Gadu desmitiem valodas praksē ir aktuāls jautājums, ka bieži netiek nošķirtas pakārtojuma vārdu ka un kad funkcijas un nozīme un apstākļa vārds kad nepamatoti tiek lietots saikļa ka vietā. Pētījuma ieceri pārliecināties par konkrēto pakārtojuma vārdu lietojumu mutvārdu tekstā ir rosinājusi Kārļa Mīlenbaha monogrāfijā "Teikums" izteiktā atziņa par apstākļa vārda kad izlaidumu salikta teikuma sākumā, kas raksturīgs tautas valodā. Rakstā ir apkopots skatījums uz šo pakārtojuma vārdu lietojumu no valodas kultūras viedokļa, to paplašinot ar teorētisku un praktisku analīzi salikta teikuma sintakses aspektā. Pētījuma praktiskā daļa ir veikta, balstoties uz autentisku (dabiski veidotu) mutvārdu izteikumu analīzi. Atslēgvārdi: mutvārdu teksts; valodas kultūra; sintakse; salikts pakārtots teikums; palīgteikums; saiklis ka; apstākļa vārds kad.

The aim of this article is to provide an insight into the theoretical principles of the district history, and to actualize the significance and problems of regional history research. Local district historians are the inhabitants and patriots of the area. Their work is an important contribution to the identification and pre-servation of local cultural heritage. In the local research there are no uniform standards, so the results are diverse. However, in the district history research, the level and quality of the research may vary as local researchers are mostly amateur researchers who have focused on researching the history of the region in their spare time for their own interest. Consequently, errors and shortcomings are possible in the research process. This study analyzes the history books of the neighboring regions – Grobiņa, Nīca and Rucava. The authors are local researchers and the content of the books has a large amount of historical sources and literature. The advantages and disadvantages of such studies are also indicated in this article.

The study has been carried out within the subproject No. 8 “Latvian Language Acquisition” framework of the National Research Programme “Latvian Language”. The aim of this article is to analyse the results of Latvian language skills of the minority pre-school children who attend pre-school groups with Russian as the everyday communication language, the minority pre-school children who attend pre-school groups with Latvian as the everyday language, and Latvian pre-school children. The recordings of children’s speeches were made in Kurzeme pre-school education institu-tions during May and June of 2019 and 2020 before the children started to attend primary school. The findings obtained in this study are illustrated only with the results in vocabulary acquisition, taking into account that one of the most important tasks in learning a second language at pre-school age is vocabulary acquisition. Creating a conviction for beginning a new activity – communication in another language, not in the mother tongue, is of linguodidactic and psychological importance. Knowledge of a larger or smaller vocabulary is the basis for starting to speak a language. The study uses a picture-based conversation, with a maximum of 20 minutes spent in conversation with each child. The criteria proposed by Ingēra Tomme-Jukēvica (Tomme-Jukēvica 2018) have been used; they indicate the level of language skills (0 (insufficient level) – not showing or showing very minimal (<5%) knowledge and skills; 1 (low level) shows minimal (<25%) knowledge and skills; 2 (medium level) shows mediocre (>50%) knowledge and skills; 3 (high level) shows good (>75%) knowledge and skills. The article points out that each individual’s worldview forms with the mother tongue’s help and compares some striking linguistic lexical differences, paying particular attention to the comparative examples of Latvian and Russian languages. By referring to Latvian and Russian examples, the authors demonstrate that it may be necessary to divide the action expressed in one word in one language by creating a word group or even a phrase in another language. The Latvian language proficiency researchers should be aware that children with different native languages (Latvian or Russian) may have different worldviews, demanding additional actions of thinking and speech from the second language speaker. Therefore, second language acquisition at the pre-school age is an essential prerequisite for continuing bilingual studies or studies in Latvian at school. Observations made during the research in the National Research Programme testify that in pre-school education institutions, the process of education usually is interesting for children. However, as the analysis of the recordings of children’s speech in Kurzeme reveals, in those minority children groups where the everyday communication language is Russian and where Latvian is usually taught only two times a week for approximately 30–45 minutes, and also where the visual information in Russian dominates, insufficient skills of the state language and substantially worse experience of the Latvian language use have been observed. At the same time, it should be acknowledged that those minority children who attend groups with Latvian as the everyday language have learned Latvian sufficiently to continue education in the first grade of primary school. These children have not lost their native language, usually Russian, which they use actively at home. Therefore, they have the basis for several language acquisitions when they start learning at school. Learning Latvian as the second language requires optimization of this process in the pre-school education institutions, ensuring regular communication with the child in Latvian, and the use of appropriate methodologies in teaching activities. In this context, not only teaching and practicing Latvian lessons are particularly important, but also communication with other children and the possibility of talking Latvian with the staff of the pre-school educational institution. In accordance with earlier conclusions of linguists, the study conducted in Kurzeme shows that in the speech of pre-school children, independently of their mother tongue, nouns are dominating, but minority children attending groups with the dominant Russian language mostly use nouns in the nominative. Because of the task of preparing minority children for bilingual studies or studies in Latvian in the first grade, the authors of the article recommend ensuring bilingual communication on a day-to-day basis in minority groups of pre-school children.

