tongue in a different way than a child who has no acce