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

APPENDIX A

Lesson Observations - School One

Class: Year Four (28 pupils, 11 girls, 17 boys)

Lesson One

Teacher asks class: ^,Qu^,est-ce que tu aimes?' with flashcards on sports.

Class seems very attentive and plenty of hands go up.

They are supposed to use whole sentences, e.g. J^,aime... but generally answer
with single item of vocabulary only e.g. 'basket’, 'volley' or 'ski'.

Genders are generally not used.

Teacher involves children at the front of class, they can choose a flashcard.
One boy keeps asking boys, teacher suggests that he should ask some girls.
He shows the 'swimming' flashcard. Nobody seems to remember the word for
swimming. Teacher suggests that they should have a guess: 'it doesn't matter if
you're wrong'.

Some hands go up and some sports are guessed, somebody offers 'natation'
without gender.

Teacher uses lots of praise in both English and French, e.g. tres bien.

Most children seem to have their hand up at some stage and boys take part as
much as girls.

Teacher moves on to a tape activity which is explained in English. Pupils are
meant to listen and tick boxes of what people like on worksheet. Walk around
class and notice some confusion despite teacher having explained in English
what they need to do. There's lots of rubbing out and children obviously want to
get things right. Seems some did not understand what they were supposed to
do, e.g. what to tick and what not to tick.

One boy gets out of his seat and comes up to me and asks for help.

They should recognise the words on the tape as they have been practised a lot
with the flashcards.

Teacher goes on to checking answers and to her question: ^,Who thinks they've
got them all right?' one girl replies: 'I don't think, I know.' So much for
confidence!

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