Modern times and technology allow us quick access to either the information we need or to variou sources of amusement. They are just a click away. In the past, while sitting at a collective task, people often used to make the long winter evenings shorter by telling all kinds of stories and memories or by discussing current events. The language of communication was their dialect.
During such gatherings, folk fairy tales, songs, stories and memorial narratives were passed down from generation to generation, and new ones were made. Professional terminology calls this material ‘slovstvena folklora’ (verbal folklore), thus replacing with it the terminology confusion which, by the use of various denominations, has been created over time. Several authors prefer using phrases like folk or oral literature, folk treasures, traditional literature, etc. (Stanonik, 1999, 2001). Nowadays, traditional units of verbal folklore rarely circulates live among people, as it once used to. Fortunately, however, this precious heritage, left to us by our ancestors, has been recorded and can be found in archives and some publications.
In my action research I wanted to learn if the fifth-graders of the Bovec Elementary School know the local narrative folklore. I collected the knowledge data of folklore stories, in my opinion the best known ones, based on a survey. Basing on the results, I designed a set of lessons in which students learned about the characteristics of literary folkloristics and met with the intangible heritage of their hometown in various ways. 19 fifth-graders from the Bovec Elementary school were included in the study. The analysis of the conducted action research showed that the knowledge of local literary folkloristics among the students is modest. During the lessons, the students showed a lot of interest in this kind of topic, which was also reflected in their active participation and creativity. With such an approach, knowledge of the local narrative tradition has increased.
|
