Blending Constructivism and Instructivism: A Study of Classroom Dialogue in Singapore Kindergartens

ABSTRACT

The Singapore government has launched kindergarten curriculum reform since 2003 to promote constructivism in teaching and learning, which seems to contradict the traditional pedagogy. Using video analysis, we examined the actual classroom dialogue in six Chinese language classrooms to understand to what extent the constructivist pedagogy has been implemented in Singapore kindergartens. Evidence indicated the classroom dialogs in the Singapore kindergartens were knowledge-driven and teacher-directed, which is per se instructivism-based. The findings call for a further reflection on the progressive early childhood education reforms and the enhancement of professional support for early childhood teachers in Singapore and other similar contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Classroom dialogue
• constructivism
• early childhood education
• Singapore
• teacher-child interaction

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The Cam-UNAM Scheme for Educational Dialogue Analysis (SEDA: ©2016) was developed by a research team from the University of Cambridge, England, and the National Autonomous University of Mexico, led by Sara Hennessy and Sylvia Rojas-Drummond and funded through a grant from the British Academy. The original scheme and list of co-creators are available at http://tinyurl.com/BAdialogue.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the RGC General Research Fund (GRF) [HKU 744506].