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

predict what might come next on a tape, for example. She made references to
English cognates, such as '∞mplete' for example, to guide children towards
understanding of French 'complete'. The teacher also made use of English to
develop children's general knowledge, on one occasion for example she talked
about the Olympic Games and explained the significance of the five Olympic
rings.

5.8 Observed Outcomes - School One

5.8.1 Children's French

It is important to state at the start of this section that the target language
children produced was only one of many observations. A small case study
cannot hope to match large-scale national studies such as the Pilot Scheme or
the Sottish National Pilot and the difficulty of evaluating learning out∞mes and
establishing exactly what a learner knows or does not know at a given stage in
his second language development has already been mentioned in Chapter
Three.

The following paragraphs therefore can make no claim to children's precise
linguistic development nor can any claims be made as to cause and effect
relationships. Findings are simply meant to provide some insights into what
seemed to be recurring patterns or problem areas in children's language
comprehension and production. Expressions such as 'some', 'few^, or 'the
majority' will be used as precise numbers were not the main ωncem of this
study and no formal tests were undertaken.

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