The purpose of this study was to investigate how themed fantasy plays using picture books that depict the themes (or aspects) of everyday life, which had been recommended in the “Nuri” Curriculum Proposal, influence the development of 5-year-old c...
The purpose of this study was to investigate how themed fantasy plays using picture books that depict the themes (or aspects) of everyday life, which had been recommended in the “Nuri” Curriculum Proposal, influence the development of 5-year-old children from multi-cultural families.
The research topics specifically addressed in this study were:
1. How the themed fantasy play affects the development of vocabulary skills of 5-year-old children from multi-cultural families?
2. How the themed fantasy play affects the improvement of self-efficacy of 5-year-old children from multi-cultural families?
After research and analysis on literature and precedent studies concerning themed fantasy plays and the determinants of children’s vocabulary development and self-efficacy beliefs, the picture books for use in the themed fantasy play were selected from the standpoint of suitability for children’s vocabulary learning and self-efficacy improvement. Based on those picture books, a draft plan for the themed fantasy play was prepared.
The preliminary test was carried out, and the draft plan for the themed fantasy play was amended to meet the purpose of this study. The themed fantasy play experiment for 5-year-old children from multi-cultural families was conducted during the period of 12 weeks, from June 21 to September 5, 2012.
The subjects of this study were 29 children aged 5 years from multi-cultural families. They were divided into two groups. One is the experimental group, which consisted of 15 children who were attending “A” Childcare Center in Ansan, Gyeonggi-do, Korea and the other the comparison group of 14 children who were attending “K” Childcare Center. 15 children in the experimental group participated in the themed fantasy play 10 times during the experiment.
Of the picture books covering the themes recommended in the Proposal of “Nuri” Curriculum for 5-year-old children, 10 picture books were selected as the experimental tool according to the criteria for selecting good children’s picture books that were proposed by Lee, Kyung-Woo, et al. (1997) and Lee, Sang-Keum and Chang, Young-Hee (2001). To measure children’s vocabulary, the picture vocabulary test proposed by Kim, Young-Tae, Chang Hye-Sung, Lim, Sun-Sook, and Baek, Hyun-Jeong (1995) was used. The picture vocabulary test, which consists of 112 questionnaires, is one that was originally designed to measure the receptive vocabulary ability of children aged 2 through 8 years old. To measure children’s self-efficacy, the questionnaires that Jung, Ahn-Na (2008) designed based on the children’s self-efficacy test of Jeon, Ihn-Ok (1996) were used.
Collected data were processed by the SPSS statistics program. The Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was conducted to measure differences in vocabulary ability and self-efficacy between the experimental group and the comparison group.
The results of this study are summarized as follows:
First, it was found that themed fantasy plays have a positive effect on the vocabulary development of 5-year-old children from multi-cultural families. The picture vocabulary test, which was conducted after completing the themed fantasy play experiment, showed that there was a significant difference in vocabulary ability between the experimental group and the comparison group.
Second, it was found that themed fantasy plays have a positive effect on improving the self-efficacy of 5-year-old children from multi-cultural families. The self-efficacy test, which was conducted after completing the themed fantasy play experiment, showed that there was a significant difference in self-efficacy
In conclusion, the themed fantasy play using picture books was effective in improving vocabulary ability and self-efficacy of 5-year-old children from multi-cultural families. The results of this study suggest that the themed fantasy play is fit for enhancing multi-cultural family children’s vocabulary skills and self-efficacy and that it is worth using the themed fantasy play as a teaching method in childcare centers and kindergartens.