A Study on Young Children’s Narratives with Respect to the Personal experience at home and Shared Experiences in the kindergarten

Abstract

This study investigated the differences in 3, 4, and 5 year-olds’ developmental level of narratives, use of cohesive devices and mental state terms between aspects of the narratives of personal experience at home and shared experience in the kindergarten. The subjects are 56 3-, 4-, and 5- year-olds in Seoul. The results are as follows: First, the developmental level of narratives for 3-, 4-, and 5 year-olds in personal experience was lower than that of shared experience, showing a statistically significant difference. This implies that teachers should encourage young children to yield narratives which express their thoughts and feelings during daily experience. Second, the use of logical cohesive devices in personal experience was lower than that of shared experience, showing a statistically significant difference. It is suggested that children use more cohesive devices and de-contextualized language in their narratives when teachers provide language models while interacting with interesting and meaningful educational activities. Third, the use of mental state terms in personal experience was lower than that of shared experience, showing a statistically significant difference. This shows the importance of community activities and teacher’s communicative interactions in conversation involving interesting experiences with peers. Further research about this aspect is proposed.