TEACHING THE PERFORMING ARTS IN GHANAIAN PRIMARY SCHOOLS: A DILEMMA FOR PRE-SERVICE GENERALIST TEACHERS

Benjamin Adjepong

Abstract


Pre-service generalist teachers in Ghanaian Colleges of Education spend two years for studies on campus and one year for practical training in teaching in partner primary schools during which they teach all curriculum subjects. They however express fear and lack of adequate preparation to teach the performing arts. Through action research, nine selected pre-service teachers were guided to plan and implement activity based Performing Arts lessons. Participants’ confidence and competence of teaching the Performing Arts appreciated significantly after the study, suggesting that knowledge, understanding and skills of pre-service teachers who did not offered the full complement of the Performing Arts courses in College can be built through training workshops during their practical training session. Regular training workshops and in-service training for both generalist pre-service and in-service teachers in teaching the Performing Arts is recommended.   

 

Article visualizations:

Hit counter

DOI

Keywords


generalist pre-service teachers, performing arts, primary school, teaching, Ghana

Full Text:

PDF

References


Ampeh, G. K. (2011). Developing Effective Strategies for Teaching Creative Arts in the Lower Primary Schools: A Case Study in Agona Swedru District Administration ‘B’ School. Kumasi: Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

Biasutti, M., Hennessy, S. & de Vugt-Jansen, E. (2015). Confidence development in non-music specialist trainee primary teachers after an intensive programme. British Journal of Music Education 32(2), 143-161.

Boafo-Agyemang, R. (2010). Creative Arts in Crises: Teaching and Learning of Creative Arts in Selected Schools in Kumasi. Accra: Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

Cain, T. (2010). Music Teachers’ Action Research and Development of Big Knowledge. International Journal of Music Education, 28(2), 159-175.

Crawford-Garrett, K. et al., (2015). Transformational practice: Critical teacher research in pre-service education. Educational Action Research, 23(4), 479-496.

Curriculum Research and Development Division of Ghana. (2007). Creative Arts Syllabus for Primary 1 to 6. Accra: Ministry of Education and Sports.

Custodero, L. A., Cali, C. & Diaz-Donoso, A. (2016). Music as transitional object and practice: Children’s spontaneous musical behaviours in the subway. Research in Music Education 38(1), 55-74.

DfE. (2011). The Importance of Music: A National Plan for Music Education. London: Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

de Vries, P. (2013). Generalist teachers’ self-efficacy in primary school music teaching. Music Education Research, 15(4), 375-391.

Essa, E. L. (2003). Introduction to Early Childhood Education. New York: Delmar Learning.

Griffin, S. M. (2014). Meeting musical experience in the eye: Resonant work by teacher candidates through body mapping. Vision of Research in Music Education, 24. Retrieved from http://www.rider.edu.

Hall, W. & Keynes, M. (2005). Action Research: A Guide for Associate Lecturers. Open University. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk.

Hennessy, S. (2000). Overcoming the red-feeling: The development of confidence to teach music in primary school amongst student teachers. British Journal of Music Education, 17(2), 183-196.

Heyworth, J. (2011). Jumping through the ‘loops’: A reflective study on preparing generalist pre-Service teachers to teach music. Issues in Music Education, 20(3), 42-64.

Hobert, C. & Frankel, J. (1999). A Practical Guide to Activities for Young Children. London: Stanley Thorns Ltd.

Howe, N. et al. (2012). In-service professional development and constructivist curriculum: Effects on quality of child care, teacher beliefs and interactions. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 57(4), 353-378.

Isbell, R. T. & Raines, S. C. (2003). Creativity and the Arts with Young Children. New York: Delmar Learning.

Jackman, H. L. (2005). Early Education Curriculum: A Child’s Connection to the World (3rd ed). New York: Delmar Learning.

Jeanneret, N. & Stevens-Ballenger, J. (2013). The generalist and the specialist: Serendipity in pre-service education. Australian Journal of Music Education, 1, 64-75.

Manatsa, P., Gorongo, P. & Gatsi, R. (2013). Musical arts education: The role of in-service courses for serving teachers. American Based Research Journal, 2(6), 13-20. Retrieved from http://www.abrj.org.

Mertler, C. L. (2014). Action Research: Improving Schools and Empowering Educators (4th ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Mills, J. (1995). Music in the Primary School. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mok, A. O. (2016). A reflected journey in teaching: pre-service music teachers’ action research. Australian Journal of Music Education, 50 (2), 58-70.

Nketia, J. H. K. (Ed). (1999). A Guide for the Preparation of Primary School African Music Teaching Manuals. Accra: Afram Publications.

Opoku-Asare, N. A., Tachie-Menson, A. & Ampeh, G. K. (2015). Instructional strategies for effective teaching and learning of creative arts: The dilemma of generalist teachers in Ghana. Global Journal of Human-Social Science: Arts & Humanities-Psychology, 15 (5), 6-15.

Rautiainen, K. (2015). Class teacher students’ empathy stories about a given music lesson. Problems in Music Pedagogy, 14(1), 31-52.

Revised Syllabus for Three-Year Diploma in Basic Education. (2014). Cape Coast: Institute of Education, University of Cape Coast.

Rohwer, D. & Warren, H. (2004). University teacher’s perceptions of requisite skills and Characteristics of effective music teachers. Journal of Music Teacher Education, 13, 18-27.

Rowsell, C, & Vinden, D. (2016). Jolly Music Teaching Guide. Chigwell: Jolly Learning Ltd. Retrieved from http://www.jollylearning.co.uk.

Sarfo, J. O. (2015). Is “one-teacher-to-all-subjects” enough? Ghana’s public primary school system on a slippery slope. Journal of Advocacy, Research and Education, 3(2), 146-155. Retrieved from http://kadint.net/our-journal.html.

Stunnell, G. (2010). “Not musical? Identity perceptions of general primary school teachers in relation to classroom music teaching in England. Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education, 9 (2), 79-107. Retrieved from http://actmaydaygroup.org/articles/Stunell9_2pd.

Welch, G. F. & Henley, 2014). Addressing the challenges of teaching music by generalist primary school teachers. REVISTA DA ABEM Londrina 22(32): 12-38.

West, C. (2011). Action research as a professional development activity. Arts Educational Policy Review, 112(2), 89-94.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejes.v0i0.1888

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2018 Benjamin Adjepong

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyright © 2015-2023. European Journal of Education Studies (ISSN 2501 - 1111) is a registered trademark of Open Access Publishing Group. All rights reserved.


This journal is a serial publication uniquely identified by an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) serial number certificate issued by Romanian National Library (Biblioteca Nationala a Romaniei). All the research works are uniquely identified by a CrossRef DOI digital object identifier supplied by indexing and repository platforms. All authors who send their manuscripts to this journal and whose articles are published on this journal retain full copyright of their articles. All the research works published on this journal are meeting the Open Access Publishing requirements and can be freely accessed, shared, modified, distributed and used in educational, commercial and non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).