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

experiences in their English lessons. However, there were also those who were
glad that the class did not do any more reading because 'I don't know how to
read in French', 'I didn't know what I was reading' and one said that 'that there
was not much point reading something that you didn't understand'. One girl
said reading was not exactly 'easy', one boy said that he preferred speaking
and another said that he preferred reading in English. These more negative
comments suggest that it might not be so much the reading activity itself that
they disliked but not understanding what was being read. The importance of a
gradual introduction of the written word and the potential difficulties a language
without a close grapheme∕phoneme match might present would need to be
taken into consideration.

6.5.6 Writing in French

As with reading, despite some difficulties expressed, a number of children said
that they would have liked to do more writing. Specific comments made were
such as 'writing had a powerful attraction', 'I thought that was the most
interesting part', 'then we will know how to spell', ^,we will understand the words
more', 'I could write as well as speak' 'it's fun', it's easy*, 'I like writing', 'so I could
improve', 'I'll Ieam how to write more', 'I can practise'. One boy said he looked
forward to 'righting' [sic] at secondary school because 'it's a new thing'.

However, as with reading, some said they were glad that they did not do any
more writing as 'I didn't enjoy it', 'I get ∞nfused fast', 'I can't spell a word',
'I don't like writing', 'I don't like to write in French', 'it's hard', 'I know I'll never
have to write in French'. As with reading, children varied greatly in their

333

<<   330   331   332   333   334   335   336   >>

More intriguing information