Kształcenie pojęć w nauczaniu geografii na podstawie analizy podręczników szkolnych

Abstract

The article deals with two questions: (1) the number of concepts wrhich the shoolchildren must learn during geography lesons at elementary school and then at the secondary school of general education (from one grade to another), (2) the extent to which the school geography textbooks make it possible for schoolchildren to understand properly the new concepts by explaining them. Upon analysing the textbooks in question the author has found that in each grade there are from 148 to 388 new concepts during one scholar year to be learnt. Of the over-all number of 2081 concepts only 610, i.e. 29.3 per cent have been explained in the textbooks. The per cent of explained terms varies considerably from grade to grade, th lowe being in the Ninth Grade (10.7 per cent), and the highest in the Eighth (76.7 per cent). The situation does not favour the teaching results: in fact, as it has been proved by experimental research, schoolchildren often have but a verbal knowledge of terms or concepts while being unable to explain them. The textbooks do not facilitate the proper understanding of new terms. Thus, they hardly fit teaching methods where these textbooks constitute the principal source of knowledge for the learner.