Deconstruction, Walt Whitman, and the Purpose of Literary Education

The article explores the purpose of literary theory, and, consequently, literary education at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It first discusses some of the ideas of Paul de Man for whom literary scholarship is challenged by the incompatibility between the nature of the object of literary theory and the methods used to analyse it. Then the author briefly traces some other ideas regarding the nature of literature and their reflection in establishing the purpose of literary education. A particular emphasis is paid to a re-evaluation of the universality of Walt Whitman´s message, as expressed in his “Song of Myself,” under the circumstances of contemporary ideological and cultural struggles.

Working with Text as a Determinant of the Development of Creative and Critical Thinking

The paper deals with working with text as a determinant of the development of creative and critical thinking of students. In individual parts of the work, the authors focus on the theoretical basis of creative and critical thinking, and their application in educational practice. Out of several ways of working with the text developing critical thinking, the authors have chosen two ways and subjected them to a theoretical analysis. The aim of the contribution was to point out the importance of both linear and nonlinear structuring of the curriculum in educational practice as well as to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the given ways of working with text considering the development of students’ creative and critical thinking.

Teaching Picture Storybooks via E-learning Platforms

The picture storybooks have gone through a major transformation since their modern versions appeared in the 1950si. Modern and postmodern picture story books “have a great potential with their flexibility, based on a great variety of picture-text interplay, a wide range of themes, richness of aims and functions” (Bobulová, et al., 2003, p. 88-89). In the online distance learning course, education will be carried out on the basis of interaction between the learner and material (stored and exchanged in Moodle Platform, for instance), and between other participants in the educational process, that is, the instructor and other learners. The advantage of teaching children’s literature, especially picture story books, via E-learning platforms, is twofold: firstly, readers take their time to go through the reading materials and work on their own; secondly, it gives them space and time to prepare for the task assigned by the instructor appropriately and effectively by paying close attention to all the details, which, due to shortage of time allocated in face-to-face education (classroom environment) would be impossible. This paper presents not only advantages of such learning, but also sample tasks learners may encounter while participating in the online distance learning.

Evaluating CD ROMs for Pre-Primary English Courses in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

Living in the digital age means that modern information and communications technologies (ICT) have penetrated into every aspect of human lives, including education. Despite the fact that ICT are widely used in educational setting, many educators (and parents) have nevertheless remained concerned about how to adapt them into children’s education meaningfully and effectively. The use of ICT in education in general, and in preschool institutions in particular, has become an important research issue. The study focuses on evaluating multimedia CD-ROMs published in two countries with the intention to be used in pre-school institutions for the introduction of English as a foreign language to the youngest learners (children 3 – 6 years). The results point to the fact that majority of the CD ROMs offered activities which were marked as “robotic”, “glib”, “static”, and “empty” (built upon simple and usually mechanically repeated instructions), never reached beyond mechanical memorisation of English vocabulary in any entertaining way. The author calls for designing cognitively challenging materials which could support development of higher cognitive or affective functions of very young learners.

Psychological Bases of the Foreign-Language Education of Seniors (Not Only) with Health Disability

According to international documents, older people have a right to carry out and fully develop their abilities, skills and competences, as well as to have a dignified place and position in the society. Seniors with a certain kind of health disability have the same right as well. Due to this reason, it is indispensable and necessary to create suitable conditions for disabled seniors and to provide them a place for their personal development and self-fulfilment oriented on their fully valuable life in spite of their health disadvantage. The foreign-language education can be considered to be one of the possibilities of the self-fulfilment of seniors (not only) with health disability. Learning of a foreign language is an immanent part of education, however, it is necessary to keep certain specific features in the foreign-language education of this target group. This subject study is aimed on the analysis of psychological bases and chosen specific features of foreign-language education of seniors (not only) with health disability. It mentions chosen psycho-didactic aspects of the education of seniors (not only) with health disability. The study is an output of the authors from solving the research project of Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic and the Slovak Academy of Sciences n.1/0176/15 called Paradigms in education of adults and seniors with disability in the residential care.

