6.5.13 LanguageChoice
Asked whether they wanted to continue with French many said that they did
want to do so as French was ’good’, 'I can use it when Γm older*, ,when I go to
France I can speak’. Unsurprisingly, there were a number of children who did
not enjoy French and who did not want to Ieam any more of it. Some children
said they wanted to Ieam a new language as French was ’difficult’ or ’hard’ or as
,l don’t want to learn lots of French words'. Surprisingly, however, there were
also those who had said that they had enjoyed the experience but nevertheless
did not want to learn any more French because they thought that it was not
important to them, because 'it is not important as I do not live in France' or
because 'I know I'll never need to use it'. Given a choice, some ch Idren
amongst those who enjoyed as well as amongst those who did not enjoy
learning French said they would chose a different language for a variety of
reasons such as holidays, family or friends. One boy said he would like to learn
Italian because 'I like the way they pronounce their words' and one said he
would like to Ieam Greek because some of his family 'only spoke Greek'.
Another boy said he wanted to learn German because 'it was most
complicated'. One girl wanted to Ieam Spanish because it is 'easy' and
because French is 'hard'. One wanted to learn Punjabi because 'I can already
understand it and I think I would speak it easily'. Another girl claimed that she
just wanted to 'speak another language'. One girl thought that 'sticking to one
language often gets boπng and a bit of everything is fun'. Some children clearly
had some preconceived ideas about 'hard' and 'easy' languages. Their
comments highlight the difficulty of extrapolating from learning outcomes in a
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