Self-development in terms of reading comprehension in a second foreign language is often practiced
to a small extent in foreign language education. In the L2 (German language) educational process, the
teacher focuses mainly on teaching basic grammatical phenomena and vocabulary. The development
of reading comprehension in L2, as to text genres and forms, provides a new dimension in terms of
self-development, as it mainly supports metacognitive processes and thus self-efficacy and success
in a foreign language text understanding.
The goal of the presented research was to find out connections between students success in reading
comprehension with regard to different categories of text genres (adventure books, historical novels,
fairy tales, poems, legends, and science fiction, and others) and text forms (either printed – magazines,
newspapers, books, textbooks or electronic – e-books, websites, e-textbooks, and others). We were
interested in whether a particular (concrete) genre or form of text does (or does not) contribute to
the success in L2 reading comprehension or whether reading of any genre or form of text does (or
does not) contribute to the success in L2 reading comprehension. The research was carried out in
secondary vocational and grammar schools in Slovakia on a sample of 126 respondents. Statistically
significant correlations were found between specific (concrete) genres and forms of texts and success
in reading comprehension. It turns out that short stories, legends and books about nature predict
better understanding of texts in the German language, and reading of printed books and magazines
promotes success in L2 reading comprehension.
Author : Zdenka Gadušová
Investigation of Stressors Teachers Face in Schools
Teachers have to face many different stressful situations in schools. In this context serious attention
has been paid, and much research has been carried out, to investigate the issue of potential stressors
occurring in school or class environment. Although pre-service teacher training does not usually
include training related to the development of the teachers` competence to solve stressful situations
in lessons, as soon as teachers start their teaching career, they are automatically considered to be
equipped with this competence. In the research, presented in this paper, the main goal was to identify
the most frequent stressors that primary and secondary school teachers face in their everyday
teaching. Two methods were used to collect necessary research data: a semi-structured interview
with teachers, and observation of teachers during the lessons they taught. Based on the interview
data analyses the following nine stressors were identified as the most frequent and most serious (in
order): difficult students, mismatch between students’ performance requirements and their abilities,
disruptive behavior of students, inadequate student attention, social and emotional factors of the
environment in which students live, use of mobile phones during lessons, overwork and fatigue of
teachers, insufficient school equipment and lack of teaching aids, conflicts among students. The aim
of the observation was to confirm in practice, the types of the stressors identified from the interview
data. Analysis of the records from observations, confirmed some of the previously (in interviews)
identified stressors and also identified some further stressors.
Learners’ success and self-esteem in foreign language reading comprehension
Demands for a high-level development of foreign language reading comprehension skills and competences are now escalating and processing of foreign language text information is a matter of course. Pupils and teachers are faced with the need to work with textual information in more complicated ways, in which self-esteem plays an important role. This paper analyses learners’ success of reading comprehension in foreign language and real self-esteem in acquiring those skills. Self-esteem helps to promote language self-confidence, the learner’s level of aspiration, and adjustment to perception of foreign language structure. As long as the learner does not really perceive themselves (real “self”), it is difficult to talk about understanding lexical meanings and their real perception of grammatical structures in the text. The research goal was to find differences in self-esteem and success in foreign language reading comprehension skills with respect to categories of comprehension (specifically: I always understand everything; I have a lot of problems with text understanding; specifically: I experience difficulties with understanding unknown words; problem with understanding long sentences; difficulty with understanding the unfamiliar topic of the text; pictures help me in understanding; guiding questions help me in understanding). The research question was whether the self-image of learners in relation to the skill of foreign language reading comprehension is realistic given their real success in this skill. The research was carried out in the Slovak Republic on a sample of 327 respondents and found differences in subjective perception of understanding and success in reading comprehension skills. The research showed a low real self- image of learners especially in categories of global character in respect to the average understanding of foreign language texts.
Teacher’s Professional Competences and Their evaluation
The reform process of Slovak system of education requires a professional discussion aimed at
enhancing the quality of the teacher’s professional performance in the context of the pupil’s needs
and overall optimization of the education system, including qualitative changes in the content
and organization of education as well as a change in the social status of teacher. One of the topics
discussed was the possibility of increasing the quality of the teacher’s performance by mapping
them to the requirements of the teacher’s professional competency profile. A team of experts from
Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra (Slovakia) has been addressing this issue in the
form of a research project Evaluation of Teacher Competences, which focuses on the development
and design of a comprehensive evaluation model and tools for evaluating different teaching
competences.
The research team has developed special evaluation tools – a set of assessment sheets aimed at
assessment (Assessment Sheets for evaluators), self-assessment (Self-Assessment Sheets for
the observed and evaluated teachers), and a tool to correlate the assessment positions of the
evaluator and the evaluated teacher. In developing the tools, the specific focus of each professional
competence and the content and performance requirements on teacher’s work have been taken
into account. The methodology for verifying the efficiency of the designed tools included panel
discussion, piloting, and personal interviews. The results of the pilots in primary and secondary
schools all over Slovakia were analyzed, evaluated and taken into account when modifying the
final version of the evaluation tools. These are now offered for implementation by school managers
in Slovak schools.
One of the issues in the research project, testing the process aspect of education, is the competence
of planning education. The research, focused on identifying the complex of the given competence
components and their analysis. The most important part of the competence is the ability to create
a model (plan/scenario) of a lesson, the success of which is based on the correct identification and
realization of the educational aims and objectives. The teachers demonstrate competence through
their ability to implement relevant didactical transformation of the curriculum content, not only
in the view of the requirements of particular subjects, but also in the view of the current societal
challenges and needs, taking into account modern and effective methodological approaches. The
assessment tools for the competence in educational planning were verified in a pilot. The paper
presents partial results of the research, which confirmed the relevance and reasonability of the
methodology for the competence assessment. Education and training requirements in the Slovak
Republic accept common aspects related to the education of citizens of the European Union and
at the same time prioritize education as an essential means for ensuring sustainable development.
Achievement of these goals can be ensured not only via transforming the Slovak school system, but
also via teachers’ personal, professional and career growth.