The conducted research revealed topical issues in pre-school education and pointed to problems of organising education in Lithuania. The problem of variety of social and education services provided to families and children as well as their accessibility is obvious and topical. The data of the researches show that social requests from families are not met sufficiently and biological, cultural, material and other needs of children are satisfied only partially. There is a lack of statistical information on certain issues of pre-school education service provision.

In 2009-2010 there was an initiation of the Practicing Kindergarten of the University of Kaposvár, and Pumuckl-kindergarten took off to provide an opportunity for children to get to know German language. The thematic outline of the sessions is based on the Gouin-method. I created my methodology with respect to the specialties and activities of the age group of kindergarten children - it is based on games. My primary aim is language acquisition focusing on capabilities and enforcing positive attitudes. The teacher explains the games to the children on their mother tongue, then plays it, saying what she is doing meanwhile, then the children have to copy her. These lines of activities are repetitive, then they widen, following the line of Gouin-rows.

In this paper we assume that we can stimulate the development of speech, help language acquisition and diagnose the development of child speech only based on child speech development and child thought knowledge. But child speech is not sufficiently explored at the moment. We believe that there are universal tendencies of language acquisition. So far, in connection with the issue of universality and innateness, discussions focus in particular on grammar. Languages that use agglutination (e.g. Slavic languages) allow comparing derivation with grammar and its acquisition. The word-formation rules are the result of formal and semantic relationships between words, therefore the way of acquisition and the use of the word formation system of language is largely specific, but for now unbeaten. We suppose that the acquisition of the word formation system of language starts in later development and, due to the use of cognitive structures, it is more difficult than acquisition of reflection. We are trying to verify the fact for the examination of child's speech. We want to answer the following questions: Do children compose words spontaneously? If so, at what age and how far are they represented in a child's speech? Can we link the incidence of compositing words in child speech with child thinking or with specific language? Can we influence child speech and diagnose it in terms of word-formation? We will use a combination of methods - group and individual, longitudinal and individual studies, spontaneous communication, naming files, creating names, literary texts, project teaching, to make the results credible. The research results should help in stimulating child speech and its more complex diagnosis in school.

The issue of authorial fairy tale and its relationship with children audience at the first stage of elementary school (readers of the Year 4) is, even today, not entirely clear. In terms of the notion of authorial fairy tale, we distinguish three relevant reasons, why we chose the genre of authorial fairy tale for our research in literary genealogy. In relation to the notion of the current children audience, we present the notion of the so-called "new child", whose characteristic feature is especially its apathy, lack of interest, passivity as well as an ever growing loss of sensibility and emotions, suppressed by rationality. Moreover, we specify the methodology of the experimental research, performed in elementary schools, using typologically different variants of modern authorial fairy tales: the basic set was made up of all the pupils of the fourth form in the Slovak republic, whereby an available focused selection was performed. The experimental research was carried out by means of one group. From a methodological point of view, it was an experimental interference in one group, whereby the consequences were compared (changes that occurred) in the dependant variable before and after the experiment. The research had a confirmatory character and was aimed at the influence of experimental interference as independent variables on the reception of pupils of the fourth form (dependent variable). In the end, we present the results that, de facto, unmasked the low perception preference of children of parody-nonsense texts and on the other hand, they revealed a receptor conductivity of subversive texts. A side effect of such an experimental research, we recorded presentations of evil in the products of children creativity, closely linked to the current (socially not regulated) trend of mass media culture.

The article briefly presents a new scientific discipline-positive psychology and selects one topic - character strengths. It also describes each of these strengths and defines a research instrument (questionnaire Via Youth) which can be used to measure these strengths. It also defines the classroom climate and presents various methods for its examination. Content of the second part of the article is an outline of research methodology aimed to identify character strengths and its relations to classroom climate's quality.

People comprehend the qualities and the values they posses such as freedom, honesty, justice, respect, love, empathize, tolerance, peace, happiness, responsibility and be fair in order to realize and control the preferences they made in their lives. The individual normally promotes his/her own life with various values like cultural values, universal values, personal values and social values. Values education enables the individual to develop the values system that s/he has arranged and used. Therefore, values education is considered necessary as it frames the life of individual and provides to stand out at the universal level. In this study the perception of teacher candidates in respect of conceptualization of basic values is inquired. In order to determine the meanings imposed by teacher candidates on basic values, the study was conducted with 94 teacher candidates who were receiving education in Faculty of Education. Data of the research was obtained with the inquiry form developed by the researcher. Teacher candidates were asked to reply the question "How do you define basic values for your part?" Content analysis was used for analyzing the written replies. Data were evaluated by following up the stages of content analysis. In order to determine the meanings imposed by teacher candidates on basic values, first the statements were taken up separately for each individual and then they were classified by taking into consideration the content similarity. Each classification was named and accordingly main themes were attained. Analysis results were arranged in view of the values classification (traditional, democratic, working-job, scientific and basic) used by Akbas and the values classification (terminal and instrumental) used by Rokeach. Comparison was made considering both classifications. The original statements of teacher candidates were also given during presentation of the findings in order to support the themes.

