»If we won’t read, the bucket we will hit« (Pavček, 2001) a famous quote of the Slovenian poet Tone Pavček, which appeared on the cover of the schedule book of the 29th Slovenian Book Fair. Reading in elementary school is of great importance for the immigrant pupils as well. Their mother tongue is not Slovenian and they first encounter it in our schools. According to the information, provided by the Ministry of education, science and sport (personal communication, 17. 6. 2014), most of the immigrant elementary school pupils come from the former Yugoslav countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro). The data is gathered on the basis of the school applications for the extra lessons provided for the immigrant pupils to be taught Slovenian. This helps them to keep an approximate record of the number of the immigrant pupils attending our schools. The data from the school year 2013/14 shows that most of them come from Bosnia and Herzegovina (309), followed by Kosovo (270), then Macedonia (91), and later on European countries (52) and a small number from other countries. The teachers included in the research said that children from Albania face the most problems (Snr Lec. Vižintin, 2013a). For that reason, all immigrant pupils in Slovenian schools have had the right to be taught their mother tongue and culture according to the capability of a certain school since 1996. They have also had the right to take the Slovenian course since 2007 (Snr Lec, Vižintin 2010).
The purpose of my research was to make and test the didactic approach, individual work in Slovenian, which will be the teacher’s tool to help the immigrant pupil progress in the area of understanding the language in the literature lessons.
Using the didactic approach, the teacher will develop the immigrant pupil’s motivation for reading/listening, understanding what has been read/heard and the interest to reproduce literary texts. My intention was also to intensively work individually and influence the pupil’s progress from the point of being interested in reading the literary works in Slovenian.
I also made a case study. I used a qualitative approach and the causality in non-experimental pedagogical research. My case study was a 3rd grade elementary school pupil, who has a status of the immigrant pupil and comes from Kosovo. Using very carefully planned individual work I wanted to encourage the pupil’s motivation for reading and listening Slovenian literary texts, understanding what has been read/heard and positively influence the interest for reproduction of the literary text in Slovenian. The case study helped me to analyse the received data by coding the key concepts and appointing them statements with evidence.
My conclusion was that the formed and tested didactical approach (individual work) positively influenced the pupil’s motivation for reading/listening of literary works in Slovenian. After intensive two month individual work, the pupil understood most of the read and heard texts. His interest to reproduce literary texts in Slovene also increased. Following the period of collective reading, the pupil progressed most in the interest of reading literary works in Slovenian. The proof of his progress is also in his statements (likes reading, does not have the fear of reading, etc.) and the completed questionnaire on reading and independent reaching for literary works.
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