• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.15 no.6
• /
• pp.3557-3563
• /
• 2014

Korean National Level Kindergarten Curriculum does not include English education in regular class time. On the other hand, more than 90% kindergarteners are taught English. This study examined the Native English Teachers' (NETs') cultural aspects of their teaching at regular kindergartens in Korea. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with four NETs who were working at regular kindergartens in Korea, their partner Local English Teachers (LETs) and kindergarten principals. All interview data was transcribed and categorized based on the grounded theory method. The results showed that NETs are not required to be culturally prepared to teach in Korean kindergartens. Consequently, most of them do not consider the students' culture in their teaching activities. Moreover, Korean kindergartens, where research participants work, are not prepared well to invite NETs into their regular curriculum. These results will have significant implications on Korean kindergarten's English education practice.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
• /
• v.28 no.6
• /
• pp.17-36
• /
• 2007

This study examined educational and career backgrounds of 180 early childhood English teachers and curricula of training courses for early childhood English teachers in continuing education centers across 6 areas in Korea. Data analyses showed that (1) curricula for early childhood English teachers consists of basic practical conversation, English teaching skills, understanding early childhood education and general English knowledge. (2) Most teachers are women between 30 to 40 years of age, university graduates with majors in English literature, English education and/or early childhood education with confidence in speaking in and listening to English. (3) They were satisfied with their retraining courses. (4) English pronunciation skill was not always related to English conversation skill, but clarity of pronunciation influenced teaching confidence.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
• /
• v.17 no.6
• /
• pp.1125-1133
• /
• 2008

The purpose of this study was to explore the perception toward qualification of early childhood English teachers and their teachers' sense of efficacy. The samples consisted of 201 early childhood English teachers in Seoul, Daejeon, Daegu, Gyeonggi area. A sample of early childhood English teachers completed a series of questionnaires. The collected data were analyzed with t-test, F-test, correlation. The results showed that most teachers were women between 30 to 40 years old, university graduate with job experience less than 3 years. In addition, half of teachers in this study majored on English studies or early childhood education and child studies. This study found that early childhood English teachers thought themselves to be qualified as a English teacher and early childhood teacher. And they rated teachers' sense of efficacy to relatively high. There were differences on the scores of qualification of early childhood English teacher and teachers' sense of efficacy according to education level and major. And years of job experience were positively related with the perception of qualification of early childhood teacher and teachers' sense of efficacy.

• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
• /
• v.9 no.5
• /
• pp.181-200
• /
• 2013

This study aimed at exploring how an instructor constructs meanings through content-based instruction (CBI) offered to pre-service teachers majoring in early childhood education. The course, early childhood mathematics education, was conducted during the spring semester in 2011. This study adopted a narrative inquiry, and data were collected through observations, interviews, and work samples. This study found that during the whole process from the preparation phase to the end-of-program evaluation, the instructor captured diverse challenging moments. During the preparation phase, she needed to have careful orchestration in designing lessons in order to overcome her feeling of pressure as a non-native speaker of English and design the integration of contents and English language learning to be truly powerful. In the phase of implementation, the lack of student motivation and building a good rapport between the instructor and the students were certainly challenges. The result of the student evaluations weakened her desire to implement CBI. The instructor incorporated diverse instructional strategies to overcome the obstacles. The instructor's experiences in this study will positively shape future educators' thinking and learning about meaningful and appropriate academic English instruction for content-area teaching of college students who were majoring in early childhood education.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
• /
• v.26 no.3
• /
• pp.473-491
• /
• 2016

This study was aimed at researching the current condition of differentiated education on gifted infants and a demand for support in an educational institution for gifted infants. The survey was conducted on teachers and principals in infant education institutions including kindergartens, day care centers and other institutions(English kindergartens and playing school) in Seoul, Gyeonggi-do, and Incheon and total 309 questionnaires were collected. Result first, infant educational institutions like kindergartens, day care centers and others lacked infra for differentiated education for gifted infants. Especially in 'the experience of differentiated education' for gifted infants, the three institutions showed a lower level than the normal level. Second, the teacher's demand for differentiated education for gifted infants in educational institutions were remarkably lower than the required level in all three institutions. The study expects that it could be used as the basic standards to seek for the direction of realization of customized and differentiated education that meet the developmental characteristics and educational demands for gifted infants in regular infant educational institutions.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
• /
• v.21 no.4
• /
• pp.629-647
• /
• 2012

This study explored what Korean college students, especially preservice teacher in early childhood education, experienced and how they constructed the meanings of experiences about their subject- matter course (early childhood mathematics education) taught in English. One cohort- 20 senior students- majoring in early childhood education in a 4-year university was participated in this study. Using action research method and narrative research method, data were analyzed. The findings were as follows: 1) preservice teacher experienced some difficulties to construrct professional knowledge through English. 2) They challenged to overcome these difficulties through active participation. 3) They got supports from instructor and peer group. 4) They accomplished the course with self-satisfaction. 5) They experienced the conflicts between social requirements and personal needs.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• no.5
• /
• pp.191-218
• /
• 1999

The purpose of this study is to investigate the actual conditions of preschool English education, and teachers' and parents' recognition of preschool early English education in Cheonan-city. Recently the importance of English education as an essential means for communication in the whole world is emphasized in our society. That atmosphere makes the elementary schools offer English as a subject in their curriculums, and also many preschool education institutes begin to teach English in their education courses. However before we begin to teach English as a subject in the preschool education, we need to survey the actual conditions of preschools and recognition of teachers and parents. The first part of this study is to survey the theoretical foundations of early English education; 1) the definition of early English education. 2) the situation of early foreign language education in foreign countries. 3) the relationship between the language acquisition and the cognitive development. The second part is to analyze the results of the Questionnaire which was distributed among 86 teachers and 103 parents in Cheonan-city preschools. As a conclusion, some suggestions will be given for the development of early English education in the near future.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
• /
• v.20 no.4
• /
• pp.523-537
• /
• 2009

This research aimed to understand the current status of early childhood education and to develop a future direction of early childhood English education. One group interview and three private interviews were conducted with 10 early education teachers to obtain in-depth understanding of the problems inherent in English education. The findings show that there is an internal conflict in the teachers regarding the value of English education in early childhood. In addition, there are external conflicts with the children the parents, the English teacher, the program director, and the government in English education. It is concluded that the early childhood educators felt an internal conflict regarding the current, inappropriate execution of early English education which is lacking a suitable educational plan including goals and practices. Furthermore, the teacher's preference for English also contributed to the internal conflict regarding the belief in early childhood English education. Secondly, the external conflicts included: English teachers with inadequate understanding of comprehensive early childhood development, parents who show excessive interest in early childhood English education without regard to childhood development, the reality that early childhood English education is mostly influenced by the attitudes of the program director without regard for the conflicts experienced by the early childhood teacher, and the politics of the government continuing to ignore the reality that early childhood English education ontinues in practice without being included in the national curriculum.