Co-construction of pretend play
The teacher’s roles and children’s
narrative development
Dorian de Haan
INHOLLAND University
Overview
1.
Socio-constructivist theory: some
basic principles
2.
Narrative development and literacy
3.
Dutch Vygotsky-based Education
4.
Research: questions, theoretical
concepts, method, results
5.
Conclusions
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Socio-constructivist theory: basic
principles
Social context of development
Play is the ‘leading activity’ in the preschool
Pretend play is “speaking in prose ” (Vygotsky, 1976,
p.548) (Narrative / literacy development)
Zone of proximal development
•
Scaffolding
•
Guided participation & non-verbal and distal
arrangements (Rogoff)
•
Activity setting (Wertsch)
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Narrative development & literacy
Literacy
Learning to extract meaning
from the text: an
autonomous text
Pretend play
Learning to represent.
Vygotsky: “action arises
from ideas rather than from
things” : an autonomous
meaning
Learning to understand &
produce genre-specifiek
text structures
Learning to understand &
built a narrative structure
Learning to reflect (talk &
Learning to reflect about the negotiate) about content
text: meta-linguistic
and structure of the
competence
narrative
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Dutch Vygotsky-based Education
“Developmental Education”
Basic principles:
Children’s participation: meaningful learning, the learning
trajectory is constructed in collaboration with the children
The teacher designs the curriculum rather than following
a standard program
•
•
Pedagogical framing: planning, providing resources
Pedagogical interactions
For young children: play based curriculum
Pretend play: “The heart of play development” : involving
all developmental domains (Janssen-Vos, 2004)
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Research questions
How do teachers enhance the symbolic play of young
children for whom the language of the preschool is a
second language?
Which roles of the teacher are most favourable for
children’s play development?
•
Are there any differences in the teachers’
guidance depending of the (play, language)
development of the children involved?
6/45
Theoretical Concepts
ZPD: The teacher
Activity setting:
•
Situation definition, goal structures (Wertsch) and
distal arrangements (Rogoff)
Roles (Johnson, Christie & Yawkey, 1999)
•
Onlooker
•
Stagemanager
•
Co-player
•
Play leader
•
Director/instructor
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Theoretical Concepts
Teacher and Children
Narrative play actions
Representation:
•
from context dependency to representation without
contextual support
Narrative structure:
•
from single to connected fantasy actions
Reflection:
•
from solitary to parallel and co-operative play
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Method
Casestudy: Voorschool & Plusklas
•
80 - 100% non- indigenous children
•
Mean age Voorschool 3.6, Plusklas 3.1
•
Four teachers
Design-based research: Collaborative, improving
educational practice
Data collection
•
Interviews, video observation
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Teachers’ views: definition of
activity setting and roles
VOORSCHOOL
PLUSKLAS
Goal structure:
Goal structure:
•
Focus upon
children’s
involvement in play
•
Focus upon
language
acquisition
•
Co-operative play
•
a common
language, input
Educational arrangement:
Preparation with all children
Intersubjectivity: children’s
play as starting point for their
participation
Educational arrangement:
Creating a small group setting
Intersubjectivity: modelling by
the teacher
·Role:
Role:
1 Co-player
1 Stagemanager
2 Onlooker
2 Play Leader
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Teachers’ views of children’ s development
Voorschool
Plusklas
Actual development
Actual development
“Some children are just not able to
play. But you see, when we start to pay
attention toit in the circle, you can
make it interesting for them.”
“These children are just not yet ready
to play social role play”(..) “They just
do not have any representations”(..)
“There is no patience to play in the
house corner”
Potential development
“We guide, we suggest and take the
lead, we give examples. But the
children learn most of play among
themselves (..) You have to learn to
play yourself (..) We have furnished our
room wit lots of material which they
can use in their play.”
Potential development
“Our goal is simple role play, but we
often do not succeed (..) When you
have done role play very often, you see
that they pick it up after some time”
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Observations: teacher’s roles
VOORSCHOOL
Verdeling rollen Betty
INS
5%
TOE
4%
Verdeling rollen Ellen
INS
8%
STM
15%
SPL
33%
SPL
28%
STH
10%
TOE
8%
STM
13%
STH
20%
PAR
23%
PAR
33%
PLUSKLAS
Verdeling rollen Anneke
INS
13%
TOE
7%
SPL
33%
STM
16%
STH
17%
PAR
14%
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Observations: play actions
Representation
Support from context
Without support context
Teachers
Children
Voorschool Plusklas
Voorschool Plusklas
Barbara Erika
Barbara Erika
Anne
Anne
%
78
22
%
66
34
%
72.5
27.5
%
82
18
%
79
21
%
82
18
47
25
28
40
31
29
52
24
24
60
20
20
66
20
14
58
28
14
31
5
64
55.5
7
39
54.5
1
44.5
31
13
57
64
8
28
62
1
37
Narrative structure
Single action
Multiple action
Connected action
Reflection:interaction
Solitary, focus on self
Focus on object
Co-operative play
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Conclusion: The teacher’s role and
narrative development
Representation:
Support from the context for young children is important
Context independent: known script, language proficiency
Narrative structure:
Guidance ‘from inside’ most favourable (play mate, play
leader) for connected action
For young players: stage manager suggesting and modelling
actions ‘from outside’
Reflection:
No evidence of co-occurrence role and dimension of solitairy/
cooperative play
Play mate and play leader: play talk
Stage-manager: off-the-line talk about attributes and action
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Conclusion ZPD
Are there any differences in the teachers’ guidance
depending of the (play, language) development of the
children involved?
Youngest children:
more stage manager
more single actions, less connected text
more focus on self, less cooperative play
Situation definition: goal structure broadly defined,
not in terms of narrative development
For narrative play; focus on participation of the
children – ‘doing the words’ - may be more facilitative
than focus on language input
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