The purpose of the study is to discover the actual practices of music activities with musical concepts by the kindergarten teachers teaching 4-5 years old children and its accompanied difficulties. The research questions set up for this purpose are as...
The purpose of the study is to discover the actual practices of music activities with musical concepts by the kindergarten teachers teaching 4-5 years old children and its accompanied difficulties. The research questions set up for this purpose are as follows.
1. What are the kindergarten teachers’actual practices of music activities with musical concepts?
2. What are the kindergarten teachers’difficulties in practice music activities with musical concepts?
The study was conducted on 13 teachers who taught 4 ~ 5 years old children at public and private kindergartens located in the Seoul and Gyeonggi area. Each participant had one time of semi-structured interview between February 11, 2017, and March 15, 2017, and the interviews were recorded and transcribed with prior consent. The transcribed contents were classified into different themes through repeated and focused reading. After modification, the categories were finalized and a representative case was chosen for each category before it is analyzed and interpreted.
The result of this study are as follows. First, most teachers thought it was necessary to reflect musical concept in music activities and they have been working hard to provide various exposures for the children to experience music as well as to improve their musical abilities in their own ways. Within such effort, the teachers were already implementing music activities including musical concepts through daily routine experience and group activities. The teachers have been teaching musical concepts or providing opportunities to experience musical concepts to the children using various methods during the transition time, commuting time, and playing time. Moreover, the teachers have also been utilizing coincidences to let the children experience musical concepts during group activities and have been teaching musical concepts through diverse music activities in consideration of musical concepts. On the other hand, teachers have also transferred misconceptions to children by using wrong musical concepts during their implementation or they provided biased education by having only one or two concentrated music activities.
Second, the difficulties in implementing music activities with musical concepts have come from the teachers’ values and perception towards music education. The teachers’ values and perceptions that the ultimate values of music activities are having fun, their unstructured perception towards music education, and feeling less responsibility for music education seem to have been the obstacles for them to implement music activities with musical concepts. In addition, the low efficacy of the teachers towards music education has been also working as a difficulty in implementing music activities with musical concepts. Due to their lack of professional knowledge on music education, the teachers seemed to lack confidence in implementing music activities and they faced many difficulties in being unsure of their own musical capabilities. They also complained of difficulties in not having the understanding of musical concepts and not knowing how to connect them to music activities. Such low teaching efficacy seems to be caused by the teachers’ insufficient and negative experiences with music education in their schools, inadequate pre-service teachers education, and the limitations of in-service teachers training. Along with them, many situations that the teachers are facing have become the reasons for difficulties in implementing music education. The teachers do not have sufficient teacher’s manuals and teaching materials appropriate for reference when implementing music activities with musical concepts. They also feel the limits in implementing music activities because of the kindergarten’s lack of interest in music education as well as the parents’ expectation on more of learned results. They don’t have enough time to cover everything they have to teach and they also have other heavy workloads unrelated to teaching the children. All of these have become the reasons for hindering the implementation of high-quality music education.
This study suggests the needs for providing teacher’s training that proposes the essence and direction of child music education in order to raise recognition of music education, for training and support that help the teachers to implement music education with confidence as well as for a measure to improve the teachers’ current conditions. It is hoped that the results of this research provide the primary material to realistic support measures for improving the teachers’ training and the quality of music education.