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

Rubi

Rubi is a girl of high ability who says she speaks Hindi and understands
Punjabi. She says she finds it hard to pronounce new words and finds French
difficult as ^,we moved from topic to topic too fast with not enough time to
understand'. She says she finds homework hard because she does not always
understand what went on in class. Rubi also says she finds sentences 'better*
to learn but hard to remember and confusing. Rubi feels that writing is difficult
and confuses her. She does not like listening to tapes because she finds them
hard to understand. She finds choral repetition easy as it gives her confidence
but she finds answering sentences difficult as she gets the words mixed up.

She says she does not really like speaking French because 'there is no one at
home to speak it to'. Rubi would like to know from French-speaking people how
to make learning French 'easier*. She says she enjoyed learning French but
that she does not want to learn any more because she thinks it is not important
as she does not live in France. Rubi would choose Punjabi 'because I can
already understand it and I think I would speak it easily. I don't think you
should stick with one language because it often gets boring. A little bit of
everything is fun.'

Kizianne

Kizianne is a high ability girl, who speaks English and says she also speaks
'Patois'. She is very enthusiastic about learning French and thinks it is fun,
enjoyable and important. Kizianne seems to worry about getting things right
and about not getting things done on time. She said she finds pronunciation

341

<<   338   339   340   341   342   343   344   >>

More intriguing information