I m Afraid to Ask the Teacher a Question : Young Learners Voices in the Primary Classroom

This study sets as its purpose to explore Young Learners’ (YLs) channels tovoice their perspectives on English language classroom-based assessment,schooling, and school experiences. Qualitative research design was used tocollect data through focus group interview from 42 participants drawn fromEnglish-medium primary schools. Their selection was by purposivesampling from 7 schools. Field notes were also employed to highlight salientpoints and corroborate participants’ opinions. Findings indicate that pupilsare afraid of answering a question in class wrongly; their peers give themthis fear of being laughed and mocked. There is lack of solidarity amongstthe pupils. They wish for a variety of assessment methods and techniques butparents seem to maintain a strong position in the children’s lives so that theywould not want to disappoint parents by not doing well in their assessments.Teachers’ feedback does not seem to be transparent, even though pupils didnot mention this in the group interviews. Pupils have many beliefs whenattributing success and failure and some of these beliefs are superstitious,and they go to school for instrumental as well as for reasons of knowledgeacquisition.

کلیدواژه ها:

classroom-based assessment ، epistemological voice ، ontological voice ، pupil perceptions ، pupil voice ، practical voice ، school and schooling