Co-construction of pretend play The teacher’s roles and children’s narrative development Dorian de Haan INHOLLAND University

2/45 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

3/45 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)

4/45 Narrative development & literacy Literacy Learning to extract meaning from the text: an autonomous text Learning to understand & produce genre-specifiek text structures Learning to reflect about the text: meta-linguistic competence Pretend play Learning to represent. Vygotsky: “action arises from ideas rather than from things” : an autonomous meaning Learning to understand & built a narrative structure Learning to reflect (talk & negotiate) about content and structure of the narrative

5/45 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)

6/45 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?

7/45 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

8/45 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

9/45 Method Casestudy: Voorschool & Plusklas % 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

10/45 Teachers’ views: definition of activity setting and roles VOORSCHOOL Goal structure: Focus upon children’s involvement in play Co-operative play Educational arrangement: Preparation with all children Intersubjectivity: children’s play as starting point for their participation ·Role: 1 Co-player 2 Onlooker PLUSKLAS Goal structure: Focus upon language acquisition a common language, input Educational arrangement: Creating a small group setting Intersubjectivity: modelling by the teacher Role: 1 Stagemanager 2 Play Leader

11/45 Teachers’ views of children’ s development Voorschool 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.” 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.” Plusklas Actual development “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 “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”

12/45 Observations: teacher’s roles Verdeling rollen Anneke TOE 7% STM 16% STH 17% PAR 14% SPL 33% INS 13% VOORSCHOOL PLUSKLAS

13/45 Observations: play actions

Conclusion: The teacher’s role and narrative development 14/45 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

15/45 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