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

Rebecca

Rebecca is a high ability girl with English mother tongue. She thinks it is hard to
Ieam a different language and that she tends to forget things. Rebecca says
she finds French difficult because the words are different. She says she finds
reading and writing difficult and finds homework hard without any help. She
thinks when she is reading in French she never knows what she is reading.
She liked learning the numbers as these were quite easy but sentences were
difficult because 'I forgot what they meant.' She looks forward to singing at
secondary school because she enjoys it but she does not look forward to
answering questions because 'I get nervous'. Rebecca thinks that she will
never need French and given a choice she would like to learn Dutch because
she 'goes there quite a lot'.

Ikraam

Ikraam is identified by her teacher as of 'low ability'. Her first language is
Somali and she only managed to respond to two questions on the
questionna re. Ikraam said that she found French easy as the teacher 'help
you' [sic] and she liked speaking French because ^,when a new person comes
and they speak French I can speak with them'.

Lee

Lee is a boy of average ability who speaks English. He says he has not
enjoyed French and that he finds it hard and boring. He says he finds new
words hard to pronounce and to remember. He does not like writing, which he

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