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

"The ability level peaks earlier."

"Lower ability pupils be∞me saturated before the end of S4."

"Lower ability pupils are soon demoralised, by the time they get to S4 they've
had enough."

"Possibly a lack of interest develops among weaker pupils after 3/4 years of
the FL..." (Lowetal., 1995: 164)

As Burstall et al. (1974) reported, the introduction of reading and writing,
especially, proved to be a major obstacle for many children, particularly those
with special educational needs. With the introduction Ofwritten language some
children began to struggle and the gap between higher and lower achievers
started to widen. The Scottish final report (1995) states that 'there was clear
ambivalence about the introduction Ofwriting tasks' and that for some children
'this meant a wistful look back to the fun of primary'. The comment of a child in
the first year of secondary school highlights the problem:

"I think Γm getting a lot of stuff wrong in French because I can't spell it right.
I really enjoyed French in primary school, but when you're packing your bag
you're thinking "oh no we've got French", it's so different in high school than
primary." (Lowetal., 1995: 74)

Higher ability children on the other hand were bored with repeating the same
language, songs and stories and would have liked a much earlier introduction to
reading and writing than had been the case. The more able children would
have liked to do more written work and girls, especially, felt that at primary
school 'too much time had been spent on certain topics and the repetition of

153

<<   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   >>

More intriguing information