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

"This activity, and others like model-making or colouring in a workbook, can,
however, be∞me a time-consuming refuge from learning. Such tasks all too
frequently indicate undigested modern methods; the principle of activity is
seized upon to the exclusion of thought about the purposes it may serve."
(Rapaport & Westgate, 1974: 24)

It would therefore seem necessary to examine closely the nature of those
activities and interactions 'which clearly play a central role in the child's
classroom experience' (Galton, Simon & Croll, 1980: 85). With all procedures,
tasks, activities and materials the question would need to be asked 'whether
they are helpful, whether they deliver the goods and whether the goods are
worth having' (Barrow, 1984).

3.7.1.3 References to Children's First Language

As was stated in Chapter One, Burstall et al. (1974) had reported that the
introduction of a foreign language at the primary level did not 'encourage the
belief that teaching a foreign language to primary school children will
necessarily stimulate the development of verbal skills in their mother tongue' nor
did it have any significant influence on achievement in other areas of the
curriculum. This finding, however, should have been no surprise if one takes
into ac∞untthat audio-visual methods encouraged rote-learning and explicitly
banned explanations of the formal properties of language and the use of the
mother-tongue from the classroom. Rapaport & Westgate stated that teachers
and children must feel free to use the mother tongue whenever clarification is
needed:

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