A Teacher's Use Of And Beliefs About Play In Preschoolers' English Teaching And Learning

Play is a rich activity with opportunities to use language and is very popular with children. This study is a case study of a teacher's use of and beliefs about play in preschoolers' English teaching and learning in China. The teacher's beliefs about the role of play in children's English learning, the teacher's use of play in classroom practices, and the general constraints on incorporating teacher's beliefs about play into classroom practice are explored in the present study. A qualitative research approach is used in the present study. Teacher interviews and classroom observations serve as the main source of data for the analysis of teacher's beliefs and practice, while the information elicited from the stimulated recalls and self-reflexive notes is treated as supplementary and complementary.Research findings show that, the teacher believes that play could be an ideal medium for children's cognitive development, including their language development. Play provides them a relaxed and comfortable environment to practice a new language, English, without worrying about making mistakes. The teacher in the present study provides playful activities for the children, including dramatic play, storytelling, art activities, and pretend play, to practice the language. Songs, poems, and chants are also used to let the children play with the rhythm, intonation, and the stress patterns of the language.This study also reveals that when the teacher believes that play has an important role in children's learning and development, she may use playful activities as potential teaching and learning media for teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in preschoolers' language learning. In addition, the result supports the idea that each teacher may have a unique understanding of play in language learning, and it may strongly affect his/her classroom practice.