Otherthings children found hard was 'spelling in French because of the letters',
'writing because the letters are confusing', 'asking different questions of boys
and girls' (a reference to the use of pronouns) and 'answering sentences
because I get the words mixed up'. Interestingly, two girls said that they found
singing songs difficult. One child ticked everything on the questionnaire as
'difficult' with the exception of 'saying words'. These comments seem to
suggest that some of the older children seemed much more realistic in their
assessment of their 'abilities' in French and more aware of what might be
involved in learning a language. They also point to a wide range of potential
difficulties individual children might experience as well as to those aspects of
French which they deem 'easy'. If an early 'start' is to lay sound foundations it
would seem crucial to identify more precisely the specific nature of the problems
individual children might encounter; these were not within the scope of this
study.
6.5.3 Listening to French
The tape recorder did not play a great role in School Two and comments about
listening to tapes were sparse. Unsurprisingly, some children seemed to enjoy
listening to the tape while others found the tape re∞rder hard as it was 'difficult
to understand'. Listening was usually accompanied by an activity or a
worksheet and it is possible that on some occasions it was the task rather than
the listening material which some children found difficult.
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