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

their individual personality, were rather reserved and chose not to get involved
most ofthe time. These children did not seem 'naturally spontaneous and
willing to have a go'. Affective issues will be raised again in the context of the
interviews with individual children.

5.8.4 Attention Spans

As has been argued in Chapter Four, being able to pay attention to formal
instruction is important in the classroom. Allwright & Bailey (1991: 170)
comment on both the importance and difficulty of measuring attention spans
validly and reliably. Van Lier (1988: 93) suggests that while participation
presupposes attention, attention in itself does not always have overt
participation as a consequence. Since engagement might be only partially
observable, simple observation might not be sufficient in evaluating attention
levels and spans. Focusing and attending to input has to come from within the
learner but how does one know what exactly the learner focuses on at any
particular time? Experience has shown, for example, that some children can be
very apt at pretending that they are observant and attentive when in reality they
are daydreaming.

Despite these difficulties in evaluating levels of attention through observation,
as far as could be judged by their responses to the teacher's questions in terms
of hands raised, for example, or by the amount of 'off-task talk', the children in
School One seemed generally attentive throughout most parts of the lessons.
However, being attentive and remembering things and getting things 'right' quite

278

<<   275   276   277   278   279   280   281   >>

More intriguing information