The study has been carried out within the subproject No. 8 “Latvian Language Acquisition” framework of the National Research Programme “Latvian Language”. The aim of the study is to research and describe the importance of linguistic research results to speech and language therapists. In the course of studying children’s speech in 2019 and 2020 in different cities of Latvia, it was found that children of pre-school age, regardless of their mother tongue, have widespread sound pronunciation disorders, e.g. elision of the sound r (bukāns, tīs) or substitution of the sound with another sound (klāsas, klūze, gjiež). However, minority children speaking in Latvian have additional difficulties pronouncing the sounds that are not present in their native Russian. Frequently, long vowels are pronounced as short vowels, e.g. when asked what it is/they are? (ābols, krūze, šķēres, grāmata, burkāns) and what it does/they do? (ēd) the children answer abols, kruze, šķeres, gramata, burkans ed, etc., because, in their native language, there are only short vowels. The substitution of broad vowel e [ae] with the narrow e, e.g. ed [ed], is caused by the same reason. Pronunciation of the diphthong o [uo] as a long vowel has also been observed, e.g. pōgas (pogas). When children are not sure of the proper ending of a word, they do not pronounce it, e.g. abol (ābols), putn (putni), žiraf (žirafe). The speech studies of minority children also showed a large number of grammatical and vocabulary errors, which affect the development of their language and may, in the future, lead to difficulties and disruptions in the learning of the language, which, in more severe cases, lead to a disruption in the learning of subjects at school. The study results showed that in Latvia, the bilingualism of the minority pre-school children is relative. In general, only children whose families are bilingual or who attend the pre-school education groups with Latvian as the communication language speak well both their native language and Latvian. Observations during the National Research Programme show that speech therapists increasingly face the demand for minority children to learn Latvian as the second language; however, speech therapists do not have information about implementing corrections in such cases. Therefore, research on the characteristics of bilingualism and results of language studies are useful for speech therapists in diagnosing, correcting, and preventing disorders. The speaking and language skills of many minority children of pre-school age are still insufficient to continue successful learning in Latvian or bilingually. There are many phonetical and grammatical errors in their speech, while a poor vocabulary interferes with expressing thoughts and engaging in conversation. Both teachers and speech therapists need modern theoretical and practical training to raise their qualifications and implement a common understanding of the problems. The lessons learned from this project are incorporated into the bachelor’s theses of Marta Jakušina, Valērija Krasovska, and Alise Valtere.

The understanding of the concept of competence is based in the state normative documents. As the content of education changes within the framework of the project „School2030”, naturally, the chan-ges impact both the teachers’ education and continuing education or perfection of their professional quali-fication. The aim of this article is to expand the application of the concept ‘competence’ in lifelong edu-cation, taking into account how the concept of competence is defined within the project „School 2030”, offering the recommendations to the implementers of competence-based lifelong education programmes. For the development of recommendations, the analysis of normative documents related to lifelong education processes is conducted and the views of educators summarised about the application of the concept of competence in lifelong education.