1. Differences in eye movements of people with and without stuttering issues : master's thesisAlex Premzl, 2025, magistrsko delo Opis: Stuttering is a complex speech disorder that extends beyond overt disfluencies in articulation, encompassing cognitive, linguistic, and neurological processes that influence both oral and silent reading. This thesis synthesizes empirical findings from eye-tracking, behavioral, and neuroimaging studies to examine five hypotheses concerning differences between individuals who stutter and fluent speakers. The results provide strong evidence that individuals who stutter exhibit distinct patterns of eye movement behavior, including increased saccadic movements, prolonged fixations, and more frequent regressions, even during silent reading tasks. These findings challenge the notion that stuttering is exclusively a motor-based disorder and suggest disruptions at higher levels of linguistic and cognitive processing.
Further, individuals who stutter demonstrated lower articulation rates and reduced fluency compared to non-stuttering peers. When required to read at a pace similar to fluent readers, they showed a trade-off between speed and accuracy, indicating a negative correlation between articulation rate and reading accuracy under time pressure. Neuroimaging evidence confirmed atypical brain activation patterns in stuttering individuals, with reduced activity in left-hemisphere regions and compensatory right-hemisphere activation, highlighting structural and functional differences in neural organization.
The findings carry important implications for both theoretical models of stuttering and clinical practice. They suggest that stuttering should be understood as a multifaceted disorder involving linguistic, cognitive, and neural mechanisms, and that interventions should address not only speech output but also broader processing differences. Nevertheless, the synthesis is limited by methodological heterogeneity across studies, small and demographically narrow samples, and a lack of longitudinal research.
Future investigations should prioritize standardized methodologies, larger and more diverse populations, and multimodal approaches combining eye-tracking with neuroimaging. Such research could clarify causal mechanisms, explore compensatory strategies, and identify early diagnostic markers. By situating stuttering within an integrative framework, this thesis contributes to a deeper understanding of the disorder and its implications for education, therapy, and further scientific inquiry.
Ključne besede: stuttering, fixations, regressions, dyslexia, saccadic eye movements, silent reading, overt reading
Objavljeno v DKUM: 28.11.2025; Ogledov: 0; Prenosov: 0
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2. English Phonetic Transcription in Slovene Secondary Schools : master's thesisUrška Kajbič, 2025, magistrsko delo Opis: This thesis explores the role of phonetic transcription in teaching English pronunciation to Slovene secondary school students. Pronunciation has long been marginalised in EFL classrooms, yet it is crucial for intelligibility. For Slovene learners, whose L1 is syllable-timed, the main difficulty lies in adapting to the stress-timed rhythm of English, especially in recognising word stress.
The research combined two parts: an analysis of six secondary school coursebooks and an experimental study. The coursebook analysis revealed that phonetic transcription is often limited to glossaries, leaving learners without clear guidance on stress placement. The experiment compared traditional teaching with a kinaesthetic technique—clapping for syllables. Results showed that the experimental group did not outperform the control group in transcribing -ed endings or schwa. However, this outcome points to a transitional stage: the experimental group had already disrupted Slovene stress patterns but had not yet stabilised English ones.
The findings highlight the importance of phonetic transcription as a tool that bridges segmental and suprasegmental levels, supports the shift from orthography to pronunciation, and makes hidden features such as vowel reduction and allomorphic variation visible. Combined with kinaesthetic techniques, it offers a pathway for more systematic and effective pronunciation teaching in Slovene classrooms.
Ključne besede: phonetic transcription, language learning, pronunciation teaching, word stress, syllable clapping
Objavljeno v DKUM: 16.10.2025; Ogledov: 0; Prenosov: 11
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3. Understanding the Grammatical Category Aspect in Present Tense Forms and Past Tense Forms in Primary School : master's thesisSaša Klar Zadravec, 2025, magistrsko delo Opis: The purpose of the master thesis entitled Understanding the Grammatical Category Aspect in Present Tense Forms and Past Tense Forms in Primary School is to determine whether primary school learners associate the forms of the simple present and past tense with the simple/indefinite aspect and the forms of the progressive present and past tense with the continuous/progressive aspect.
