ABSTRACT

Since the lst curriculum of music was officially presented, Korean music curriculum has been focused on Western music rather than Korean traditional music. Recently the interest in Korean traditional music education has increased significantly and its need has been emphasized. However, many elementary school teachers are not ready to accept these trends. The purpose of this study is to find out the present status of Korean traditional music education and affective response of children to Korean traditional music in the elementary schools. For the study on the status of Korean traditional music education, 129 teachers from 13 different elementary schools were selected as subjects and a questionnaire was given to them. To study the affective response of children to Korean traditional music and Western music, the preference test was given to children along with a questionnaire. 220 students in the 5th grade were selected as subjects from 3 different elementary schools. The results from the analyzed data are as follows. Teachers care more about the enthusiastic atmosphere of class than children`s understanding of traditional music concept and their ability of musical expression. Many teachers can not express sigimsae the characteristic of Korean traditional music, and also they can not play the Korean traditional music instruments well. Korean traditional music classes tend to include more comprehensive music learning that the 6th music curriculum emphasizes, though they are still centered on singing activities. In evaluating students, a half of teachers do not understand the criteria of evaluation. Especially, there is a problem in evaluating music appreciation. The children are found to prefer Western music to Korean traditional music as expected. However, the result shows that children exhibit positive responses to Korean traditional music. The most preferred Korean traditional music is Samulnori . The children also think that learning Korean traditional music is fun and Korean traditional music is beautiful and exciting.