Telling stories of learning and beyond: using the learning story approach to help kindergarten teachers to conceptualise play-based teaching and learning in China

ABSTRACT

Play-based teaching and learning approaches are recognised as enabling teachers to interact with children and support learning in a relaxed environment to promote children’s holistic development. Recent studies increasingly emphasise that teachers’ engagement can promote children’s opportunities to learn through play. This article presents results from a qualitative case study undertaken in a kindergarten in China, with three Chinese kindergarten teachers exploring play-based teaching and learning in their classrooms. Learning story, a narrative assessment approach, was introduced to the Chinese kindergarten teachers prior to the research as a tool for them to record and reflect on their play-based learning practices. Nine learning stories were collected and nine follow-up semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore three research questions: 1). what was the teacher’s role in playful activities? 2). what learning was identified? 3). how were play and learning linked and sustained over time? Findings indicate that the three Chinese teachers demonstrated a continuum of guidance for their interaction with children in play and that cultural factors played a role in teachers’ conceptualisation and implementation of play-based learning. These findings contribute to understanding of play-based pedagogy in a particular cultural context.

KEYWORDS:

• Play-based pedagogy
• narrative assessment
• learning story approach
• China

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the lovely kindergarten teachers for being so generous with their knowledge, efforts, and time to contribute to this research. I am also grateful to Professor Bronwen Cowie, Dr Wendy Carss, and Dorothy Spiller for their guidance and support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).