This study, as a basic research to enhance kindergarten teachers’ teaching ability, was attempted with teachers working at kindergartens to determine how they perceived
overall status of children’s music education they took in their childhood teac...
This study, as a basic research to enhance kindergarten teachers’ teaching ability, was attempted with teachers working at kindergartens to determine how they perceived
overall status of children’s music education they took in their childhood teacher nurture curriculum, and some improvement measures for more effective implementation
of children’s music education were also explored. Taking into account of their perceptions and opinions regarding the improvement measures, basic data will be set to direct and improve children’s music education in childhood teacher nurture, to plan and operate it with knowledge practicable in kindergarten education fields.
Study questions to explore this were as follow.
1. What is the teacher’s perception of children’s music education in childhood teacher nurture curriculum?
2. What is the teacher’s opinion regarding the improvement measures of children’s music education in childhood teacher nurture curriculum?
The subjects of this study were sampled from kindergarten teachers currently working at kindergartens in Seoul and Gyeonggi do. Based on the information of kindergartens opened at district offices of education, 68 kindergartens were selected after getting their consents by calling. Questionnaires were sent 300 kindergarten teachers from the 68 kindergartens by mailing or visiting in person. A total of 244 questionnaires (81.3%) were returned, of them, 212 (70.7%) were used for our analysis except 32 questionnaires which were returned too late or responded unfaithfully, omitting some questions.
As instruments, in order to investigate current teachers’ perception of the children’s music education in the curriculum of kindergarten teacher training and its improvement measures, this author modified the questionnaire that was used in Yun Hyeon Jin(2002), Hwang Hae Ik et at’s (2004) studies to use. The modified questionnaire was tested for its content validity by a professor of early childhood education. The results
of this study were as follows.
First, in the results of the teacher’s perception of children’s music education in childhood teacher nurture curriculum, all the respondents answered that they took the course of children’s music education. Of them, 55.7% took part in the course with 40 other students. With regard to children’s music education professor’s understanding of
education fields, the teachers perceived it as moderate level, but they perceived professor’s professionality highly.
In the teacher’s perception of teaching methods, they perceived writing teaching plans for music and demonstrating teaching practice the most highly. Furthermore, those were found to be the most desirable and effective teaching methods in their perception. That is, the most helpful teaching methods in real children’s music
education were writing teaching plans for music and demonstrating teaching practice, and these were emphasized and implemented in the curriculum of childhood teacher nurture.
With regard to the teacher’s perception of how contents of music education were helpful in real education fields, they perceived the contents in order of sing a song related (M=3.68), physical expression related (M=3.51), and playing musical instruments related (M=3.38).
In addition, in the teacher’s perception of how the contents related to how to operate teaching practice were helpful in real education fields, they perceived the contents related to musical activities appropriate to the curriculum and themes from daily living most helped.
Most of the respondents perceived that children’s music education in the childhood teacher nurture curriculum lacked to influence on current teaching practice. The
greatest reason for that was the contents were not related to reality. More specifically,
they responded the most frequently to item of “it helped me to plan and teach music.”(55.29%), followed by “it improved interest and confidence in music” (8.65%),
and “it helped me to change my musical knowledge and belief” (1.44%).
Second, in the results of the teacher’s opinions regarding the improvement measures,
their needs were mostly in direct experiences related to actual activities. Thus, it is considered to strengthen practice centered and activity centered curriculums, reflecting the teacher’s requests. However, in order for the teachers to implement children’s music education, considering the importance of basic knowledge and positive attitude toward music, it is required that the instructors who provide children’s music education courses should make great efforts to offer a balanced curriculum with theories and practice.