This is crucial for building grammar knowledge of elementary school learners and applying that knowledge in real-life situations. English is becoming more and more integrated into our daily lives and in some cases is a prerequisite for achieving goals. Therefore, the need for learning and teaching English is also increasing. Teachers face the challenge of how to get the learners to actively participate and speak in a foreign language, and applying the grammar rules to achieve the understanding, not just the knowledge of rules.
The theoretical part of the thesis presents English language on a global level with the distinction between L2 users. It further presents the language acquisition and language learning and the factors that affect the perception of the language. It describes different teaching methods, approaches and strategies that the teachers use in the classroom. Then the grammar is presented as various linguists describe and perceive it, based on the universal grammar hypothesis by Noam Chomsky. Further, the focus is on the indefinite and progressive form of aspect and the terminology of terminative and non-terminative verbs is presented. The formation and the uses of Present Indefinite/Progressive and Past Indefinite/Progressive are explained in detail as a base for the empirical part of the thesis. In the end of the theoretical part, the correspondences between the present and past tense referring to the universal truths and general statement, stative/dynamic verbs and limited actions is described.
The empirical part presents the results of a research, conducted in March and April 2022 in two primary schools in north-eastern Slovenia. Learners of 7th and 8th grade were tested with the help of two questionaries. The first questionnaire (Present Simple vs Present Continuous) consisted of six questions plus one additional task. The first five tasks were completely practical; however, the first two tasks included a theoretical task, asking the learners to explain why the said time is used in that particular task.
The last task and the additional task required a more complex thinking since the learners had to use their knowledge of grammar rules and their usage to successfully solve all the tasks on the questionnaire. The second questionnaire (Past Simple vs Past Continuous) consisted of six tasks in total. The first five tasks were practical, with task two and three additionally requiring the learners to write why they thought Past Simple or Past Continuous were used. The data was then analysed and presented in tables in terms of correctness/incorrectness and in the percentage of the answers given by learners.
The results showed that learners learn grammatical rules according to the syllabus and mostly through drilling exercises, which resulted in the very high success rate of the practical tasks, but they achieved poor results on theoretical tasks, where they were required to show the understanding of those rules. The results also confirmed our hypothesis that learners relate the simple present and past tense with the simple/indefinite aspect and the progressive present and past tense with the continuous/progressive aspect.
In the end, we compared the results of our study with the results of the study done by Kaja Podgoršek, since it covers a similar topic.
Ključne besede: teaching English, primary school, English tenses, English grammar, terminitative verbs, non-terminitative verbs
Objavljeno v DKUM: 16.10.2025; Ogledov: 0; Prenosov: 4
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4. Analysis of syntactic structures in coursebooks for English in 6th and 7th grade of primary school : magistrsko deloAnja Gaber, 2025, magistrsko delo Opis: The aim of this thesis was to investigate the explicit and implicit representation of syntactic structures in English coursebooks for Slovene primary schools and to compare these findings with authentic literary texts. The analysis focused on two basic sentence patterns in English syntax: S + P + DO (Subject + Predicator + Direct Object) and S + P + SC (Subject + Predicator + Subject Complement). The purpose was to establish how frequently these patterns occur in coursebooks and authentic texts, and to evaluate their representativeness and pedagogical implications.
The results confirmed that English coursebooks provide very few direct instructions for sentence structure formation. Grammar is mainly introduced implicitly through short texts or model examples, leaving learners to learn syntactic structures based on their interpretation. The expectation that 7th grade coursebooks for English would include more explicit instructions was only partly confirmed, as the overall demonstration of syntactic structures remained implicit.
Authentic literary texts, on the other hand, displayed a slight variability and in the use of different syntactic patterns, depending on context, genre, and communicative purpose. In contrast, coursebooks for English by Slovene authors placed greater emphasis on the S + P + DO pattern, namely only pattern 4 and 5, offering a simplified representation of English syntax., thus hindering learners’ exposure to various syntactic patterns.
