This diploma thesis deals with support of speaking competence of children in primary school. It focuses especially on the 5th and 6th grade students and on an expository writing whereas it explicates the basic developmental characteristics of this age group. In its crucial part, diploma comes with a unique set of activities, which could accompany the exercises in the Czech language textbooks used nowadays. Finally, in the closing chapter, the testing of selected activities with a group of 5th grade students is described including an evaluation and a feedback of students. Keywords: speaking competence, primary school, communication education, expository writing, word games, Czech language textbooks

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Education / Master / Master of Science in Information Technology in Education

Language is a system that fundamentally influences us as human beings. There are numerous schools of thought critiquing our use of language and celebrating attempts to break free of the control it has over our lives. In that perspective a transformative play with language can be seen as critical play, and a game design approach supporting this kind of play can be defined as critical. The cut-up technique is an aleatory literary technique invented by the Dadaists in the 1920s. It was the fundamental lack of belief in society and language that gave birth to the cut-up method. Mary Flanagan includes it in her book “Critical Play: Radical Game Design” as part of the critical game-design paradigm. The singer-songwriter Dave Kapell invented Magnetic Poetry in the early 90s inspired by the cut-up technique and how artists such as William Burroughs and David Bowie used in their work. I am a co-founder of Ozma Games – a game studio based in Malmö, Sweden. In Ozma we are working on a social word game called Words of Oz. Magnetic Poetry inspired us in the design of Words of Oz, as we wanted to make a casual game that could evoke players’ creativity. The Dadaists clearly wanted to challenge the way we use language. In this essay I will compare the Dadaist cut-up method with its later adaptations Magnetic Poetry and Words of Oz. My question is whether the critical design approach is sustained in Magnetic Poetry and Words of Oz or if the change in technology and framing has limited the subversive potential from which they originated.

The proverbes dramatiques of Carmontelle have been well-studied. This dissertation explores instead the understudied precursors of the genre, the environment out of which it grew, and its earliest three authors. As seventeenth-century France’s first classic salon, the format, attitudes, and activities of the Hôtel de Rambouillet created a template for salons to follow. Within this milieu arose a collective seeking for a raised moral consciousness, improved intellectual prowess, and a forum for the discussion of progressive ideas. These desires also permeated their leisure activities, giving rise to games of wit, including the jeux des proverbes. An investigation of Charles Sorel’s La maison des jeux and these salon games uncovers the earliest incarnation of the proverbe dramatique, the proverbe improvisé, an impromptu play illustrating a proverb. Following a look at the French salon, the jeux des proverbes, and the proverbe improvisé, this dissertation first examines the proverbes dramatiques of Madame de Maintenon, second wife to Louis XIV and founder of the girls’ school Saint-Cyr. Written between 1686 and 1719, her forty Proverbes served as the foundation of the school’s théâtre d’éducation. Through the preparation, performance, and follow-up discussions of these short works, Madame de Maintenon sought to mold the moral values of her students and to prepare them for the lives that they would lead after finishing their studies at Saint-Cyr. Next, this study looks at the first published proverbes dramatiques, those written by Catherine Durand and housed in the Comtesse de Murat’s Le voyage de campagne. Most of the ten Comédies en proverbes showcase moliéresque humor and tend to depict male characters as less intelligent or more flawed than their female counterparts. Finally, this examination ends with the study of four of the proverb plays written by Charles Collé in context with the théâtre de société. These pieces expand the parameters of the genre and boast a licentious nature characteristic of the author’s work and appreciated in the earlier théâtres de société. Extending more than a century, The proverbe dramatique before Carmontelle seeks to offer a better understanding of the creation of the genre, its characteristics, and its connection to French society. / text