Browsing by Subject "luova kirjoitus"

Emotional education can have an influence on the students overall well-being, academic success and the social atmosphere at school. The National Core Curriculum for Basic Education (2014) recognizes the importance of emotional education in the upbringing of children that aims to educate beneficial members of society with good emotional coping skills. Still the position of emotional education in schools remains somewhat fragmented and the teaching is not yet systematic and preventive. Based on previous research, it could be possible to support the goals of emotional education by integrating emotional coaching into the subject of Mother tongue and literature, when the activity is conscious and the teachers are aware of the potential. The purpose of this thesis is to find out how emotional skills are practiced in the learning materials of Mother tongue and literature, and to describe the possibilities of creative writing and the reading experience as tools for emotional education in elementary school. The research was conducted as a qualitative research utilizing both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The data consisted of 423 tasks from textbooks commonly used in the subject of Mother tongue and literature in Finnish elementary schools, of four different book series. The content of the tasks were described and analyzed using quantitative content analysis. The research results were deepened using a qualitative approach. In the data emotional skills were widely practiced using different types of tasks and also as a part of studying other contents of the subject of Mother tongue and literature. The result supports the idea of effective integration of emotional education into the subject. Emotional skills were often practiced by bringing the subject closer to the students’ inner world with some kind of incentive. Most commonly emotional skills were practiced in creative writing tasks. The use of narrative supporting emotional education was strongly represented in the material, both through the creative writing tasks and in the deconstruction of the reading experience. All emotional skills were practiced while deconstructing the reading experience. Based on the research, the possibilities of these learning materials in supporting emotional education are therefore versatile. The research results show that by being aware of the potential of learning materials it is possible to integrate emotional education in an effective way into the subject of Mother tongue and literature.