Reconozcamos el destino principal “China”

Although play is endorsed as a significant means to contributing to children’s development and learning in a broad sense, integrating play in kindergarten pedagogy has proved difficult and problematic (Rogers & Evans, 2008; Synodi, 2010; Wood, 2004; 2010). As Wood (2004) indicated the pedagogy of play refers to “the ways in which early childhood professionals make provision for playful and play-based activities, how they design play or learning environments, and all the pedagogical techniques and strategies they use to support or enhance learning through play” (p.19). According to Synodi (2010), play in educational settings can be primarily developed in three different ways, including child-initiated play or free play, teacher-initiated or teacher-directed play and both teacher and children mutual directed play. Each form of play provides different development to children’s learning. Child-initiated or free play refers to the activities in which children are allowed to explore freely, manipulate the materials they choose and cooperate with peers they want to play with. In this kind of play, children have power and control over their play (Wood & Attfield, 2005). The teacher-initiated play means that teachers prepare games or playful activities and use them as teaching opportunities (Synodi, 2010). In teacher-directed play, there are normally rules which are set and given by the teacher for children to follow in order to play

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successfully. This type of play can help children consolidate and practice what they have been taught (Synodi, 2010). A mutually directed play, according to Synodi (2010), means that “both teachers and children share power over play and teachers involve in children’s free play in a non-disruptive way” (p.187). In this play approach, “teachers help children find ways to use materials creatively, negotiate with other children, solve problems that may arise while playing, so that their play becomes more complicated…(they) impart enthusiasm, so that children’s play continues” (ibid).

Miller and Almon (2009) suggested a continuum to describe kindergarten curriculum and pedagogical practice which integrated with play. The following chart (see figure 2.2) serves to provide framework of the kindergarten play pedagogical continuum.

Figure 2.2 The Kindergarten Continuum

According to Miller and Almon (2009), in a qualified kindergarten, play is neither chaotic nor squeezed to the margins by teacher-led highly structured activities. The two central methods of the continuum, namely the child-initiated play method and the playful focused learning method, should be highly advocated and developed in kindergarten education. It is their view that a balance should be made between “the child-initiated play in the presence of engaged teachers and more focused experiential learning guided by teachers” (p.44). This idea was echoed by Waters and Maynard (2010), who argued that in order to promote children’s development in an all-around way, a balance between child-initiated and teacher-initiated activity needs to be maintained.

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choice of play materials and activities within a structured environment and are free to select their play partners/groups; (2) children free to play with teacher-selected materials prior to formal teacher-directed activities. Children choose what they want to do with the materials. Groups are selected by the teachers; (3) children are directed by the teachers to a succession of play-based activities throughout the day. Groups are selected by the teacher (p.22). Based on their observation and study of play, Rao and Li (2009) developed a typology of kindergarten activities in which four different categories of play-based learning were identified. These categories reflect the degree of teachers’ involvement in play, and can be seen below. However, they did not make a clear distinction between type (a) and type (c).

(a) Teacher leads and participates in games, activity, or play: This includes teacher planned, initiated, or arranged activities that may be part of the current teaching theme;

(b) Teacher supports games, activities, or play: Teacher provides structure and supports activities that are initiated by children;

(c) Child engages in games or activities chosen by the teacher: Child, either independently or with peers, engages in tasks and activities chosen by the teacher;

(d) Child engages in free play: This is genuinely free-choice play, and children engage in solitary, parallel, or cooperative play (Rao & Li, 2009, p.108).

Wood (2010) defined two different kinds of approach of play-based pedagogy, namely a mixed pedagogical approach and an integrated pedagogical approach. As she stated, “in mixed approaches, adult-directed activities take centre stage in planning, assessment and feedback, and child-initiated activities, including play, are left at the margin of practice. In integrated approaches, adults are involved with children in planning for play and child-initiated activities, based on their observation and interactions” (p.12). Teachers make pedagogical decisions according to children’s interests, choices, capacity and knowledge. She elucidated that in the integrated approach, learning and teaching are ‘a co-constructive process’ which takes place as the people, resources and activities in the setting interact with

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each other. Moreover, as the pedagogy is integrated, it does not deny children the opportunity to benefit from teacher-directed play or activities (Wood, 2010; Synodi, 2010). Based on this point of view, Wood (2010) further suggested that two different pedagogical approaches are conceptualized, to indicate the pedagogical orientation links to play in practice. One is termed cultural transmission or directive approach while the other is emergent or responsive approach. The former approach, as Wood indicated, “privileges adults’ provision for and interpretations of play in line with defined educational outcomes, because they have to provide evidence of the benefits of play for the purpose of assessment, evaluation and accountability” (p.13). Learning within this approach is seen as children acquiring and accumulating knowledge, which is refined and socially approved and teachers tend to control the context and provision of play which including forms, time, resource and space. This approach according to Wood (2010) is more likely to lead to a dichotomy between work and play. In contrast, the emergent or responsive approach emphasizes both children learning through participating and teachers’ active “responding to children’s choices and interests and to their emerging knowledge, skills and understanding” (p.14). Learning is deemed to be a co-construction process between children and practitioners through interaction, rather than transmitting desired knowledge and culture from teachers to children.

From the literature, it is clear that there are different ways identified by researchers to integrate play in kindergarten pedagogy. As Rogers and Evans (2008) indicated, “the pedagogy of play in school is characterized by complexity and diversity of practice, that it can be understood as the locus of interactions between the needs of the children and the needs of the teacher, between ideological and pragmatic imperatives, between spontaneous and intrinsically motivated actions of the child and the demands of a standardized and politicized curriculum” (p.17). The research mentioned above provides positive validation for a play-based approach in early childhood education. According to Wood (2010), “playful orientation to teaching and learning are characteristic of high-quality provision” (p.9). Although play-based pedagogy is highly advocated by both researchers and policy-makers, how teachers carry it out in classroom practice depends on and are influenced by their beliefs of play which may differentiate from one teacher to another, as well as the cultural and

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school contexts where they live within. Therefore, to probe how and in what ways play is implemented in the Chinese classroom practice is one of the purposes of the current research.