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

He is unlikely to be able to take pupils beyond such behaviour and provide them

with the input needed to develop discourse skills, for example. In 1992

Adamson ran an in-service course for Scottish primary school teachers and
wrote that:

"The type of language training teachers receive seems at present to be a hit
and miss affair, with little research being done into the precise linguistic ∞ntent
ofthe course." (Adamson, 1992: 9)

A large-scale teacher training programme for primary teachers has since been

implemented in Scotland, where teachers are trained on a 27- day programme

or 160 hours over one year. The aim of the training courses is to give the

primary teachers:

"...sufficient linguistic competence within specific areas..." and to "...increase
teachers' awareness of appropriate methodology for teaching a language to
primary age children." (Tierney, 1995: 9)

Whether the wide range of competences and skills necessary to teach a foreign
language to young children can be achieved on a 27-day training ∞urse
remains questionable, especially in the light of the linguistic background of
some of the teachers on the training programmes:

"...43 teachers had no prior knowledge ofthe language, 104 had a limited
amount - perhaps an 'O' grade or its equivalent, 185 had perhaps a Higher or
current tourist language (a Higher is the post-16 examination in S∞tland) and
19 teachers had a knowledge beyond Higher level of the language which they
Werestudying." (Tierney, 1995:11)

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