These findings carry important implications for teachers, coursebook authors, and curriculum designers. While communicative and text-based methods are prevailing in language teaching, they should be complemented with explicit instruction in sentence patterns. A balanced approach would ensure that learners not only develop communicative fluency but also acquire the structural competence necessary for effective language use.
In contexts such as Slovenia, where English is a foreign language, structural guidance is essential for learners’ success. A balanced methodology that combines communicative approaches with systematic practice of sentence patterns offers the most effective support for the development of both grammatical competence and communicative fluency.
Ključne besede: syntax, syntactic structures, coursebooks for English, sentence patterns
Objavljeno v DKUM: 23.09.2025; Ogledov: 0; Prenosov: 8
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5. Slovenian EFL-students' familiarity with the English sentence structure and their ability to identify its element : master's thesisJan Dukarič, 2025, magistrsko delo Opis: This master’s thesis explores the expanding discrepancy and subsequent outcomes between prevailing pedagogical approaches and the realities of conventional assessment practices, where a fundamental understanding of a syntactic organisation is a prerequisite for engagement. Thus, the thesis aims to examine Slovene EFL primary school students’ familiarity with the English sentence structure and its elements guided by the assumptions addressing the syntactic influence of students’ L1, their limited syntactic competence, and their explicit awareness of English sentence structure and its constituent parts. Adopting a mixed methods research design and grounded in a comprehensive theoretical framework, the empirical study involved of 75 participants aged between 11 and 14 years (±1 year), which were in turn tasked with completing a grammar awareness task, language function task, word order task, and a sentence structure in translation task. The findings ultimately indicate students’ shortcomings in the identification of core sentence elements, the emergence of explicit syntactic knowledge, and a salient reliance on Slovene syntactic frameworks.
Ključne besede: English as a Foreign Language, metalinguistic awareness, cross-linguistic influence, syntactic competence, English sentence structure
Objavljeno v DKUM: 18.09.2025; Ogledov: 0; Prenosov: 8
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6. Elements of formative assessment in selected textbooks for teaching English in the 6th grade of primary school : master's thesisSimona Kitek, 2025, magistrsko delo Opis: Formative assessment is a different philosophy of learning and teaching, or a different range of didactic approaches than we are used to from the Slovenian school system. Formative assessment places the student as an individual in the centre of learning process and includes him in the learning process. This process allows students to make their knowledge more permanent. In the field of education formative assessment is not a new topic. Nevertheless, a smaller number of teachers implement the elements of formative assessment in the teaching process. Regardless of all the theoretical knowledge that teachers have already mastered in recent years, formative assessment is still insufficiently included in the lessons themselves and in the evaluation of their knowledge. Therefore, I decided to research how the elements of formative assessment are integrated in textbooks, which teachers use on daily basis. While researching the selected textbooks, that I have used as a basis for my master's thesis in the field of German language, I realized that the authors who write textbooks for teaching German as a foreign language regularly include the elements of formative assessment in the textbook content itself. Either as guidelines for creating a language portfolio, which the students make themselves, or as self-assessment scales, where the students can assess where they are in terms of their acquired knowledge. Therefore, the following master's thesis focuses on the representation of the elements of formative assessment, especially in English textbooks, which are meant for teaching English as foreign language in the sixth grade of primary schools in Slovenia. In the theoretical part we describe what formative assessment is. The main elements of formative assessments are going to be described, as well as the positive effects and possible negative effects that their inclusion in the lessons might bring. Formative assessment differs from summative assessment of the student's knowledge, which results in student’s grades. Summative assessment only assesses the student's end knowledge. It focuses rather on the end result of student’s knowledge rather than on the path. The final summative evaluation does not help the students in achieving a certain level of knowledge that we as teachers expect when we evaluate their knowledge. In contrast to the ingrained summative assessment, formative assessment evaluates students' knowledge with key elements of formative assessment such as presenting the learning intentions, portfolio creation, giving an immediate feedback, self-assessment, and peer assessment. Since the inclusion of formative assessment elements is often a problem and an additional burden for teachers in addition to all the work they have to do as teachers, I took a close look in the practical part of my master's thesis at the textbooks that teachers use when teaching English as a foreign language in the sixth grade of primary school, Touchstone 6 new and Project 2 Fourth Edition, and investigated if any of the elements of formative assessment are included in the mentioned materials, to what extent and lastly which ones. To introduce formative assessment elements more easily and successfully into English lessons in sixth grade, I also wrote some lesson plans for Touchstone 6 new textbook, in which I included the key elements and methods based on formative assessment. Teaching English as a foreign language in the sixth grade of primary school is crucial for the development of language skills and the wider personal growth of students. The importance of knowing a foreign language extends far beyond the classroom and affects career opportunities, cultural awareness, and cognitive development. The inclusion of formative assessment improves acquired knowledge and adapts the learning process to the needs of individual students, which contributes to more effective and successful learning.
