The subject matter of my thesis was to study the factors that affect the formation of song repertoire in the second triad of elementary school. In the theoretical part, we have defined singing in accordance with curriculum of music education in the primary school. It was followed by the presentation of the child’s musical development and description of the development of musical abilities, singing abilities and skills to the age of adolescence. We have studied the vocal apparatus and the voice range of a child. We have defined the concept of song repertoire, presented different ways to form a song repertoire and analysed song repertoire in didactic materials for 4th and 5th grade of elementary school. We have wrapped up the theoretical part with the teacher’s professional ability to form the song repertoire and teach music, especially regarding singing activities.
The research was carried out with a quantitative research approach. We collected data with an online questionnaire. The sample included 101 randomly selected primary school teachers from different schools in Slovenia who taught music in the 4th and 5th grade. The data was collected in 2018/2019 teaching year. We were interested in finding out if there are differences between teachers of different age, work experience, profession, different music education and frequency of participation in additional music-based educational seminars in the way they form a song repertoire, in their professional ability to form a song repertoire and in their point of view on singing in music classes.
Research results show that music teachers in 4th and 5th grade know the specific criteria to form a song repertoire and they attribute great significance to them. When forming a song repertoire, the teachers rely mostly on specific criteria, but they also consider pupils’ interests. Teachers include diverse songs into their song repertoire, which we can prove with low frequency of repeated songs in the list of songs written by teachers. The list of songs includes Slovenian and foreign folk songs and songs with known authors. We found differences in agreeing with statements about professional ability and knowledge about pupils’ musical development according to teachers’ music education and additional music experience. The most important finding of the research is that most teachers wish the syllabus would include suggested song repertoire. With this change, all the teachers would have access to appropriate song repertoire which would pose as help when forming their own song repertoire.
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