Musical activities in pre-school institutions (case of Nicosia)

Abstract

This study has been carried out in order to investigate the musical activities and musical problems in pre-school institutions in Nicosia. Since the study aims to describe the present situation as it exists, it adopted a qualitative survey (Karasar, 1994a) and the data was collected through interviews which were held with pre-school teachers. Interview is the technique in which the data is collected by verbal communication (Karasar, 1994a). The questions of the interview have been prepared after searching the related literature and by consulting to the professionals of the field. The collected data has been analyzed and interpreted by the researcher. The research group of the study consisted of 23 teachers from the public kindergartens in Nicosia.One of the most striking findings of the study was that; none of the six schools have got separate music rooms and only one has a full-time music teacher. Also in this study it has been revealed that most of the classes haven’t got any music areas and the teachers stated that in case of need, they shared the musical instruments of the school with the other teachers. However, in the schools that have no separate music rooms, teachers have to prepare music areas in their classes (Omeroglu & Others, 2003). The shared instruments were: organs, drums, tambourines, maracas, accordions, cymbals, finger cymbals, castanets, triangles and xylophones. Also, in addition to these instruments guiro tone blocks and stir xylophones were the shared instruments in only one school. Some of the teachers stated that they had music areas in their classes and they used musical instruments in these areas such as: maracas made by children themselves, wooden/plastic maracas, triangles, xylophones, finger cymbals, castanets, drums, hand bells, cymbals and claves.The study has also revealed that pre-school teachers have used music frequently as a tool for teaching other subjects despite the fact that they rarely gave musical education to students. The activities that the teachers have been using were: teaching a new song related to the main theme of the topic, getting the children to listen to sound effects related to the unit, using music to teach the local traditional culture, for recognizing and expressing emotions and in concept teaching.The music based activities that are used by the teachers included: teaching songs, getting children to listen to music, rhythm exercises, dramatizing songs, teaching how to play instruments (mostly rhythm instruments), introducing musical instruments (mostly rhythm instruments), teaching simple dance sequences (ront), listening and recognizing the sounds, making simple rhythm instruments and doing creative dance activities. Also working with choirs, making musical stories and having the children transfer their hearings into drawings were activities rarely used.Another important finding was that, even though most teachers could play a musical instrument, only a few used these instruments while the children sang songs. Most of the teachers can play the flute, some of them can play the organ and a few of them can play the melodica and accordion. Also, it has been revealed that cassettes, CD's, books related to nursery rhymes and songs, CD players, TVs or DVD players and internet are materials that the teachers have benefited from in their musical activities. Only a few teachers used computers, masks, puppets, magazines and materials suitable for drama.The problems related to music that teachers had stated were; having no separate music rooms and full-time music teachers, teachers’ considering themselves insufficient in playing a musical instrument and finally the shortage of musical instruments and materials. Due to the fact that teachers consider themselves insufficient in playing musical instruments, it is thought that they are reluctant to do the activities based on music itself. And also, they complained of having problems of using music in social, cognitive, psychomotor and other activities.