A STUDY OF ATTITUDES TOWARD LEARNING ENGLISH AT AN EARLY AGE BY TAIWANESE PARENTS WITH YOUNG CHILDREN

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the parental attitudes towards young children’s learning English in kindergarten at an early age. The subjects of the research survey are comprised of 189,792 young children enrolled in Taiwan kindergartens as the population. This number underwent stratified random sampling using a ratio of 0.5%, yielding a total of 949 samples. The number of valid questionnaires recovered was 709 and the valid response rate was 76.2%. The results of the subsequent analysis of the data are indicated as follows: Parents living in central and northern Taiwan with educational backgrounds of graduate school or higher tend to disagree in their attitudes towards young children learning English at an early age as compared to the attitudes of parents living in southern Taiwan with high school degrees. Parents agreeing more with secular parenting concepts tend to concur more in their attitudes towards young children learning English at an early age. The views of parents living in various regions with different educational backgrounds towards young children learning English at an early age are primarily affected by their views on secular parenting concepts. Specific research implications of these findings are discussed in the latter part of this article.