The presentation focuses on conscious return to the learning for primary school students during lessons of the native language. Conscious return to the learning is the essence of the ability to reflect on the learning. This is the process when a teacher encourages school students to consider what happened during the lesson, what they succeeded to learn, what was interesting or, on the contrary, what was boring, what were the feelings and emotions, what was successfully completed, what required more efforts, what was the value of the learnt matters, where will the acquired knowledge be applied and the like. Recent scientific research (Ebert, 2015; Zuckerman, 2018, Kazlauskienė, Gaučaitė, 2018; Papleontiou-Louca, 2019; Vrikki, Wheatley et al., 2019; Branigan, Donaldson, 2020; Jakavonytė-Staškuvienė, 2021 etc.) underlines conscious return of primary school students to the learning and reflective speaking and writing about it during lessons of the native language, which improves the understanding of the situation of learning (strengths and weaknesses), the ability to discover problems in the learning and to solve them, to consider autonomy, motivation, self-directedness, cognitive capacity etc. International European documents on education (recommendations of the European Council on general skills for lifelong learning, “Dėl bendrųjų mokymosi visą gyvenimą gebėjimų”, 2018 etc.) point out reflection on one’s behaviour, emotions while learning as one of general skills for lifelong learning because it provides opportunities for school students to effectively manage their time, information, to constructively learn individually and in group.  On the ground of classical, fundamental scholarly theories (Dewey, 1933; Piaget, 1977; Flavell, 1979 etc.) as well as recent research (Klimovič, Liptakova, 2017; Perez, Herreo-Nivela, Losada, 2019; Jakavonytė-Staškuvienė, 2021), the best time for that is exactly the stage of primary forms.  

Back in the twentieth century, L. S. Vygotsky (1978) and J. H. Flavell (1995) were discussing about significance of the language in processes of conscious return of children (at age from 5 to 10 years) to the learning. The language is underlined in this process because a poorly developed skill of reflection and still weak linguistic abilities are obstacles for children to express their thoughts of how they consider the learning. Still, thoughts that occur when reflecting should not remain in the children’s heads but rather be shared with a teacher and peers. Therefore, primary school students being enabled to reflect on the learning at the very beginning should expand their vocabulary by the concepts such as to know, to think, to believe, to guess, to remember (Larkin, 2009). While learning to read and write as well as how to reflect on it, children should start expressing their thoughts in a language that is characteristic to this process, but also to perceive the very reflexive thought, which is still complicated in such early age (Flavell, Green, Flavell, 1995).

                      The review of research works allows stating that enablement of primary school students to reflect on learning is needed and useful, guidelines for carrying this out are indicated. However, there is lack of systematic research based on empirical data that would clearly reveal what teachers specifically do while enabling students to reflect on learning, what instruments are used to support this process. There is lack of such systematic research in Lithuania, too. Thus, the research question is raised: how does primary school students’ conscious return to the learning during lessons of native language proceed?

Methodology The research employed the constructivist grounded theory by K. Charmaz (2006). A researcher is not treated as an independent and objective observer; on the contrary, one is viewed as a participant of the research process being constructed (ibid). The researcher is not tabula rasa, and while interpreting the data one grounds on obtained knowledge and experience, relationships with research participants and other sources of information (ibid). The paper presents partial results of the research that was conducted in 2020–2022. The focus of the presentation is put on narratives of primary form teachers (n=15) talking about how they consciously turn primary school students back to the learning during lessons of the native language. According to the methodology of the constructivist GT, the sampling of the surveyed “reacts” to initial data, cannot be finally defined or set before starting the research (Charmaz, 2006). By applying a snowball method, first, interviews were conducted with 7 teaches, and later, by applying the method of theoretical sampling, interviews with additional 8 primary form teaches were conducted. The research data was analysed by applying the methods proposed by K. Charmaz. First, the initial data coding was performed. The analysis was carried out following the logic: when reading an interview, initial codes were written sentence by sentence. In such a way, comparing the initial codes, we came up to an understanding of what data needs to be “observed”. During the focused coding, singling out of the most significant and/ or the most frequently repeated initial codes took place when classifying them into sub-categories and later into categories (Charmaz, 2006). Finally, during theoretical coding, the focused codes were repeatedly re-considered seeking to achieve a higher conceptual level. Theoretical codes are the most abstract. This is a stage when features (i.e. characteristics) of the theoretical categories are being saturated, while the researcher is provided with an opportunity to specify final categories of the theory and relate them with each other (ibid). Thus, this was the stage when it became clear that planned and reactive processes happen during primary school students’ conscious return to the learning during lessons of the native language. It should be noted that during an entire process of collection and analysis of the data, textual and graphic memos were being made and used as tools providing additional analytical opportunities (ibid).

When analysing the data, it was revealed that conscious return to the learning can proceed in a planned manner (according to a teacher’s plan) or reactively (when reacting here and now to what is happening during the lesson), when specific instruments are used, students are given time in terms of various aspects (cognitive activity, sensual and emotional, making decisions on a problem of learning etc.) when considering the learning through reflective talking about and/ or writing. When dealing with the planning of conscious return of primary school students to the learning during lessons of the Lithuanian language, it was found that this is done by teachers in different ways. They can plan this for almost every lesson of the native language because they suppose that by being episodically planned and implemented this process will not be as beneficial as expected. However, there are teachers who consciously return school students to the leaning during these lessons when a new topic starts, after a cycle of 2–3 lessons on the same topic, at the end of a unit on that topic because usually various individual assignments, group work are arranged at around that time, new topics start and the like. Conscious return to the learning can proceed reactively, when a teacher reacts to the learning taking place during a lesson of the native language, when students’ behaviour, emotions, mistakes become obstacles for students to seek the set goals of that lesson. Further, it is worth conducting the research on the factors influencing teachers’ decisions to consciously return school students to the learning, stimulating their motivation to proceed with it or not.

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