Use of Student-Produced Videos to Develop Oral Skills in EFL Classrooms

This paper discusses the use of student-produced videos to improve speaking skills in EFL classrooms, with emphasis on their use in preparatory classes at Kocaeli University, School of Foreign languages. The use of student-produced videos as a learning and teaching tool may greatly enhance the quality of students’ oral skills in many ways. They have the chance of reviewing their own performances, evaluating their speaking skills and becoming more self-critical of their abilities. The perspectives of using the student-created videos for the development of oral skills in language classrooms are presented.

Conceptual Maps of European Values

Systems of human values reflected in European languages have not yet been diagnosed in language sciences, as no accurate diagnostic measures have been proposed. Research has been conducted into methods of modelling conceptual systems of moral values. Since ethics, unlike subjects related to natural sciences, resists lexicographic approach reliant on topicality, linked with market demand, a new research method has been devised. Specialised lexicography tools can be optimized to deal with the subject of ethics. The new method takes into account differences between subject areas regarding their associations with a type of science. Systems of human values can be measured based on prioritizing documents created in European languages according to the degree to which concepts referred to in these documents are fixed. These findings give rise to a cross-historical and cross-cultural linguistic enterprise. Its aim is to identify moral concepts and to connect them into semantic maps. The maps, one per language, are contrasted to find out which moral concepts are ‘shared’ across languages, and which of them are less common, or language specific. The model of ‘common’ values can be seen as an instrument to preserve and promote European moral heritage.

Role Play as a Method of Improving Communication Skills of Professionals Working with Clients in Institutionalized Care – a Literature Review

Effective communication skills represent a crucial aspect of competence of professionals working in institutionalized care. Quality of communication between professionals and clients has an impact on how the care is delivered, how clients perceive the care and how professionals experience their role. The aim of the present review is to provide an overview of current research on the education interventions aimed at improving communication skills of professionals working with clients in institutionalized care, e.g. nursing homes. Main keywords and phrases (communication, language, education, training, intervention, role play, professionals, institutionalized care) were used to search for relevant papers in the available databases. Studies fulfilling the inclusion criteria were analyzed from the perspective of study design, target sample (social workers, health care professionals, andragogists), applied methods of education, and quality of measures employed to assess the effect. Interventions for effective communication skills development were identified. The study summarizes the main theoretical perspectives, empirically supported intervention approaches and future directions.

Error Analysis in EFL Classroom of Lower Secondary Students

This paper attempts to introduce current perspective on EFL students of lower secondary level in terms of speech fluency. The major objective of this study is to investigate errors in the speech of students from eleven to twelve years old. This research seeks to address the question of analysing errors in order to explore particular aspects of EFL in the initial phase of Slovak cultural context. Based on the theory of behaviourism that tackles the issue of learning as a habit, the paper deals with the possible influence of perception of abstract concepts in Slovak cultural environment on EFL learning. Furthermore, the paper examines the potential causes of errors or undue hesitation which occur in the students′ speech. A combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches was used in the data analysis. The study was conducted in the form of an interview between an interlocutor and a student with data being gathered via audio-recordings which have been transcribed and analysed. It attempts to list possible areas which might be taken into consideration and adapt the EFL curriculum in the initial phase of English language learners in Slovak cultural context.

Issues in Machine Translation

Machine translation (MT) is still a huge challenge for both IT developers and users. From the beginning of machine translation, problems at the syntactic and semantic levels have been faced. Today despite progress in the development of MT, its systems still fail to recognise which synonym, collocation or word meaning should be used. Although mobile apps are very popular among users, errors in their translation output create misunderstandings. The paper deals with the analysis of machine translation of general everyday language in Lithuanian to English and English to Lithuanian language pairs. The results of the analysis show that more than two thirds of all the sentences were translated incorrectly, which means that there is a relatively small possibility that a mobile app will translate sentences correctly. The results are disappointing, because even after almost 70 years of MT research and improvement, researchers still cannot offer a system that would be able to translate with at least 50% correctness.