The school curriculum for the Slovenian language in the primary school (2011) among others includes also the learning objective: »Learner individualized, progressively and systematically develop the ability to read and write texts«. This is a goal, which we are developing in the first three years of the primary school education, but we will upgrade and use the ability of reading our whole life. Well-developed literacy is the base of the success in the school, which is not important only for the grades but it influences also their behavior and the future education (Hanuš, 2010). Therefore, literacy is a skill, which is important for all the pupils, also for the immigrants, who will have their first interaction with the Slovenian language when they will enter the primary school.
Slovenians have been meeting with the immigration already in the past because of our geographical location. The stronger wave of it has come after the year 1990, when there has been many people moving to our country from the former Yugoslavia. After that, the flow has only grew stronger, in fact, in the past year we are witnessing a very strong global migration (Novak, 2012).
Integration of the pupils, whose mother tongue is not Slovenian, to the educational system has to be done systematically and comprehensively. It needs to include the social workers of the school, teachers, the immigrant pupils, their parents and the environment in which they are going to be living in. The teachers have a very important role in the process of integration. Their attitude towards them needs to be well selected, just like the way they are teaching the second language of the children, or the so-called language of the environment.
With my master's thesis, I would like to show to the teachers, students and others who will be working in the field of teaching the Slovenian language to the immigrants, one individualized didactical approach for how to start teaching the literacy of Slovene language as the second language of a child.
The subject of my research was a formation and a tryout of an individualized didactical approach in Slovenian language for an Albanian immigrant. It can be modified and used also for immigrants from other countries. I have made a test for the beginning and the ending of my research, to see how effective will be my approach.
In the theoretical part of my thesis, I have explained the early literacy and how to teach it. I wrote about guidelines for reading and writing in Slovenian as a second language and the ways to integrate immigrants into the Slovenian school system.
In the part with the research I have made a case study. I have used the qualitative research approach and causal experimental method of teaching exploration.
For my case study, I have chosen the pupil in the first grade of primary school, who has the status of the immigrant from Kosovo. With a planned individual work, I have been trying to develop pre-literacy abilities, influence his reading progress, writing simple words with capital letters and improve his naming skills in Slovenian language.
I have discovered that my ten-hour individual work has influenced positively all the previously mentioned abilities in Slovenian language. The biggest progress has been noticed with the reading and writing skills of simple texts and for the naming abilities in Slovenian language. Thanks to the individual work, this pupil has developed also trust into his knowledge and he became more confident and more independent. We can prove his progress with his statements and with the final test of his knowledge.
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