The investigation presented in this study represents an attempt to discover how different types of teaching method realte to children`s academic achievement, creativity, socio-emotional development and self-concept. The aims of this study were ; 1. To construct an activity-centered teaching method based on small group for the first year pupils in elementary school and to investigate the effectiveness of the activity centered teaching method based on small group. 2. To provide elementary school education with some materials to improve the prevailing teacher-centered teaching method in the first year. Two teachers and ninety-eight children from two classes of the same school were used for the experiment. One type of teaching was an activity-centered teaching method based on small group in which both teacher and children took the initiative and were actively involved while in the other type of teaching method, only the teacher took the initiative. To make a statistical comparison between the effectiveness of the two teaching methods, a t-test was employed. The major results obtained from this study are summarized a follows; 1. There were differences in academic achievement depending on the types of teaching method:in the domain of speaking and hearing, the activity-centered teaching method based on small group was more effective than the other. 2. There were differences in creativity depending on the types of teaching method: in the domain of originality and abstractness, the activity-centered teaching method based on small group was more effective than the other. 3. There were differences in socio-emotional development depending on the types of teaching method: in the domain of internal control, interaction with peers, stability in school, curiosity and the motivation of achievment. The activity-centered teaching method based on small group was more effective than the other. 4. There were differences in self-concept depending on the types of teaching method: in the domain of general self-concept, academic self-concept and non-academic self-concept, the activity-centered teaching method based on small group was more effective than the other.