Editor: Viv Edwards (University of Reading, UK)
|
Volume: 16 Number: 4 Page: 303–317
|
|
|
|
|
Talking to Learn: The Voices of Children, Aged 9–11, Engaged in Role-play
|
|
Sue Lyle
|
|
A whole class of primary school children were video-recorded whilst engaged in a role-play activity. Their discussion was transcribed and analysed drawing on the work of Bahktin, Vygotsky and Bruner. The
paper argues that the transcript provides support for the view that children's learning can be seen as a socio-historically and culturally constituted dialogical process of meaning making. It draws in particular
on Bakhtin's ideas about the power of dialogic engagement to establish meaning, and Bruner's view that narrative understanding is a primary meaning-making tool. The paper has implications for the use of
role-play in primary classrooms as a tool capable of promoting high levels of pupil involvement in ways that can promote critical thinking and sophisticated powers of reasoning. This paper has particular
significance for those concerned to include thinking skills in curriculum planning. The content of the role-play: the future of tropical rainforests, will also be of interested to those concerned with education
for sustainability.
© Multilingual Matters 2002
Full text PDF
|
