Teacher Awareness on the Use of Physical Activities to Introduce English in Early Childhood Education

Abstract

Physical activities provide many benefits for children and it stick to children daily activities, since children by nature love to play any physical activities. On the other hand, English, in Indonesian curriculum for Early Childhood Education is no longer allowed to be a subject being taught. Whereas, the Krasen critical period hypothesis argues that the earlier is the better for learning a new language. Therefore, it needs to be integrated to other subjects. This researcher aims to analyze the teacher's awareness on the use of physical activities to Introduce English in Early Childhood Education using a quantitative survey design. By administering a set of questionnaires which focused on 4 aspect namely teacher perspective about physical activities, teacher perspective toward English, teacher physical activities' preferences and teacher's preference on teaching English, this research explain the teacher awareness on the importance of English and physical activities as well as the integration of English in physical activities. Physical activities and English language are highly valued by teachers. However, even they favor the physical activities and English, it did not guarantee that they are aware on integrating English in their activities, either in physical or nonphysical activities.