Song is the basic method of music education at school in our days, round which a lot of music expression elements can be developed, as well as a lot of music concepts can be applied to. International bibliography (Gudmundsdottir, 2018· Zdravković & Đorđevi, 2020) notes that our lifelong skills at songs is founded on developing the appropriate phonetic education during our childhood. Studies (Wills, 2011· Vitale, 2009) maintain that the teaching of the singing technique that is appropriately adapted to this particular age, affects decisively cultivating the child’s ear, his/her voice and his/her breathing technique, already by his early childhood. However, there are not many studies in Greece that examine the way teaching songs during early childhood is carried out.

The goal of the present study is to examine the way preschool teachers carry out song activities in state nursery schools. The research took place in two phases and its quality data were collected through interviews and observation. During the first phase we followed the technique of theoretical sampling and took personal interviews with 19 nursery school teachers. Analysing the interview data we followed the thematic content analysis technique. In the second phase a 5-month music pedagogical in-service training programme was planned and carried out in a representative nursery school of the state sector. All seven nursery school teachers (the nursery school staff) took part in the programme. The teachers were called on a weekly basis to follow 2-hour in-service training meetings and then they were asked to videotape the suggested song activities they carried out in their classes. We collected data during the second phase of the research with the participant observation method during the in-service training sessions and during the evaluation of the videotaped activities for the non-participant observation. Field notes were taken for 20 in-service training meetings by applying the participant observation method with the goal of capturing the most possible elements regarding the in-service training session’s contents and the progress of the participants as adult trainees. An observation plan was made for evaluating the videotaped material, i.e. a teacher’s specific music skills and behaviour checklist. Each observation category was evaluated on a 5-grade evaluation scale in order to ensure the exact performance level of the teacher, as far as possible, in the most reliable manner. The data produced were submitted to an SPSS Statistics software analysis.

Elements regarding the goals set and the methodological approaches and practices followed by early learning teachers, as well as the challenges they face by using song activities, have come to light by analyzing the data gathered. Findings bring problems in the phonetic rendering of the songs by the teachers to light, as well as deficiencies in their educational method approach. The need to plan appropriate support programmes for the pre-school education teachers urgently emerges, in order for them to have the ability to advance the children’s phonetic development and their fruitful music learning.

• Μουσικές εμπειρίες στο σχολείο, στο ωδείο και στην κοινότητα
• Εκπαίδευση εκπαιδευτικών
• Η μουσική διδασκαλία-μάθηση σε τυπικά, μη τυπικά και άτυπα περιβάλλοντα

Efthymiou Spyridoula is a PhD holder of the Department of Music Studies/Ionian University, where she had concluded her BA studies. She works as a teacher of music in Primary Education since 2004. She is a graduate of the postgraduate “Education Studies” of the Hellenic Open University, specializing in Adult Education. Her research interests are in the area of Music Pedagogy, especially Music Education in Preschool and First-School Age, and in Adult Music Education.