Abstract
Students in Indonesian elementary school teacher education programs tend to have weaker song notation reading skill. To improve their skill in reading and understanding song notations, critical and reflective steps are necessary. Therefore, this research aims at improving the students' skills in reading and understanding song notations, which is necessary for their future teaching profession. This research was conducted using an action research design, manifested by planning and implementing seven critical-reflective action steps. The participants were 44 undergraduate students in an elementary school teacher education program in a university in West Java, Indonesia. The research found that the prospective elementary school teachers were not accustomed to reading the symbols in song notations. Therefore, their musical literacy was low. However, this research found that their song notation reading comprehension and skill could be improved by implementing several critical-reflective action steps. Additionally, the reports from this research illustrated the results of collaborative teamwork in developing and finding solutions in each of the learning steps.
Highlights
Elementary school teachers in Indonesia have an obligation to teach songs to students from grade one to grade six, and the songs in textbooks are written in song notations with note symbols
In contrast with previous studies, this research aims at prospective elementary school teachers that have the obligation to teach songs to their students but are yet to have good comprehension regarding song notations, especially in reading the song notations
Action research attempts to intensively find solutions to problems (Creswell, 2015). This is in line with the problem of prospective elementary school teachers in reading and comprehending song notation, which requires intensive solutions in each learning process, considering that reading song notation is a part of the music-reading skill that needs to be practiced intensively
Summary
Elementary school teachers in Indonesia have an obligation to teach songs to students from grade one to grade six (six years), and the songs in textbooks are written in song notations with note symbols. Besides teaching the lyrics and melodies of the songs, the teachers are obliged to teach using solmization. This means that, in addition to comprehending song notations, the teachers need to be able to transcribe the note symbols into solmization. These obligations are explicitly stated in the curriculum on music education for elementary school. Persellin, Smith, Klein, & Taguiam, 2002; D. C. Persellin, 2006; Sims, Moore, & Kuhn, 1982; Yarbrough, Green, Benson, & Bowers, 1991)
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