A researcher of the University of Granada has prepared the first study on gipsy students written expression in Spain, valuing their attitude towards writing and the difficulties they find when it comes to write a text. This is the most complete work carried out so far, as they have studied the written expression of these students combining the analysis of cognitive processes (interviews with the students) with the analysis of the students texts and the attitude and efficiency self-perception scales towards writing.
This work has been carried out by Antonio García Guzmán, and directed by Professors Francisco Salvador Mata and Rosario Arroyo González, from the Department of Didactics and School Organization of the UGR.
To carry out this work, the researcher prepared an in-depth study with 18 gipsy students from two schools of the north of Granada, one of the most depressed districts of the town. They were students of the 5th and 6th courses of Primary Education; this is, aged between 11 and 12.
This way he could check the enormous lack of vocabulary of these children, who admit this fact and accept that «they have difficulties when it comes to express themselves in writing». However, these students show a very positive attitude towards writing, they say «they like writing» and their texts are longer than those of the rest of their classmates. When the researcher compared these results (those relating to syntactical and structural analysis) with other studies carried out with primary education students, he found out that gipsy children’s texts were longer.
Lack of concentración
García Guzmán points out that gipsy students «do not read nor write at home, as their environment is not the most favourable for this activity». However, they often use compound sentences in their written texts and you can appreciate they are more creative, although «they suffer an evident lack of concentration» when writing.
The work carried out at the UGR, based on a series of questionnaires made to children, has revealed that gipsy children frequently mix oral and written language together and they repeat the same sentences in their compositions mechanically.
Part of the results of this research work will be soon published in the Journal of the Spanish Ministry of Education and it has given rise to numerous scientific communications in different conferences.
Reference
Prof Antonio García Guzmán. Department of Didactics and School Organization of the University of Granada.
Tel: 956526132-958243987.
E-mail: antogagu@ugr.es