L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature
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Kind and unkind communicative behaviour of cartoon characters as a source of language competence for young children
Get PDFThe purpose of the article is to analyze kind and unkind communicative behaviour of characters in cartoons for children. The characters create a sort of community and they play certain social roles. For the purpose of this article I have chosen the animated films which present an equal or unequal system of roles. The analysis is limited to one communicative environment: school I assume that the language of cartoon characters will matter greatly in the process of socialization and acquisition of communicative competence. The film characters often become the role-model for viewers, especially the young ones. Children willingly copy the behaviour seen in the cartoons, they play the roles of favourite characters and speak their language. The analysis shows that popular cartoons might create desirable or undesirable linguistic patterns. Therefore, analysing communicative behaviours of film characters should become a field of interest not only for psychologists but also for linguists. This knowledge may also help teachers of 1st and 2nd educational stage with planning their curriculum
Recognition of figurative language and reading ability in Polish school children
Get PDFIt is reported in literature (Nippold et al., 2001; Qualls, Bodle et al., 2001, Levorato, Nesi, Cacciari, 2004) that reading ability is associated with figurative language competence. The assumption is that good reading ability enhances lexical development, which, in turn, increases knowledge of figures of speech. On the other hand, studies on the metaphorical use of language by children primarily provide information on the interpretation and understanding of figurative language forms, to a lesser extent, on the ability to recognize them in the text. The aim of presented study was to investigate the relation between reading comprehension and figurative language recognition in 8- to 9-year-old children . In a preliminary phase two standardized tests was used, to assess the reading comprehension skills. Study involved 60 children attending 2 and 3 grades at primary school, divided into 3 groups: poor, medium and good comprehenders. The group of skilled comprehenders was compared to less skilled groups on two tasks: : metaphor recognition task and metaphor comprehension task, that include figurative expressions derived from school textbook. The study brings interesting results concerning the relationship between the ability to recognize metaphors with reading comprehension level, indicating that children with low levels of reading comprehension in less use context, making it difficult for them to differentiate literal from metaphorical expressions
Development of spelling skills in grade 4: Effects of an integrated and differentiated pedagogical approach
Get PDFIn the context of this study, a pedagogical approach was developed which integrates spelling instruction into meaningful writing tasks. This approach was then tested in the classroom over a period of twelve weeks by four Grade 4 teachers who had received training to this end. To explore the effects of this pedagogical approach on the development of students\u27 spelling skills, an experimental group and a control group were created. The students in both these groups were given a pretest and a post-test which included a gap dictation and a narrative writing task. The results show that this pedagogical approach helped the students who benefited from it to improve their spelling ability, in particular, with regard to the morphographic dimension of spelling
Effects of observational learning on students\u27 use of and attitude towards reading and learning strategies
Get PDFPrevious research has shown that observation can be effective for learning in various domains, for instance writing, reading and creative art work. By observing models at work, students may develop strategic knowledge and they may also change their conception of what the modeled skill involves. The question in this study is which instructional approach is more effective for students’ processes of text studying: learning by observation or learning by practicing? We designed an intervention that enables students to learn from observation of video models. The models in these videos are peers, who read and learn a history text while thinking aloud.
In a pre-test/post-test control group design we assigned 52 Dutch students (15-18 years old) to one of two conditions; one observational learning condition and a control condition (learning by practicing). In the observational learning condition students were asked to observe and evaluate the thinking processes of two peers on video, and decide which one was the weaker or better performer of a study task. In the control condition, students received direct instruction in reading and learning strategies.
We measured students’ attitude and self-reported use of learning strategies with a questionnaire (at pre- and post-test) and a learner report (post-test only). Students’ use of strategies at pre- and post-test was measured with a thinking-aloud task with eight participants of each condition.
Results of the thinking-aloud task showed that students in the observational learning condition more often checked their own understanding of the text while studying for a history test than students in the control condition. Moreover, experimental students reported more learning experiences in their learner reports than the control group. This group also reported almost 10% more metacognitive learner experiences in the same learner reports
Is Europe open to a student-oriented framework for literature? A comparative analysis of the formal literature curriculum in six European countries.
