The first part of this master's thesis includes a general review of existing literature on the main findings in the field of learning and teaching a foreign language in the first educational period, with emphasis on the process of developing literacy skills in English as a foreign language. The main research problem covers the field of concurrent initial literacy acquisition in the mother tongue and in the foreign language. In addition to that we discuss the causes, procedures and consequences of teaching English as a foreign language early on to children who are still acquiring literacy skills in Slovene as their mother tongue. In the first years of schooling, children's perception is still distinctly holistic, global, so foreign language teaching is adapted to this. Because students have already developed certain pre-literacy skills in their mother tongue, the transition to learning a foreign language is easier; most studies particularly emphasize the importance of taking advantage of the positive transfer between the mother tongue and a foreign language. According to the principles of the ‘Konvergentna Pedagogika’ method, this process is more effective if pupils build their knowledge by being taught both languages with the help of a unified methodology. The purpose of the master's thesis was hence to review existing materials and gather the main findings and views of teachers who taught according to the principles of the ‘Konvergentna Pedagogika’ method, in order to gain a deeper insight into initial foreign language literacy acquisition with parallel literacy in the mother tongue, focusing on the global method of literacy acquisition. The research approach included a review and content analysis of materials for developing English literacy in the field of the ‘Konvergentna Pedagogika’ (minutes of the seminars, evaluations, scripts and proceedings) and interviews with five primary school and foreign language teachers who have been practising the method for more than ten years. The following questions of the semi-structured interview were formulated from the main objectives of the research: how does the introduction to the literacy acquisition process go according to the principles of the ‘Konvergentna Pedagogika’ method?; how does the methodology contribute to systematic initial literacy acquisition (the use of the body expression activities with music and posters is discussed in more detail)?; how does the process of being introduced to working with texts according to the global method take place?; how does the ‘Konvergentna Pedagogika’ method develop fundamental links between mother tongue and foreign language literacy acquisition?; which elements of this pedagogy can be, according to the interviewed teachers, used in the modern educational context of literacy acquisition in a foreign language and what are the frameworks within which this approach can be effectively implemented today? Our research has shown that when teaching literacy, the interviewed teachers focus on the social function of reading, and use various didactic elements in order to train students in the use of specific strategies of (non)verbal organization of their own mental ideas into meaningful units (narrative of the experience, summary with pictures and graphics, working with keywords, writing on a poster as a well-rounded text …). Initial literacy acquisition using the global-structural method runs concurrently in the mother tongue and a foreign language. This is achieved through close cooperation of foreign and mother tongue teachers, as well as by systematic harmonization of content and use of didactic elements according to the methodological approach of ‘Konvergentna Pedagogika’ (storytelling, role play, body expression with music) and by using picture cards and graphics. According to the interviewees, repeated contact with the same content in both the mother tongue and the foreign language is crucial for the development of all four communication skills. The semi-structured interview also highlighted the importance of organizing lessons in a way that ensures all initial activities are based on language immersion, whereby the predominant method is regular contact with a selected text in different learning contexts; moreover using a diverse set of message-conveying media is also emphasised as useful. Thus, teachers systematically upgrade activities to develop all four communication skills in both languages. The majority of interviewees believe that using text in different learning contexts is most helpful when it comes to persistently raising awareness of English language phonemics, while simultaneously working with the written word indirectly helps to train the ability to perceive the association of phoneme and grapheme, which is also confirmed by a review of the collected documents. They do not teach specific language rules directly. Teachers who were teaching literacy according to the principles of ‘Konvergentna Pedagogika’ often reported positive effects arising from using the same methodological approach in mother tongue and foreign language teaching on the development of communication skills in both languages and the formation of higher cognitive structures. The principle of uniformity in the methodological approaches of mother tongue and foreign language consequently also helps to address specific development challenges in literacy in both languages. In connection with the use of the ‘Konvergentna Pedagogika’ method in today's teaching context, teachers most often pointed out the problem of time constraints in the implementation of the method in a condensed, shorter time frame and the challenge of (non)cooperation in co-creating the pedagogical process with colleagues.
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