The reaction of young secondary pupils to their primary French

Abstract

Current theories of curriculum development emphasise the need for clearly defined objectives. The teaching of Primary French was shown to have been largely lacking in such objectives. Yet the importance of favourable attitudes emerged in relation to both the teaching of French and to the specific goals of British Primary Education. Against such a background the study set out to evaluate the extent to which such favourable attitudes towards French were being fostered in primary schools. Two areas - County Durham and the London Borough of Havering were selected to be studied in depth and the development and the nature of the provision of Primary French in these areas were explored. A Likert-type attitude scale was constructed as part of a questionnaire administered to over 8,700 first year pupils in the two areas, immediately upon entry into their secondary schools. The aim was to assess the reactions of the children towards the learning of languages and Primary French in particular, as well as towards France and the French people. The responses of children with past experience of Primary French were compared with those of children without French, as well as the responses of boys with girls. An attempt was made to link the attitude scale scores with features of the primary school experience of the children and also with their school subject preferences. A 'cluster analysis' technique was used to identify six 'types' of reaction in Durham and five in Havering. It was found, within the limitations of the samples involved, that Primary French did not improve the children's attitudes as expressed on the questionnaire in the areas studied and that girls displayed more favourable attitudes than boys. In addition to other, associated conclusions, certain organisational proposals were put forward concerning primary-secondary liaison in French.