A research experiment was performed in the Utah State University Child Development Laboratory on a group of pre-school children consisting of ten boys and ten girls between the ages of three and four years in an attempt to discover that teaching method which will best sustain a child's interest while teaching a foreign language in an experimental situation. The procedure involved the evaluation of three different methods. 1) German conversation in a group utilizing audio-visual aids, 2) Group singing of a German song, and 3) Telling a story in German using a flannel board with illustrations. These three methods were performed three times each over a five-week period. The results showed that there was not statistically a significant difference. The findings did show, however, that the flannelboard story sustained the interest of the group best, next the singing of a German song and the least effective was conversation in German. The results did indicate that the interest of the children dropped considerably from the first to the third time that the conversation method was performed. The interest of the children increased considerably from the first to the third time that the singing of a German Bong was performed. The interest of the children appeared to stay about the same over the three times that the flannel-board story was performed. Femininity and masculinity appear to influence the responses of children to a language-learning situation. That method which will best sustain children's interest in a language-learning situation appears to be dependent on where the children are in their familiarity with the language.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTAHS/oai:digitalcommons.usu.edu:etd-3434 |
| Date | 01 May 1967 |
| Creators | Geddes, Gordon |
| Publisher | DigitalCommons@USU |
| Source Sets | Utah State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | All Graduate Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | Copyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact Andrew Wesolek (andrew.wesolek@usu.edu). |
Page generated in 0.0018 seconds