Get PDFThis study is a comparative analysis of literary curricula in six European countries and is part of the project LiFT-2, funded by Comenius\u27 Life Long Learning Programme of the European Commission. The result of this project, that involved almost 4500 teachers, is a European literary framework for secondary education which can be described as a developmental competence-based taxonomy for teachers. This article aims to identify tendencies in the field of teaching literature in Europe on the basis of the formal curricula of the participating countries, and to examine how the teachers working with those curricula could benefit from the framework. In the conclusion, the authors emphasize the role of LiFT-2 instruments for a more structured approach to developing literary competences within the curricula for literature in different European countries
Reading and spelling acquisition in Polish: Educational and linguistic determinants
Get PDFThe process of reading and spelling acquisition, especially at the initial stage, is determined by the linguistic features of a given language and differs in various orthographic systems. However, the fundamental stages are assumed to be the same in all languages. Linguistic awareness plays a crucial role in the early stage of this process. The aim of this paper is to propose a model of acquiring reading and spelling skills in Polish children. The model shows the course of the process and takes into account essential elements of language awareness.
The basis for this model are the authors\u27 research results concerning reading and spelling acquisition by Polish children aged 5-8. In the discussion, the authors try to find out if the model of reading and spelling acquisition in Polish is different than in others languages, and if this is the case, what determines it.
The comparison studies on the acquisition of both skills in European languages, especially in English and Polish, prove that there are some differences conditioned mainly by the way in which script is introduced to Polish children, as well as the features of the Polish language system. The specificity of reading acquisition in Polish language consists in omitting the logographic phase, distinguished in English-language models (e.g. Frith 1985), and the specificity of spelling acquisition—in exceptions from the standard spelling which are generally similar, but differently conditioned. The research of linguistic conditions of reading in the early stage of life also shows interesting dependencies, slightly different than in English-speaking children, concerning cognitive predictors and reading correlates, as well as reading strategies used by children
Plurilingual and intercultural education: Introduction to a special issue of L1 Educational Studies in Language and Literature
Get PDFInitial learning to read in kindergarten: Formal and research perspective
Get PDFIn the following article the author briefly describes the organisation of Polish education system on the kindergarten level, mentions documents applicable for a Polish teacher working with children in kindergarten and makes an attempt to answer the following question: does the model of readership education influence the readiness for reading and reading skills of six-year-old children?
The answer to the above question has been obtained thanks to the information about the models of readership education which are applied by kindergarten teachers, models\u27 characteristics and the children\u27s level of skills in the readiness for reading and reading skills depending on the model of their readership education. It has also been analysed how gender, the level of verbal phonological memory, participation in early learning to read (earlier than from six years of age) and the number of years of kindergarten attendance differentiates the six-year-olds in terms of the readiness for reading and reading skills. The author intends to present the causal model which enables understanding the correlation and dependency between the accepted variables. The author does not determine the superiority of one model over others. Path diagrams were used for the graphic description. The article is an attempt to present the process of investigating the assumption that having contact with written word before the age of six, using optional, unspecified method of learning to read offered by a teacher, together with accepted model of teacher-student cooperation, will facilitate the process of shaping positive attitude towards written culture. It will also allow children to achieve certain abilities necessary in the learning to read process
Exploring syntactic structures in first-language education: Effects on literacy-related achievements
Get PDFA quasi-experimental study with 256 German sixth-grade students examined the effects of exploring syntactic structures on literacy-related achievements. The core feature of the instruction was that students had the opportunity to deal with syntactic structures directly, not mediated by analytic operations. Instruction covered six lessons targeting two types of syntactic contrasts (syntactic category contrasts, noun case contrasts). The results indicate that students profited from the instruction in their ability to use a marker of syntactic structure in written German, the capitalization of nouns. As to the ability to use the same marker to interpret text read, students of different achievement levels seem to have been differently affected. No effects were found for reading comprehension in general and spelling at the word level. The findings suggest that students\u27 recognition of syntactic categories was enhanced even in contexts other than those they were familiarized with in the instruction. However, it was not enhanced when they worked on a task that was completely new to them
Assessments of reading comprehension: Different measures, different explanatory variables and achievement
Get PDFThis study investigates the reading achievement of 69 Portuguese fourth graders on national (NA) and international (PIRLS) assessments and its relation to reading skills in the following areas: phonological awareness, word recognition, fluency, accuracy, and types of oral reading errors. Data analysis was conducted using regression and t-tests for dependent samples. Results indicate that in the NA reading accuracy and vocabulary knowledge predict reading comprehension. In PIRLS, vocabulary knowledge and non-meaning changing errors explain the variance in reading scores. Performance in the NA was significantly higher than in PIRLS and, in this test, students scored significantly lower on questions that require interpreting and evaluating text than on literal questions. Differences in test design and implications for monitoring educational outcomes are discussed