Kyridis A., Dinas K., Chatzisavidis S., Tsakiridou E., Zografou M. & Aggelaki Ch. 2006. Greek Preschool Teachers Facing the New Language Curriculum. Proceedings of the Edu-World 2006, 1-3/6/2006, IV 133-145

The new education reform, carried out in the 1998 – 2000, introduced for the first time into the history of Greek education a corpus of curricula which included: i) clearly stated teaching principles and goals for every subject, ii) the contents of subjects divided into units, iii) the objectives that have to be fulfilled in every teaching unit in relation to the subject aims, and finally iv) the methods and the means which are necessary in order to attain the desired objectives. This corpus is called the “unified framework of curricula” and constitutes an attempt to induce a new perspective about the construction of knowledge by broadening the orientation of the teaching material and by avoiding overlapping or sterile recycling. Today, after two years of implementation of the new Language Curriculum in public preschool education, we try to elucidate the opinions, the perceptions and the attitudes of Greek preschool teachers towards the curriculum and to explore the potential of its induction in public preschool education. Our research tool was a questionnaire consisting of 56 items. The sample consisted of 250 nursery teachers. The research findings showed that nursery teachers adapted satisfactorily to the new Language Curriculum and they did not faced any particular problems during its implementation. Moreover, teachers produced appropriate teaching activities based on the directives of the Greek Pedagogical Institute and they seem to understand fully the linguistic prerequisites, which are necessary for the implementation of the new Language Curriculum.