A teacher has always been the core of every system of education. At present, a lot is required from them, they are given more complex tasks resulting from the local, European and global needs and problems. For this reason, nowadays, the problem of the professional competences gains particular significance. In the face of continuous changes, it requires to be redefined and it is essential to establish the main elements and types of teachers' competences. The author's teachers' professional competence model includes three main components: knowledge - general, substantial, pedagogical and psychological; abilities - communicative, managerial and social, personal features - subjective, moral and creative. However, a competent teacher is, first of all, reflective practitioner. Thus, the presented model of professional competence also consists of teachers' practical experience. The elaborated model of the competence was used to design the research and competence of modern teachers in various fields: organizational and managerial, substantial, methodical and didactical, pedagogical and psychological, communicative, diagnostic, control and evaluative, creative etc. The results of the research conducted among students and teachers show assessment diversity from both subjects. Teachers evaluate the educational reality and the level of their competences highly, whereas students criticize them more often. It proves that adaptive attitudes dominate among teachers. These attitudes block their creative activities and self-development, and schools' development. Thus, it is essential to shape the critical and emancipative attitudes among future and present teachers because they are the basis for permanent becoming competent.

The aim of this research is to identify the problems that teacher candidates have while communicating with lecturers and to determine these problem's effect on the achievements of the teacher candidates. The research carried out in line with this purpose has been modeled in accordance with the descriptive model. The research data were obtained by applying Scale for Communication Apprehension with Lecturers developed by Gumus and Gecer to 230 teacher candidates and by addressing open ended questions to the teacher candidates. The quantitative data obtained from the research were analyzed by statistical analysis and the qualitative data were analyzed by content analysis. In accordance with the findings obtained from the research, it has been determined that there are problems that teacher candidates have in communicating with lecturers, and these problems do not affect the academic grade averages of the teacher candidates. In addition to this, in line with the opinions of teacher candidates, it has been concluded that the problems they have in communicating with lecturers lead to variety of problems like their having difficulties in learning, and decrease in their interest and willing for learning.

The article discusses the topic of computer visualisation of the educational contents of natural sciences subject taught at primary level, i.e. from the first to the fourth grade of primary school. The need to visualise logical causality in the contents of natural sciences is a result of several years of teaching experience proving that while a pupil might be able to describe facts and processes of natural sciences, it does not necessarily mean he/she understood the mechanism behind these facts and processes. In the minds of pupils the facts are often out of context and causality. Therefore, the solution to the missing causality of the learning contents logical structure could be a computer visualisation of the learning contents. Visualisation is a graphic (visual) representation of a group of key logical areas/terms and their interconnection. The structural components used for primary school pupils are the following: word maps, orientation graphs, structure grams, development/sequence diagrams, Venn diagrams, tables and graphs. The article also presents an innovative system of teaching natural sciences to primary school pupils, which has been proposed and experimentally tested in the practice over several years. The main reason for development of this system was to innovate the existing well-functioning and methodologically detailed traditional system of teaching, rather than replacing it. Our intention was to show new possibilities of the innovation systems extending the boundaries of the traditional ones. Such a symbiosis builds on positive sides of both systems while limiting or completely excluding the negative ones. The final part of the articles presents the results of educational experiment carried out in the last school year. The experiment tested effectiveness of applying computer visualisation to the process of learning/acquisition of the educational contents of the natural sciences in primary school pupils.

The aim of this paper is to show that teaching and learning methods (social work forms) and communication which can be used in traditional in class education can be also implemented in multimedia online distance education. This is possible because of functional opportunities of ICT. The paper presents different types of communication and possible teaching and learning methods in multimedia online distance education. It also describes particular types of communication, primarily personal and impersonal, and their relationship in modern distance education. Some characteristics of personal communication are also included in impersonal communication supported by new media and ICT like non-verbal communication. Furthermore, this paper shows particular methods in traditional learning and possible methods in distance learning and teaching supported by computer, Internet and multimedia software. It shows that students' work and learning in distance online education with new media can be provided by all teaching and learning methods as they can be used in traditional in class teaching and learning. Also, this paper shows that students in distance learning can work individually and together (cooperative learning) in pairs or in groups on their tasks. Team instruction can also be provided in distance learning by new media and ICT. The paper shows that new media, ICT and multimedia software enable the overlap between the features of personal and impersonal communication in multimedia distance learning, and that this type of learning and teaching methods can be realized in multimedia online distance education.

