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

does not know how to pronounce a word and that he has to ^,go over it again
and again'. He says he likes working with the tape recorder if it includes 'those
words that we have learned'. He also says he 'liked doing the 'J'aime' and 'Je
n'aime pas' and that he found that pretty easy. Some things he found hard
because he 'didn't understand and got some wrong in his French book'.

Mairaj thinks he is doing well in French 'because I understand a lot of things and
I can say it properly' which, as the reader will notice, is not quite in accordance
with what he said earlier or with what can be heard on the tape.

Thomas

Thomas says he liked doing 'the sports like the tennis and all that' and he liked
doing the 'J'aime' but he didn't like the 'Je n'aime pas' because there are not a
lot ofthings he does not like. He says he likes speaking 'a bit' and that reading
he liked 'half and half but 'mostly he did not like it'. He finds listening to the
tape hard 'because when it went fast you ∞uldn't hear it and all'. He says he
quite likes writing. He says he is beginning to put his hand up more as he is
getting more confident. Thomas is not too sure about learning French and
thinks that it is just '0K'.

Scott

Scott is also not very forthcoming. He says he likes the role-plays in the cafe
and working in a group 'because then it's a lot less hard'. He also says he likes
listening to the tape and that he finds it easy. He says that the most difficult part
of learning French was understanding the teacher speak French. He says he

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