Do Children Need Adult Support During Sociodramatic Play to Develop Executive Functions? Experimental Evidence

The cultural-historical approach provides the deep theoretical grounds for the analysis of children’s play. Vygotsky suggested three critical features of play: switching to an imaginary situation, taking on a play role, and acting according to a set of rules defined by the role. Collaboration, finding ideas and materials for creating an imaginary situation, defining play roles, and planning the plot are complex tasks for children. However, the question is, do children need educator’s support during the play to develop their executive functions, and to what extent? This experimental study was aimed at answering this inquiry. The four modes of sociodramatic play were created which differed in the adult intervention, from non-involvement in the play to its entire organization. The play could be child-led (with adult help), adult-led, or free (without any adult intervention); and there was also a control group where the children heard the same stimulus stories as the other groups but then followed them up with a drawing activity instead of a play activity. The study revealed that, firstly, the ways of educator’s involvement in the play differed in their potential in respect to the development of executive functions, and, secondly, this influence was not equal for different components of executive functions. Free play in the experiment was not a beneficial condition for the development of any of the studied components of executive functions, compared to the conditions involving the participation of an adult in the play. Furthermore, the type of adult intervention stimulated the development of various executive functions. The entire organization of the play by the adult had a positive impact of their general development. In contrast, the adult’s assistance in the organization of the children’s play had a positive effect on the development of inhibitory control. The study results can be helpful when considering educational practices within a cultural-historical approach to engaging the potential of play in children’s learning and development around the world.

IMPROVING STUDENTS' SPEAKING SKILLS THROUGH SOCIODRAMATIC PLAY AT THE SECOND GRADE STUDENTS OF SMA NEGERI 2 MAMUJU

This study aims at finding out the effectiveness of sociodramatic play in improving students' speaking skills. This study is quantitative research with Classroom Action Research (CAR) design. Data sources of the study were the second grade students of SMAN 2 Mamuju. The participants were taken through purposive random sampling technique. Data were collected by using observation, test and questionnaire. In this study, post-test was conducted in three cycles. The results of the study show that students had made some progress during the learning process. In pre-test, most of the students were having poor speaking skills with as many as 53% participants were in this category. However, there were significant improvements toward students' speaking skills with no more students with both very poor and poor speaking skills in third cycle. From the result of the test, it can be concluded that sociodramatic play is useful to improve the students' speaking skills. In addition, most of students feel interested in and enjoy the learning process by having sociodramatic play in speaking class.

Exploring the object-sourced transmodal practices of an emergent bilingual child in sociodramatic play

This case study explores how an emergent bilingual preschooler used transmodal practices to engage with objects and compose narratives in sociodramatic play. Video recordings and field notes were collected in a dual language preschool classroom in the United States to examine the actional, verbal, and visual modes used by the focal child during his engagement with objects. An action-oriented analysis using multimodal discourse and mediated action frameworks revealed how he transmodally engaged with play artifacts to embody imagined roles and extend objects’ functionality. The child engaged with objects in three particular ways by (a) resourcing objects to advertise play to peers, (b) extending objects’ meaning potential, and (c) recruiting physical and imagined objects to elaborate on storyline. His translanguaging served as an additional compositional resource to provide contextualization for play narratives; showcase personalized meanings and underscore his multimodal intent during play; and endorse and co-opt others’ play ideas. Findings have implications for ways that early childhood teachers can use objects to promote and augment multimodal sociodramatic play scenarios.