Teachers are aware that pupils who enter school have different levels of prior knowledge; that being especially characteristic of the Romani. Thus, teaching Romani pupils presents a special challenge for teachers. Most Romani pupils have difficulties with understanding the Slovenian language and only use it as a means of communication at school.
The theoretical part of the thesis introduces the Romani as an ethnic group with all their characteristics and the theoretical basics of initial literacy, individualisation and differentiation of lessons.
The empirical part deals with an action research in which three Romani male pupils and one female pupil were monitored during the initial literacy process during a whole school year. At the beginning of the school year their prior level of knowledge was established. An individual plan of work was prepared for each pupil and their progress was monitored. The work was differentiated and individualised, teaching methods, means and kinds of work were tailored to their needs. The work was organised in smaller groups so that more attention was being paid to these pupils and the process involved the class teacher, the second teacher in the first grade and a Romani teaching assistant.
The conclusions of the research are that the Romani pupils have made a considerable progress, judging by their individual development, since they had to make up for their deficits from the preschool period. Based on the results we reached the decision that the female pupil should repeat a year since it is our opinion that the first year at school lays the foundations which need to be strong enough to enable further education.
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