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

"...only in French could we have hoped to find the necessary number of
teachers. Almost all primary teachers have had at least a five year course in
French when they were at school themselves, and it seemed reasonable to
hope that, with additional local courses and the provision of intensive courses,
many of them would be able to teach the language in the primary schools."
(The Schools Council Working Paper 8, 1966: 30)

French was also the most widely provided and resourced language in
secondary schools and the proximity of France made on the spot training for
teachers as well as school visrts a distinct possibility. It was hoped that pupils
would learn other languages such as German, Spanish or Italian at secondary
school. However, as both primary and secondary schools taking part in the
project were required by the then Department of Education and Science (DES)
to offer French to all eight year-old children and as children were to continue
with French at least up to the age of 13 with secondary schools to guarantee
continuity of provision on transfer, this hope did not materialise and the
widespread introduction of French into primary schools had a negative effect on
the provision of other languages at secondary school. Issues surrounding
language choice are of major importance, especially in an English-speaking
context and will be discussed again later in this study.

1.3.2 TeacherTraining

Training of primary school teachers ∞nsisted of a minimum of six months'
attendance at a part-time language refresher course organised locally, followed
by attendance at a three-month intensive language course in France or Britain

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