The purpose of this study is to develop an early childhood English teacher education program for English literacy teaching based on common early childhood English teachers' demands and to examine the effects of this program.
This study was conducted i...
The purpose of this study is to develop an early childhood English teacher education program for English literacy teaching based on common early childhood English teachers' demands and to examine the effects of this program.
This study was conducted in four different parts, in sequence. Part 1 reviewed relevant literature and similar previous studies in order to ascertain main ideas in teacher education. In addition, 101 early childhood English teachers were surveyed for their opinions in developing an English literacy teaching program.
Part 2, based on the results from Part 1, composed a tentative plan for an early childhood English teacher education program and validate the adequacy of the program's contents and its application. After several rounds of modification and supplementation, a teacher education program was finalized.
Part 3 selected 81 early childhood English teachers who teach English literacy in kindergartens or child care centers and wanted to voluntarily participate in a teacher education program. These teachers were divided into two groups, a control group and an experimental group. The experimental group, consisting of 42 teachers, underwent the teacher education program developed in Part 2. The remaining 39 teachers of the control group participated in Company A's regular program. Afterwards, a teacher efficacy test and a teacher satisfaction test were used to compare the two groups.
Part 4 selected and tested 80 young children from 3 different kindergartens. The testing process was composed of a pre-investigation, an experimental treatment during an 8-week period, and a post-investigation. Again, two groups were compared. In the experimental group, 40 children were taught English literacy by 3 English teachers from the experimental group of Part 3. The remaining 40 children were taught by 3 English teachers from the control group of Part 3. Afterwards, the two groups were compared by surveying the children's interest in English and through their results from an English literacy ability test.
The results of this study can be summarized, as follows:
First, early childhood English teachers want to utilize more of the contents from their teacher education program, such as the reading strategies, writing strategies, and phonics and phonemic awareness activities in order to assess and understand their students' language development and learning needs. Moreover, teachers ask for a variety of teaching methods and teaching skills directly from their teacher education program experience.
Second, an early childhood English teacher education program for English literacy teaching was developed on the basis of an investigation into the teachers' demands and literature research. The teaching methods developed for the early childhood English teacher education program were lectures, discussions, presentations, video/DVD viewing, role play and workshops.
Third, the effects of the program were examined. The teachers of the experimental group showed much higher scores on the efficacy test than the teachers of the control group. In addition, the teachers of the experimental group participating in this study exhibited higher satisfaction rates than those of the control group.
Fourth, the experimental group children showed much higher interest in English learning than the comparative group children. In addition, the children of the experimental group participating in this study had higher scores in alphabet recognition, word recognition, phonemic awareness, phonics, and writing, comprehension than those of the control group.
In conclusion, the early childhood English education program for English literacy teaching tested in this study helped improve the abilities of both teachers and young children. Based on the results, this study suggests that an early childhood English education program should be strongly utilized in training early childhood English teachers.