PARENTAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS ENGLISH EDUCATION FOR KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS IN TURKEY
Abstract
Learning a language is very important in our global world. People should know at least one foreign language to enter the global market place. English is the leading foreign language in many countries, including Turkey. Parents attitudes towards the language affect their children’s success in learning the language. Many studies have indicated that parents play an important role in maintaining their children’s language ability as well as in participating for the success of school and learning. The aim of this study was to investigate the parental attitudes towards English education for Kindergarten students. In this study a questionnaire was used as a data collection instrument. To determine valid and reliable results the pilot administration was done to see the possible problems which might occur. The result of the pilot study indicates that the questionnaire has . 97 reliability. 46 parents who are sending their children to a Kindergarten which has English education were selected randomly for the main study. The main study was carried out at Neşeli Adımlar Kindergarten during the first term of the 2006–2007 Academic year. The results demonstrated that most parents strongly support immersion of English for their children in Kindergartens whereas; they have negative attitudes with respect to the qualifications of teachers.
Keywords
Parent involvement, very young learners, passive encouragement, active encouragement.
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