Preliminary communication
Factors Influencing the Acquisition of Croatian Language in Early Discourse
Katarina Aladrović Slovaček
; Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Zagreb
Dunja Ravlić
; Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Zagreb
Abstract
The process of language acquisition including the Croatian language begins in the second trimester of pregnancy. The process continues with the child starting school, as the morphological and syntactic knowledge becomes automated only around the age of 11/12. A child starts its institutional learning at the age of seven, or in the first grade of elementary school, entering the phase of concrete thinking operations which ends around the age of 11/12 with the onset of the abstract period. That is why in this early period, language should be taught using strategies that will encourage the development of communicative competence and language learning on the basis of concrete examples. The process of acquiring language is primarily affected by cognitive abilities, but also the social context (place of residence) and attitude toward language. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to examine the level of acquisition of the Croatian language regarding the communicative and language competence. Also, it examined facts that are connected with the process of acquiring language (age, gender, place of residence, grade for the subject Croatian language). The aim is to examine student's knowledge from the second to the fourth grade (junior grades) using an objective type test (Test of communicative and linguistic competence for each class), and attitudes towards Croatian language as a school subject will be tested using the Attitude questionnaire. The results were analyzed through qualitative and quantitative methods using the SPSS program for statistics. The results show that pupils in the 3rd grade are better at the level of linguistic competence but pupils in the 2nd and 4th grade are better at the level of communicative competence. Girls show better results than boys, and participants from the Stokavian area scored lower results than participants from other areas. Also, participants who have better grades in the subject Croatian language have better results in both competences. They also show positive attitudes to Croatian language as a school subject.
Keywords
communicative competence; early Croatian language learning; linguistic competence; linguistic knowledge; teaching strategies
Hrčak ID:
137687
URI
Publication date:
25.2.2015.
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