The purpose of this study was to provide a basic criteria for educational application of the singing fairy tales activity through children's story to children education sites and for an effective method of teaching music to improve children's language...
The purpose of this study was to provide a basic criteria for educational application of the singing fairy tales activity through children's story to children education sites and for an effective method of teaching music to improve children's language and musical ability by comparing and analyzing the effects of singing fairy tales activity using children's story on children's language and musical ability. The following questions of study were established to achieve such a purpose of this study.
With these purposes, the research questions were established as follows.
First, what effects does the singing fairy tales activity using children's story have on children's language ability?
Second, what effects does the singing fairy tales activity using children's story have on children's musical ability?
The subjects used in this study were the 5-year old children at 'Y' Annexed Kindergartens that is located in 'G' city; total 42 children, divided into 21 children in the experiment group and 21 children in the comparison group.
The experiment group and the comparison group were regarded as homogeneous groups because the result from a preliminary test on age, residential area, and children's musical ability and language ability did not indicate significant differences between the two groups.
The experiment was performed three times a week, and thus, total 18 times for 6 weeks; the experiment group performed singing fairy tales activity using children's stories and the comparison group performed activity of physical expression using songs.
To be used as the test tool of this study, the fields of ‘common sense ’,‘comprehension’,‘mathematics’,‘vocabulary’,‘commonness’,‘sentence' were selected among the sub-fields of the language test from the Korean Wechsler Preschool & Primary Scale of Intelligence (K-WPPSI), which was adapted to Korean context by Hea-Won Park, Geum-Joo Kwag, and Gwang-Tae Park (1996). To measure children's musical ability, the fields of ‘strength and weakness’,‘rhythm’,‘pitch’,‘tone’,‘chord’,and ‘appreciation'
were selected to be used among the sub-fields of the musical test produced by Korea Guidance (2000). The data collected from pre- and post-test was processed using SPSS program to yield the average and the standard deviation, and the differences between the groups were compared and analyzed by a t-test.
The results of this study were as follows.
First, in comparison with the comparison group that performed physical expression activity using songs, the experiment group that performed singing fairy tales activity using children's stories showed a higher overall language ability point that was statistically significant. Also, even in the fields of 'common sense’,‘comprehension’,‘mathematics’,‘vocabulary ’, and‘commonness,’which are the sub-fields of language ability, the points of the experiment group appeared higher with statistical significance. However, in the field of ‘sentence,' there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups.
Second, the overall musical ability point of the experiment group that performed singing fairy tales activity using children's stories was known to be higher with statistical significance, comparing with the comparison group that performed physical expression activity using songs. Also, in the fields of ‘strength and weakness’,‘rhythm’,‘pitch’ and ‘appreciation,' which are the sub-fields of musical ability, the experiment group appeared to obtain higher points than the comparison group with statistical significance. But, the points in ‘tone’ and ‘chord’ did not show any statistically significant differences between the two groups.
In conclusion, this study found that the experiment group that performed singing fairy tales activity using children's stories resulted in more positive influence on the improvement of children's language ability and musical ability in comparison with the comparison group that performed physical expression activity using songs. Therefore, it is expected that children's language and musical ability can be improved more effectively if the singing fairy tales activity using children stories is actively utilized at education sites.