The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of parents and students about early English education and the actual conditions about degree of interest, understanding, satisfaction, achievement, and learning method of English learning, and also to examine its effects on the affective characteristics of elementary school students toward English language such as self - efficacy, motivation, attitude, interest, and anxiety according to the experience of early English education before third grade in elementary school.
In order to accomplish this objective, I specified the research questions as follows:
First, what is today’s situation of early English education for students under 3rd grade in elementary school?
Second, what are the perceptions of students and parents about early English education and general English education?
Third, what kinds of effects does English language education in the early childhood have on the affective characteristics of elementary school students toward English language?
To examine the research questions, I singled out 202 students of 3, 4 and 5 grade and also parents from 5 elementary schools located in Jeollabuk-do. A study was conducted with 2 kinds of questionnaires, one was for students and the other for parents.
All data collected from the above questionnaires was analyzed on the basis of SPSS 24.0. In order to verify the questionnaires I designed, I calculated the frequencies and ratios of frequency analysis and multiple response analysis according to the types of questionnaire items. Next, in the questionnaire using the Likert scale, the mean and standard deviation of each variable were obtained and in order to analyze the effect of the English language education in the early childhood on the affective characteristics of those children, I used an independent sample t-test.
Following such procedures, the results of my analysis are as follows:
First, since early English education before third grade is so common, it is necessary for the government to find the desirable ways to offer effective methods of English education for children, rather than unconditional opposition and concerns.
Second, students and parents feel the necessity and effectiveness of early English education and therefore, I found that they had a positive perception of early English education.
Third, early English education before the third grade of elementary school had positive effects on the children''s affective characteristics of learning English in elementary school. In particular, there were significant differences on the self-efficacy, interest, and attitude.
Based on these results, it is suggested early English education is a positive and effective way to improve English learning and to generate children’s interest in English.