Croatian Dialects – from Child's Reception to Methodological Context

Croatian Dialects – from Child's Reception to Methodological Context

Turza-Bogdan, Tamara

One on the main objectives of Croatian elementary school language teaching is to develop „respect towards the language of the Croatian people, its literature and culture“. (Elementary school curriculum, 2006, 25). It originates the tasks of continuous elementary-school learning of themes regarding the three dialects of the Croatian language: Kajkavian, Štokavian and Čakavian, as well as adopting the language standard and the language in other communication situations. A research into students' reception of the Kajkavian dialect and literature showed that the reception of speech or nonspeech dialect opens up possibilities for different interpretations in methodological context. Hence we can speak of different possibilities of access and levels of dialect understanding in terms of the speakers adopting it. Students are showing interest for the dialect either because it is a part of their mother tongue or because it is not, but rather it represents a relatively unfamiliar content. The interest shown should become a methodological incentive in teaching. The paper presents the results of a research on primary school teachers' thoughts on the dialects of the Croatian language. The circumstances influencing the dialect teaching have been examined: awareness of the value of dialect within the Croatian language, understanding the ways of adopting the standard language through dialects, the methods of preparing for classes and issues arising when encouraging language activities in dialects. The results of the research are compared in various speech communities relative to the Kajkavian dialect which is in the focus of the research. The similarities and differences in teachers' thoughts regarding the speach and nonspeech dialect are discussed. A conclusion is reached on the necessity of constant development of teachers' competences relating to this subject matter.

Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed

2012-05

1014