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Abstract: As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, readers and scholars turn to previous pandemic writing. Among the accounts of past pandemics, Mary Shelley’s The Last Man (1826) might not be the most familiar, although it stands out, not merely because of its female author and futuristic, dystopian mode. Its real distinction is that it predicts the social and political fallout of a pandemic in ways that echo the global experience of coronavirus reaction over the last few years, specifically, the ideological polarization created by anti-pandemic measures.
Keywords: English literature, plague narrative, dystopia
Published in DKUM: 02.08.2024; Views: 78; Downloads: 2
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Abstract: The thesis analyses the influence of fantasy and madness on two female protagonists in The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. It aims to explain in what ways the fantasizing of two female protagonists suggests the potential madness or mental health issues in the protagonists. The protagonists, Eleanor Vance, and the governess, experience seemingly inexplicable supernatural occurrences while trying to restart their lives in new surroundings. Both literary works of Gothic fiction focus on their narration and explanation of the events and their fantasizing about what could have been. To correctly interpret the results of the analysis and scientific terms, the first part of the thesis deals with the explanation of specific terminology related to the Gothic genre, madness in medical and literary terms in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and psychoanalytic criticism. The theoretical background is significant for the definition of the specific passages that help us understand the ambiguous literary works by Jackson and James. The thesis attempts to discover what mental illnesses could be tormenting the female protagonists and how defining their symptoms could help explain their behaviour and inexplicable occurrences.
Keywords: The Haunting of Hill House, The Turn of the Screw, Shirley Jackson, Henry James, fantasy, madness, mental illness, schizophrenia, Female Gothic
Published in DKUM: 14.03.2024; Views: 234; Downloads: 45
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Abstract: Using storybooks as a teaching tool has proved an effective teaching and learning technique that aids in developing and enhancing vocabulary, promotes reading and comprehension skills and even fosters social skills in learners with different needs and abilities. Developing and enhancing key social skills is all the more important for learners diagnosed with autism. Autistic learners experience deficits in social interaction and communication, struggle with fear of the unknown, have constant need for sameness, and might encounter sensory hypo- and hypersensitivities. Promoting social skills has been shown to significantly alleviate social difficulties in children with autism, and one of the successful social skills teaching and intervention methods for learners diagnosed with autism is – according to Amy Bohlander et al. and other researchers in the field – storybook reading. The theoretical part of the thesis aims at presenting key features of autistic behavior correlated with the neuroimaging findings on the irregular functioning of certain parts of the autistic brain; addressing effective inclusion strategies for teaching (young) autistic learners enrolled in general education settings, and discussing the characteristics that constitute a potentially appropriate storybook for use with young autistic learners in inclusive story reading lessons. The empirical part provides a descriptive analysis of ten storybooks, which offer a step-by-step guidance on how to cope with (a) socially challenging situation(s) and were not specifically adapted for learners with autism. The results of the storybook analysis have shown that the storybooks are mainly appropriate for promoting social skills in young autistic learners, whereby the number of storybooks classified as fully appropriate equals the number of partially appropriate items. However, to ensure a quality inclusive story reading experience that allows for effective, autism-friendly social skills teaching, the teacher or story reader needs to consider meeting the adaptation requirements for each storybook, irrespective of its classification, and identify the autistic individual´s unique set of weaknesses, enhanced abilities and (anti-)social behavior patterns prior to selecting a storybook for a group story reading.
Keywords: autism, inclusive education, social skills teaching, storybooks, story reading
Published in DKUM: 16.11.2023; Views: 492; Downloads: 28
Full text (6,06 MB)

Abstract: V magistrski nalogi smo se osredinili na potencial video iger kot medijev za pasivno usvajanje besedišča pri dijakih, dijakinjah v srednji šoli. Delo se nanaša na učitelje, učiteljice srednješolcev, ki so dovzetnejši za takšen način učenja. Video igre imajo potencial pri izboljšanju besedišča dijakov izven učilnice. Številne raziskave na področju usvajanja besedišča so bile narejene v kontekstu medosebne interakcije v večigralskih video igrah, v magistrskem delu pa smo se osredinili na enoigralske, kjer lahko učenci s pomočjo zgodb v video igrah izboljšajo obstoječe in pridobivajo novo besedišče. V magistrski nalogi smo zastavili tri hipoteze. Prvo in drugo hipotezo smo potrdili v empiričnem delu, tretjo pa v teoretičnem. Magistrsko delo se osredotoča na izboljševanje besedišča, usvojenega v učilnici, in ga primerja z besediščem video iger in besediščem izbranih in potrjenih učbenikov za poučevanje angleščine od drugega letnika srednje šole dalje. Prav tako nudi vpogled v potencial video iger za usvajanje besedišča pri pouku angleščine in daje učiteljem priporočila, kako video igre koristno uporabiti pri pouku angleščine.
Keywords: video igre, usvajanje besedišča, poučevanje, učenje, srednja šola
Published in DKUM: 22.12.2022; Views: 887; Downloads: 75
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Abstract: This Master’s Thesis deals with the topic of teaching English as a foreign language to young language learners with the use of storybooks/a story-based approach. It has been produced with the intent to encourage and persuade English teachers of young language learners (in Slovenia) to introduce this approach to their early foreign language lessons, by offering a detailed overview of the advantages a story-based approach brings to the context of foreign language instruction, and to serve as a handbook, guiding them through the recommendations for the selection of appropriate storybooks, the preparation for storytelling/storyreading and its implementation, with additional emphasis on the importance of choosing and incorporating suitable story-related activities to each stage of the storytelling/reading act. Moreover, concerns teachers might have when first starting to use this approach, such as whether or not the learner's first language should be used in the story-based lessons, and how many times the same story can be presented to the learners, have been touched on, as well. Furthermore, the Master’s Thesis provides a selection of ready-to-use story-based lesson plans, prepared around chosen storybooks, all made to fit the goals/aims of foreign language instruction at primary level in the 2nd and 3rd grade in Slovene primary schools.
Keywords: Storybooks, Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL), Young Learners (YL), Teaching English to Young Learners (TEYL), Story-Based Approach to Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Young Learners, Story-Based Lesson Plans
Published in DKUM: 03.08.2022; Views: 888; Downloads: 91
Full text (7,71 MB)