Suchergebnisse

Teachers are pillars of education. Their lifelong learning is a prerequisite for improving their teaching practice. An important aspect of teachers' learning is the reflection on their own experiences in the classroom, whereby they will acquire new knowledge and gain confidence which is especially important for novice teachers. The paper presents an overview of literature on the role of reflection for teachers in general and teachers of English as a foreign language specifically. The paper also includes the analysis of activities conducted by a group of 10 students, future teachers of English as a foreign language, who were taught the importance of reflection. The students were enrolled in English Phonetics course at English Language and Literature program – the teaching track at International University of Sarajevo. The qualitative method was applied, whereby activities conducted to raise students' awareness of the importance of reflection for teaching were described and analysed. The approach may be described as action research aimed at examining students' attitudes on reflection, as well as examples of good practice in teacher education. In order to familiarize future teachers of English as a foreign language with the importance of reflection for teaching, the following activities were conducted: microteaching, reflecting on one's own microclass, peer review, and writing the reflection log. Firstly, students selected topics for 10-minute classes they held, which were related to English Phonetics. Students were free to choose the topic for their class and the age of students and their level of English proficiency, whereupon they tailored their classes to their students' needs. The students video recorded their micro-classes with their own mobile phone cameras and were told to watch the video recording of their class prior to writing the reflection log. They commented on the classes they held, and other students in class also provided their feedback on each microclass. Finally, students filled-in a short survey in which they commented on the conducted activities and shared their impressions. The conclusion is that students have recognized the role and the importance of reflection for the teaching profession. Majority of them were happy to take on the teacher's role and they demonstrated their autonomy, creativity and innovativeness.

In 2021 fall semester, students and professors of International University of Sarajevo resumed face-to-face education after the period of online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the paper is to determine attitudes of students towards online education and return to face-to-face education and their recommendations on how to improve higher education during the pandemic. The instrument used to collect data was a survey questionnaire that was filled-in online. The total number of 103 students filled-in the questionnaire (n=103). Quantitative and qualitative methodology were applied. Descriptive statistics was conducted with SPSS software. The qualitative method of content analysis was applied to answers to open-ended questions. The results show a polarization of students into those who prefer online education and those who prefer face-to-face education. For the students, the main advantages of returning to face-to-face classes are: more efficient learning, socializing with their peers, higher quality of classes, better communication and true university experience. The disadvantages are: the risk of COVID-19 infection, difficult time management, issues related to mental health and lectures. For students, online education meant more time, advantages of online lectures, higher security during the pandemic, less stress and lower costs, but also issues with computers and internet, lectures, exams, a lack of contact with their peers and more stress. In order to improve higher education, the students highlight the importance of adjusting it to the circumstances of the pandemic, improving the teaching process and the relations between professors and students, and keeping the focus on students' needs.

This paper discusses language acquisition in children aged two and three. The analysis was carried out on a corpus of child language compiled during research conducted at a kindergarten in Sarajevo among children aged two and three who acquire their native language in the area of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Qualitative and quantitative methods were applied in the corpus analysis. The development of child language production was measured by the Mean Length of Utterance, based on the number of words per utterance (MLUw). The distribution of parts of speech was established for both age groups. A special emphasis was placed on the ratio between the number of nouns and the number of verbs. The results have confirmed the nativist natural partitions hypothesis, according to which nouns are predominant in children's early speech over verbs and other parts of speech. MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (MCDI) was applied in the semantic analysis of nouns. The analysis confirmed the hypothesis that nouns denoting animate beings have a higher prevalence over nouns denoting inanimate objects at the early stages of language acquisition. In addition, the presence of complex and abstract concepts was detected, which supports the theory of the existence of an innate language acquisition device in humans. The creative aspect of child language was also analysed, along with differences between the language of children and the language of adult speakers.