Ključne besede: formativno spremljanje pouka, poučevanje angleščine kot tujega jezika
Objavljeno v DKUM: 15.07.2025; Ogledov: 0; Prenosov: 22
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7. Verbal Ellipsis in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone : master's thesisLarisa Kumer, 2025, magistrsko delo Opis: This master’s thesis analyses verbal ellipsis in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. It explores cohesion through the lens of systemic functional grammar, focusing on its role as an intersentential cohesive element. The study gives particular attention to verbal ellipsis as a cohesive device operating across sentence boundaries, analysing its application through both finite and non-finite verbal forms, with a special focus on the latter. In doing so, the research integrates the semantic dimension of verbal ellipsis within functional grammar with the syntactic function of non-finite verbal forms as conceived in structuralism theory. The idea was based on Jurančič’s (1994) hypothesis that there are less non-finite verbal forms used in Slovene than in English language. Finite and non-finite verbal ellipsis were structurally analysed. Then statistical analysis was conducted by comparing examples of lexical and operator verbal ellipsis, and the existence of both in narrative text and dialogue.
Ključne besede: verbal ellipsis, Harry Potter, cohesion, non-finite verbal forms
Objavljeno v DKUM: 15.07.2025; Ogledov: 0; Prenosov: 12
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8. Verbal Ellipsis in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit : magistrsko deloLuka Počkaj, 2025, magistrsko delo Opis: This thesis investigates verbal phrase ellipsis in Tolkien’s The Hobbit, focusing on the comparison between finite and non-finite verb forms. Building on Jurančič’s (1994) hypothesis—that Slovenian uses fewer non-finite forms than English—the study examines whether a balanced relationship exists in English texts and how this balance is reflected in a work combining narrative prose and dialogue. While ellipsis is traditionally associated with personal forms, the thesis argues that it can also occurs with non-personal forms. The analysis is based on a manual, sentence-by-sentence review of the text to identify and quantify both personal and non-personal verb forms along with instances of ellipsis. I distinguish between lexical and auxiliary verbs, as well as regular and irregular forms, and explain the five basic forms of lexical verbs. The discussion also covers the phenomenon of verbal ellipsis, distinguishing between lexical ellipsis and operator ellipsis. The empirical part focuses on The Hobbit. The text was analysed sentence by sentence to catalogue various verb forms and identify instances of ellipsis. The study pays special attention to whether ellipsis is more common in certain verb types or syntactic environments, and whether its use differs between dialogue and narrative passages. The study situates The Hobbit within the fantasy genre, noting its blend of mythic storytelling, archaic language, and diverse stylistic features that contribute to its unique narrative rhythm. Overall, the research combines functional and structural approaches to explore how verbal ellipsis influences textual cohesion and narrative tempo, paving the way for future comparative studies across genres.
