A Critical Examination of the Beliefs about Learning a Foreign Language at Primary School

system that would have enabled them to manipulate language in order to
produce new utterances of their own':

"There was, however, hardly any evidence to suggest that pupils were aware
of one of the most basic characteristics of any language, i.e. language as a
system that functions ac∞rding to rules." (Low et al., 1995: 2)

The final report states several times that pupils used mainly prefabricated and
memorised chunks of language and were unable to use language creatively and
concludes that:

"...there appeared to be little increase in pupils' ability to manipulate language
creatively in spontaneous interaction. Their output seemed to ∞nsist mainly of
holophrases or prefabricated utterances, there was little general evidence of
creating novel utterances..." (Low et al., 1995: 177)

Low & Wolfe (1996) discuss the impact of primary foreign languages on a
secondary school in Scotland. They report that 'accuracy and the ability to
manipulate the language were largely absent and there was a reluctance to
remedy this on the part of the pupils' (Low & Wolfe, 1996: 36). It is further
stated that:

"...pupils had a bigger collection of single words on a wider range of topics but
were still unable to manipulate the foreign language; for example, although
more complex structures such as the use of the third person as well as the first
and second had been taught, they had not been retained by the pupils..."
(Low & Wolfe, 1996: 32)

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