Speech is the essential method of communication. It can be used to express our desires, thoughts, feelings, and experiences. It is the way we use language to communicate. We use different social forms, i.e. literary or non-literary language, in different situations. The main purpose of our research is to find out more about the use of both literary and non-literary language in the classroom used by primary school teachers. We were interested in what factors influence the use of literary language by primary classroom teachers. Slovenian is the official first language or mother tongue for most of the population, and therefore it receives the most hours and attention in educational work, compared to other subjects. It enters the educational space in different roles; as a mother tongue, as a second language/environmental language, as an official language (official, national) and as a school subject. In the theoretical part of the Master's thesis, we presented language through the social genres of the Slovene language, and then we focused on communication in school. We were interested in the role of Slovene, the speech standards, the guidelines for the use of the literary language and the principle of the leaning of the literary language in school. In the following sections, we looked at the teacher's speech and, in turn, the pupils' speech. We concluded with the factors influencing the use of the literary language; we focused more on dialect, education, teacher awareness, kindergarten teachers and assistants, the media and English, and distance learning. The empirical part consists of a quantitative survey, where the model is made up of primary school teachers. The questionnaire was completed by 300 teachers. According to the respondents, the most important factors influencing the use of literary language in teaching are the teachers' willingness and confidence to use literary language. The least influential are the length of experience and age of the teacher, the grade of teaching or the age of the pupil. Following factors have positive influence: teachers' willingness for and confidence in the use of the literary language, positive attitudes of the pupils' family and home environment towards the literary language, education and training in the literary language, the statistical region from which the teacher comes and in which the teacher teaches has fewer dialects, the influence of the management, and the teacher's years of service. The location of the school in the city has only a partial positive effect. We are not able to make a definitive statement on the factor of the higher age of the teacher and the higher teaching grade or the higher age of the pupils. The country of birth of the pupil does not have a significant influence, but the positive attitude of the family and the home environment of the pupil. We discovered that most respondents are willing to work on using the literary language more often. To improve their use of the literary language, respondents would like to see more training, more practical content, improvement of spelling, innovations in the language, or the desire for the literary language to be used consistently in public by all. The findings of the Master's thesis will influence the awareness and reflection on the use of literary language by teachers at primary level. We have provided guidelines and referred to the results and findings. We point out that teachers should be observed more often during their lessons, where they could get feedback on their performance. There is also a need to raise the level of confidence and willingness to use the literary language, which could be achieved through participation in training courses.
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