Teaching Serbian as a non-native language in elementary schools in the Municipality of Presevo

The subject of the paper is an analysis of the achieved teaching results from the Serbian language as a non-native language that are studied by Albanian students in elementary school in the area of the municipality of Presevo. Despite the obligation to study the Serbian language in the fund of two or three hours a week, it is evident that the students of this national minority very often do not have the basic knowledge of the Serbian language, which motivated us to research that we conducted in one city and one rural elementary school In this area, we conducted a survey among students of Albanian ethnicity from fifth to eighth grade in elementary schools 'Ibrahim Kelmendi' in Preševo and 'Selami Hallači' in the village of Oraovica. We also designed the questionnaire for teachers who teach Serbian as a non-native language in these schools, in order to obtain on the results obtained from their answers a clear picture of the problems of teaching in this subject and the reasons why their students very little knowledge of the Serbian language. Apart from the theoretical pedagogical and legislative part which prescribes the obligation of studying the Serbian as a compulsory subject for national minorities in the Republic of S The results of the research, comments and guidelines for further pedagogical activities in order to improve the teaching in the subject of the Serbian language are also systematically presented in the paper. The results of the research conducted in the primary schools showed that a large number of students were unable to achieve the most basic communication in the Serbian language. Expectations before the conducted survey were that students of the fifth and sixth grades are less likely to understand the Serbian language than the students of the seventh and eighth grades. However, it turned out that, although the students expressed a positive attitude towards the subject in the Serbian language and the significance of their knowledge, to conclude that unacceptable failures are in the teaching process itself, which is due to insufficient interest, motivation and preparedness of teachers, and the absence of effective professional supervision of the teaching process. Teachers, who did not want to participate in the survey, except one, inform us in the informal conversation, among other things, as a problem they face in teaching practice, they also pointed out the complete lack of interest of students in this subject, which is contrary to pupil responses in the survey we think honestly) in which they express their awareness of the need and use of the knowledge of the Serbian language.