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



In terms Ofgeneral learning skills, such as following instructions, knowing how
to tick a box, how to circle or cross an item or knowing how to follow lines or
how to complete individual items on a worksheet, there was much scope for
learning for many of the children in this school. Some children, however, in this
case girls, were clearly developing their capacity for personal study. They kept
a note book in addition to the class folder and decided of their own accord to
make notes of what the teacher had said or to copy things down from the
chalkboard. They kept an ongoing record of the French they were learning and
used their notes as reference material in lessons, for example to check the
gender of a word. These girls quite clearly showed some awareness of what
was involved in learning a foreign language and re∞gnised the importance of
the written word in supporting their learning and in making progress. Learning
French thus meant very different things for the individual children in School
Two.

As in School One, lesson observations showed that many children tended to
guess 'wildly'. They would offer the name of a place in answer to a question of
time, for example, or a time in answer to a question of place. Numbers were
frequently given by children instead of places or names. 'Comment
s'appelle-t-il?' was guessed as meaning 'I haven't got a dog', 'quel age as-tu?'
as 'where do I live', 'quel age a-t-il? as ,where does he come from' and 'je n'ai
pas de...' as 'is this your mum?' despite this language material having been
heard and practised frequently. During a listening activity where children on a
tape registered at a youth hostel the teacher asked the class if they knew what

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