This study sets out to explore the underlying processes of learning English as a foreign language (EFL), bringing an alternative perspective to the field. The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the process by which children who are beginners in EFL learning can learn conventional rules and forms of a foreign language through holistic learning, which exposes language learners to various texts and to the free construction of meaning. This is a teacher-based study using qualitative research in the form of a case study. As a teacher-researcher, I set up an inquiry-based curriculum, within which students were able to interact freely with a foreign language; this was then followed by an investigation of that process.
The findings suggest that language forms and rules are learned through use. In other words, language learning is from "whole to part" (a phrase used in Goodman, 1986); that is, from a whole text, learners acquire a kind of understanding of such abstract parts as forms and rules. Another approach to this idea is that language learners acquire rules and forms by engaging in holistic language environments, in which language learners can use language freely.
