Fourth graders' communication skills in Slovene at a bilingual elementary school in Carinthia

Visiting a bilingual primary school in Carinthia, we noticed that the majority of pupils enrolled in bilingual classes cannot communicate in (standard) Slovene language when they finish primary school. This is the case although the curriculum of bilingual schools sets a rule that all subjects are taught in German and Slovene in approximately the same amount. It seems that the teachers and headteachers' relation to Slovene language is very important. The research tries to find out what the bilingual students' communication ability is like at the end of primary school (grade four). We have also tried to find out how much can a teacher add to developing this ability with his/her example and interest for Slovene. This in mind, we made oral and written tests which check all communication skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing). The tests were taken by 21 fourth graders of a bilingual primary school. Then one class (group 1) was taught by a Slovene teacher and another (group 2) by an Austrian teacher. After two months we checked their communication ability again with the same tests. The first test showed that the students have low communication ability in general and that it is different in the two groups. In average, the first group was better at all communication activities than the second group. The first group was more successful at listening, the second at reading. Both groups had the worst average result at speaking. We have assumed that the students' communication ability depends on the quality of lessons and the teacher's interest in the language itself. The results of the second test have shown that the students taught by a Slovene teacher for two months improved at all communication activities. The biggest progress was achieved at speaking. The progress of students taught by the Slovene teacher was from 18,7 % to 42,0 %. The progress of students taught by the Slovene teacher was from 2,0 % to 6,6 %. This means that mastering the language, including the students to all communication activities, and having interest in the language can bring improvement in communication ability in Slovene even in a very short period of time