This study looks again at the educational value of lyrics-changing and by analyzing how nursery rhymes composition affects the young children's language and musical ability, it aims at providing basic material for finding effective teaching methods wh...
This study looks again at the educational value of lyrics-changing and by analyzing how nursery rhymes composition affects the young children's language and musical ability, it aims at providing basic material for finding effective teaching methods which improve the young children's language and musical ability of children through lyrics-changing activities by nursery rhymes composition.
For such study purposes, the following research problems were established.
1. How does lyrics-changing activities through nursery rhymes composition affect young children’s language ability?
2. How does lyrics-changing activities through nursery rhymes composition affect young children’s music ability?
Five years old children from the S child center and the N child center in G city were designated as subjects for this study and 24 were set as a experimental group while 22 were set as a comparison group, totaling 46 children. There were no significant differences in the ages, living areas, or pre-test results regarding young children's language and music ability between the children of the experimental group and the children of the comparison group, so both groups were considered to be of the same level.
Tests were performed 18 times, for a period of 6 weeks, 3 times a week, and the experimental group did lyrics-changing activities through nursery rhymes composition while the comparison group did body expression activities through song.
Reserch instrument used in this study were the subfields of ‘common sense’, ’comprehension’, ’arithmetic’, ’vocabulary’, ’commonness’, and ’sentences’ of language tests of the Korean-Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence, made suitable for Koreans by Park Hye Won, Gwak Geum Joo, and Park Gwang Te(1996), to measure language abilities.
The music ability of the young children was measured after selecting ‘strong and weak’, ‘rhythm’, ‘high and low’, ‘tone’, ‘harmony’, ‘appreciation’, fields which are subfields of musical testing, made by Korean Guidance(2000). Data was collected after pre-tests and post-tests were executed and averages and standard deviations were calculated using SPSS 12.0 program and differences between the groups were compared and analyzed using t-test.
The results of this study were as follows.
First, it was shown that the experimental group which had the lyric-changing activities through nursery rhymes composition had significantly higher language ability scores statistically when compared with the comparison group which had body expression activities through song. Also, the experimental group had significantly higher scores than the comparison group in subfield scores of ’comprehension’, ’arithmetic’, ’vocabulary’, ’commonness’, and ’sentences’. However, scores in the field of ‘common sense’ did not show significant differences between the two groups statistically.
Second, the experimental group which had activities of lyric alteration through nursery rhyme composition had significantly higher music ability scores statistically when compared with the comparison group which had body expression activities through song. Also, the experimental group had significantly higher scores in the sub fields of ‘rhythm’, ‘high and low’, ‘tone’, and ‘appreciation’. However, there were no significant differences statistically between the two groups regarding scores in ‘strong and weak’ and ‘harmony’ fields.
As a result, the results of this study showed that the experimental group, which had activities of lyric alteration through nursery rhyme composition, had more positive effects in improving the young children's language and musical ability than the comparison group which used body expression activities through song. Therefore, it is hoped that the young children's language and music ability can be more effectively improved by actively using lyrics-changing activities through nursery rhymes composition in the educational field.