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

On the appointed day 28 children were present and, although they were given
the option of not taking part in the interviews, all 28 wanted to do so. All the
children without exception seemed very much at ease although some were
obviously less expressive than others. The length of the interviews varied
depending on what the children had to say although most were kept to a
maximum of about 15 minutes.

5.9.1 Recording of Interviews

Interviews were tape-recorded as it was felt that notetaking would inhibit some
ofthe children and that the interviewer would not be able to give the non-verbal
encouraging feedback that seems crucial in interviews with young children,
such as eye contact, for example.

5.9.2 Transcriptsoflnterviews

All interviews were transcribed and transcripts can be found in Appendix C.
Natural spoken language contains many features such as pauses and
hesitations, false starts as well as paralinguistic features such as laughter or
nodding. These are essential in studies which focus on precise linguistic
performance, for example. For the purpose of this study, however, transcripts
focus only on the general content of the message rather than on the precise
language used by the children. The location of the interview room occasionally
caused a degree of disruption but not to an extent where the general content of
children's contributions ∞uld not be made out. In the transcripts 'xx' stands for
those occasions where a word or several words could not be exactly identified.

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