Ključne besede: Verbal Ellipsis, The Hobbit, non-finite verbal forms, finite verbal forms, cohesion
Objavljeno v DKUM: 09.05.2025; Ogledov: 0; Prenosov: 41
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9. Foreign language effect (FLE) among Slovenian students who speak Slovene and English : m. a. thesisNaj Vujinič Kukovec, 2024, magistrsko delo Opis: This thesis explores the impact of foreign language on moral decision making by analyzing the occurrence called Foreign Language Effect (FLE) among Slovenian primary, secondary, and university students. Students were presented with two moral dilemmas (the trolley dilemma and the footbridge dilemma) and presumed that the students would decide on the utilitarian choice in higher number when said dilemmas are presented in foreign language (English) than when they are presented in their native language (Slovene). The study dealt with three separate groups divided by educational level of students that were further split into a control group and a test group. Participants also varied by age, gender, and proficiency in the foreign language. A total of 184 of students participated in the study, responding to moral dilemmas presented in their native language (Slovene) and English. Results indicate that FLE exists as an occurrence among Slovene students across all levels of education but to various degrees. The highest impact of the FLE was viewed among primary school students who are poorer in fluency in the foreign language than both secondary and university students. FLE was more pronounced in the footbridge dilemma than in the trolley dilemma across all educational levels. Gender differences were also noted, with male students showing higher levels of FLE than females. These findings expand our understanding of FLE and add another language group onto the spectrum of foreign language effect research while also highlighting the importance of age, gender, and proficiency in the foreign language on the decision-making process.
Ključne besede: Foreign Language Effect (FLE), Slovene students, moral decision making, dilemma, utilitarianism
Objavljeno v DKUM: 09.01.2025; Ogledov: 0; Prenosov: 35
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10. Vzgoja dvojezičnih otrok z metodo »en starš - en jezik« pri starših Slovencih : magistrsko deloDolores Gjergjek, 2024, magistrsko delo Opis: V magistrski nalogi smo obravnavali dvojezičnost, podrobneje smo opisali metodo »en starš – en jezik«. Predstavili smo kritično obdobje pri učenju drugega jezika ter sociolingvistiko v povezavi z dvojezičnostjo. Na kratko smo opisali tudi dve teoriji osebnostnega razvoja. V okviru metodologije smo uporabili dve kvalitativni metodi raziskovanja: polstrukturiran intervju in opazovanje. Vzorec je sestavljala tričlanska družina. Raziskovali smo pozitivne in negativne posledice uporabe omenjene metode ter razloge, zaradi katerih se starši z istim maternim jezikom odločijo za dvojezično vzgojo. Analizirali smo tudi različne metode za spodbujanje enakovrednega učenja obeh jezikov, dejavnike, ki vplivajo na vzpostavitev dvojezičnosti, ter težave, ki so se pojavile pri dvojezični vzgoji. Ugotovili smo, da se tej metodi pripisujejo predvsem pozitivne posledice, kot so naravno osvajanje jezika in več vloženega truda v vzgojo otroka. Glavna negativna posledica, ki smo jo opazili, je doslednost uporabe tujega jezika. Poglaviten razlog za odločitev staršev o dvojezični vzgoji otroka je bil izpostavljenost še enemu jeziku poleg maternega zaradi prednosti, ki jih prinaša dvojezičnost. Da bi njun otrok enakovredno uporabljal oba jezika, starša izbirata predvsem knjige, pravljice, pogovarjanje in opisovanje stvari. Proučevani dejavniki, ki so družina, sorodniki, okolje in kultura, na vzpostavitev dvojezičnosti niso imeli bistvenega vpliva, saj so bili družinski člani podpirajoči, s kritikami iz okolja pa se niso srečali. Največji izziv, s katerim se starša srečujeta pri dvojezični vzgoji, je otrokova neuporaba angleščine, saj komunicira večinoma le v slovenščini. Z opazovanjem smo pri otroku želeli preveriti njegovo uporabo nepravilnih glagolov v angleščini. Ugotovili smo, da pri govoru o dejanjih v preteklosti, uporabi pravilno obliko nepravilnih glagolov.
Ključne besede: dvojezičnost, metoda »en starš – en jezik«, dvojezični otroci, govor, intervju
Objavljeno v DKUM: 28.11.2024; Ogledov: 0; Prenosov: 160
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