In higher education the situation is marked by an increasing availability and quality of virtual learning environments and social pressure towards integration. Technological developments are not accompanied by the use of appropriate teaching models and contexts, making it necessary to develop research on the structures of support and professional development more suited to the integration of technology in teaching practices. The aim is to highlight the conceptual and methodological journey in developing a training model in the implementation of Learning Manager System (LMS) as a tool in the teaching practices of instructors in higher education, creating for this purpose, a training device.

This study was carried out to identify the effects of applying integrated curriculum in historical places on emotional products. For this purpose; the acquisitions, skills and personal characteristics (values) of primary school 3rd grade classes including Science of Life, Turkish, Mathematics, Visual Arts, Music and Physical Education were integrated under the theme of "Sagalassos". The integrated curriculum was applied by using "creative drama" and "cooperative group study" as teaching methods in "Burdur Museum" and "the Ancient City of Sagalassos". This study was carried out the between the 24th of April and 25th of May 2010. Primary school 3rd grade students at the ages of 9-10 participated in this teaching process with their parents. The study was conducted with a total of 36 participants consisting of 18 parents and 18 students. 4 fathers, 13 mothers and 1 grandmother participated in the study as parents. The voluntary students who took part in the study from two different classes formed the group. The study was maintained with 3 academics and 1 archaeologist. In the studies started at Burdur Museum, an activity was conducted on a theme each week. The study started with "Communication" theme and then went respectively on "I know Sagalassos", "Life in Sagalassos - Special Days", "Art in Sagalassos-1" themes and ended with "Art in Sagalassos-2" theme. In the study where qualitative data of the study were collected from the video camera records of the process, the diaries kept by students and parents and the interviews which were carried out at the end of the study. According to the results of the content analyzes of interviews, video camera records and diaries, it was found out that the students and the parents participated in the study were happy and they found the activities useful. And, it can be said that the students and parents have gained skills such as self-management, planning and production, having fun, emotion management, responsibility, participation, sharing, cooperation and team work at the end of the integrated program.

Personality of players shows differences that determines their actions, motivations and attitudes on the court. The personality of the players has to be taken into consideration when choosing their posts, best matching their abilities. This paper studies the mental abilities of men and women handball players in relation to the different attacking positions. The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) was used. 8-8 female and male professional handball team were examined. The results were processed with the Kruskal-Wallis Anova statistical method based on the EPQ. The results show that the backcourt players have the lowest average in the psychoticism scale, but there are not significant differences between the males' and females' aggressive level. There are significant differences between the neuroticism level of men and women. The pivots seem to be the most stable from the point of view of emotion. No significant differences were found between the posts. Each handball players has a higher than average value on the extroversion scale, so they are sociable people.

For determining the stimulation and speed-up especially qualitative changes in child's development on one hand, and on the other hand the maximalization of the educator-child relationship, our research focuses on two parts as following: 1. the first part on the personal development and abilitation in creative gestalt techniques and working with the experiential group of the educators of the children with special needs; the aim of the formative program is to increase also teacher's performance at work and their work satisfaction. The study is meant to generate insight in order to develop the formative program accordingly to the needs and psychology of participants; 2. and the second part on the child, respectively on the student groups with sensorial and intelectual deficiencies, the beneficiary of teachers training program. Participants: 60 teachers from special schools, with ages ranging from 22 to 58 years. Instruments: 1. Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQI) and 2. Nonverbal Personality Questionnaire (NPQ) for teachers. 2. Behavioral Assessment Scales for Children, Nonverbal Personality Questionnaire for children. Results and discussions: the analyses showed a number of significant differences between test and retest of the experimental groups and also between retest of experimental and control groups.

When teaching children in preschool basic reading and writing (in the last year of kindergarten children are taught to recognize some capitalized letters of the alphabet and to use these to form simple words like mother, father, etc.), educators always bear in mind new tactics and approaches to make this goal possible. In order to make these classes attractive for 3-6 year olds, educators use children's literature. This segment of literature presents a world both familiar and attractive for children. In doing so, educators help children develop basic skills, such as social, emotional, cognitive, and linguistic skills. Apart from the development of children's skills teachers use children's literature as a means of discovering and developing language and imagination: children are given only part of the story, them having to make up the rest, etc. Continuing the idea all inanimate things such as machines, toys, dolls and so on are considered by children to be alive. Thus it does not seem to surprise the children when teachers use stories that contain magical or anthropomorphic elements. All the children move from this stage to a more realistic one, trying to connect the fairytale world with their reality. This is the most productive period for them in relation to stories and the teacher must exploit this argument when approaching the stories educationally.