An Investigation on English Teaching Status of Public Kindergartens and Teachers’ Opinions toward “Integrated English Activities” in Taichung Area

• Main Authors: Mei-chun Lin, 林美純
• Other Authors: Yi-Chuan Lee
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/16307436512502809549

碩士 === 朝陽科技大學 === 幼兒保育系碩士班 === 96 === The purpose of this research is to study the English teaching status in public kindergartens and teachers’ opinions on “integrated English activities”. It has adopted the methods of questionnaires and has targeted the kindergarten principles and teachers in Taichung area as the subjects. The questionnaries include “The survey of English Teaching Status in Public Kindergartens in Taichung Area” (90 valid returned) and “The survey of the Opinions on Integrating English Activities in Public Kindergartens in Taichung Area”(364 valid returned). The research data were analysized by “Descriptive Statistics” (cross table and percentage) .Several viewpoints were concluded from interview data and comparied with related questionnaire contents. The main conclusions and discoveries of this search are as follows: 1.In the returned questionnaires from 90 public kindergartens, 43 public kindergartens teach English, and the number of schools teaching English in Taichung county is more than the number of schools in Taichung city. The main reason for teaching English is the request from parents. 2.Teaching English once a week is more common; 30 minutes for one class is more common; English classes are usually in the morning; the children having English classes are mostly at the age of 4 to 6. English teachers hired by the kindergarten principles are in the majority. The qualification for an English teacher who majored in foreign language without the qualification for teaching kindergartens is in the majority and an English teacher who didn’t major in foreign language, but has got the qualification for teaching kindergartens comes second. The choice of English teaching materials that “match up the theme of English teaching materials” is in the majority; All teachers in the kindergarten make the decision for the choice of teaching materials is in the majority. 3.Public kindergarten teachers’ opinion on learning English is agreeing with the idea of pre-school children learning English. They disagree with including English classes in the normal curriculum, but agree with integrating English into children’s everyday life. However, English activities tend to be English teachers teach English and homeroom teachers guide the children to apply what English teachers have taught on daily English conversation, songs, and rhymes. 4.Public kindergarten teachers’ opinions on “integrating English” are as follows: (1)The goal of integrating English: children could be willing to participate, generally understand the English words that have been used and follow up within the activities, and feel the existence of English; (2)The most important capabilities that English teachers should have are English communication skills, English pronunciation, and listening comprehension; (3) The most important teaching capabilities that English teachers should have are the lesson of English pronunciation, the lesson of English songs/rhymes, and the use of English literature for children; (4)The most important things that are suitable to integrate into English activities are “the daily conversation”, “the greeting dialogue”, and “the theme of learning in the kindergarten”; (5)The activities that are suitable to integrate with English are: game activities, singing activities, and conversation activities; (6)The forms of teaching that are suitable to integrate with English are: the whole-class activities, the small-group activities, and individual activities; (7) Integrating 10~20% of English into all spoken languages per week is preferred; (8)The help that are most needed to apply the teaching of integrating English is having the English skill training; (9)The Intellectual seminars that are most wished to be held by the government are: daily greeting conversation, the teaching / games of English pronunciation, and helping teacher to apply integrating English; (10) 80% of teachers are willing to get the license of integrating English from the seminars; (11) In regard to “the integrating English” that the government has bought up, 72.5% of people are willing to try and 27.2% of people aren’t; (12) The reasons of willing to try without any difficulties: they could provide multicultural environment, develop children’s interest in English, and give the disadvantaged children the opportunities to get in touch with English; the reasons of willing to try, but having some difficulties which are lack of the capabilities to teach English, suitable program / teaching materials, and self-confidence; (13) Up to now, 78.8% of schools don’t bring “integrating English” into practice, but 21.2% of schools do. According to the discovery of the research, kindergarten teachers are not clear about the policies and the definition of “integrating English”. We suggest that the government-related organizations should provide the teachers with the correct Children English theory and concept, and reinforce to educate by utilizing the electronic medium, the flyers/publications, the TV advertisements, official documents and etc.