It is so because I think so. Argumentative skills of younger primary school students in the Czech Republic
Abstract
This paper presents some results of the research project Effectiveness of Pedagogical Interventions against School Failure at Primary School, which examines the causes of school failure in primary school pupils in the Czech Republic from a variety of educational perspectives. Our part of the research focuses on the teaching of mother tongue as a subject and, based on the analysis of the obtained data, it provides findings as to whether Grade 2 primary school pupils are able to make age-appropriate factual utterances and whether they are able to maintain semantic and logical consistency in their argumentative utterances about non-verbal text.
The main part of the paper analyses the relationship between the questions that the pupils were asked and their responses to them. Also, this paper investigates whether this skill is being properly developed in primary schools.
Although we present the results of a research which was carried out in the Czech Republic, we assume it may also be useful in international contexts. From the perspective of practical application, it may serve as an important source of inspiration, particularly with respect to language teachers in the countries affected by the former Soviet Union's educational policies and similar didactic models.