Towards play pedagogy: supporting teacher play practices with a teacher guide about socio-dramatic and imaginative play

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the work of Vygotsky on scaffolding play and research on teacher intervention and mature forms of play, we have developed a teacher guide about play which frames children’s role and scenario development and provides a teacher play intervention schema. The research question explored in this study is ‘How does a teacher guide, focusing on socio-dramatic and imaginative play, shape in-service and pre-service teachers’ play practices?’ Data are collected through planning documents, journal reflections and videos. Findings suggest that the specific guide was employed in a threefold way by the teachers: to reflect on their involvement in children’s play; to document children’s learning and development, focusing on role and scenario development abilities; and to plan curricula changes and play activities. This study confirms that teachers need explicit pedagogical support to begin to develop sophisticated epistemology on play and implement play pedagogy.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher guide
• play pedagogy
• teacher involvement
• socio-dramatic and imaginative play
• role and scenario development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.