Learning a foreign language is equally important as other academic coursework. Recently, many schools have started including a foreign language in their course curriculum. I personally believe that it is better to wait until they are older before starting to learn a new language.
If a child starts learning a foreign language as soon as they begin the school, then it will be a burden on their academic coursework. Firstly, the child would have plenty of things to learn, such as basic mathematics, social science, and some science of the world. The mind of the children won’t be fully developed to learn a new language along with all these basic subjects. Secondly, there are plenty of foreign languages to choose from, and children of that age do not have decision-making ability to select from such variety of languages. But on the brighter side, if children start to learn a foreign language as soon as they begin the school, then they would be able to learn it very quickly as they have good learning pace.
On the other hand, if they start learning a foreign language once they are a bit older, then it would be more beneficial because they would have the ability to choose which language they want to learn. Also, at older age, they would have defined some ambition for their life, so they can select the language which aligns with their ambition or their future goals, which would not be possible if they learn the language at a younger age because at that time they won’t have any defined future goal, and it would possibly be a waste of time. Also, learning a new language later in school years would allow students to learn at their own pace.
In the conclusion, if the student learns a foreign language later in their school years, it would be more beneficial because it would be more aligned with their career goals and can help them in the later stage of their life.