CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

An early childhood education setting should be a place where children discover a love for learning through a variety of play experiences. Current research shows how play has changed and even been eliminated in many early childhood settings. The benefits of play are crucial to allowing a child to develop appropriately. Children’s early years should be about fostering and developing their curiosity through a wide variety of play experiences. Understanding why play is important in early childhood development allows individual to understand the true meaning of play. The history of play has changed and decreased throughout the decades (Robinson & Zajicek, 2005).This decrease in free play has caused children to struggle academically. Through daily play, young children are able to gain valuable life experiences through a variety of roles that will support growth and ultimately translate into necessary adulthood skills. According to Fisher (1998­), play is an essential aspect of the development; key skills including social, behavioral, language, and cognitive are all experienced through play opportunities. These skills developed through play as young learners will grow into adulthood. Families, educators and administrators need to become advocates for the importance of play for early learners.

Throughout history, the idea of what play is has always sparked the interest of societies. Although the word play can be hard to quantify, it is very easy to recognize. Play varies from culture to culture. In ancient Greece, for example, adults treat children with gentleness and affection during play (Sarcho & Spodek, 1995). Conversely, early Europeans seemed to have less interest in children during play (Fisher, 1998­).  During this time period, children were expected to work in the fields and homes alongside their parents. With lack of play and high adult expectations, these children quickly acquired adult skills. For example, boys learned to hunt alongside their fathers and girls learned skills from their mothers such as needlework, art, music and household skills (Saracho & Spodek, 1995). Play creates a zone of proximal development in a child (Williams, 2006). During play, children tend to behave above their average age and above their daily behaviors. When children are given opportunities to play, the child improves in every developmental aspect (Berk, 1994). The ideas of the Russian developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky, who early in this century forged an innovative theory granting great importance to social and cultural experience in development (Berk, 1994). His research supports the idea that adults and peers naturally scaffold young children’s play while nurturing situations that allow creativity and imagination throughout the preschool years and into early childhood. Vygotsky believes that play has two critical frameworks that when integrated together during playtime play an important role in early development (Berk, 1994). First, all representational play creates an imaginary situation that allows children to fulfill subliminal desires, such as playing in a parenting type role with a doll.

During fantasy play children realize that certain desires will remain unsatisfied during play situations (Brek, 1994). As young learners age, acquire new skills and experiences they begin to be able to adjust to situations accordingly much easier. As they learn to adjust through play, such as taking turns and other socially accepted behaviors. Other important behaviors learned through play involve safety, respect for property, self-care (such as hand washing) and learning everyday routines. Incorporating play in the process of teaching is highly encouraged by the curriculum of teaching for Cameroon nursery school pupils. This is explained by many playing infrastructures that are found in most nursery schools which act as a better teaching method.

The cognitive skills of children are still in their early phase of inception and it is important to emphasis value of play-based learning during this developmental period.

This is learning through means of ‘play’ which ranges from active-play that requires physical, verbal or mental engagement to pleasurable play that emphasises on enjoyment as a key feature. The manner in which children interact with one another and perform independently is learned from their surroundings, experiences and by parents and teachers. If an education system is conceptualised which utilises and manipulates play-based learning teach children, the many subjects they are required to learn. It will greatly impact the way things are done. No one child is alike. Every child learns differently and that is true for adults. By introducing play-based learning, we can maximize the academic standards by having more than one way to teach the same concepts.

1.2 Problem of the statement

Cameroon is one the of the country where children attend early education in both nursery and pre-nursery school whose main priority is playing. The inclusive curriculum encourages teachers to support children’s learning and development as they participate in a variety of activities, including play that stems from the children’s own interests (Ministry of Education, New Zealand 2017). Play is aimed at supporting, building, and extending the learning children bring with them. Generally, it has been discovered that many parents and teachers restrict their children from playing (Alcock & Stobbs, 2019). There are different types of play that are recommended for pupils structural play which teaches students about how to accept rules, accept judges’ decisions, and follow instructions, socio-dramatic play which help the  children to develop social and language skills, by creating imaginary worlds, characters, and scenarios, which relate to the real world (Smilansky, 1968), Instructional play which is an activity or game that results in learning (Donalyn, 2016), and manipulative play refers to activities where children move, order or screw items to make them fit. It allows children to take control of their world by mastering the objects they use (Noggle, 2018).  Structures can also help children to progress toward specific learning objectives. Guided play is an approach to play designed to mediate between structured and unstructured play and Cooperative play is characterized by sharing not only resources but collaborating in game play and play objectives. In this type of play, children are observably playing together rather than simply in proximity with one another. Also, Symbolic or ‘pretend’ play is play that involves the use of inanimate objects to represent other objects, people or things. However, there are many types of play styles that have been implemented in the Cameroon pre-nursery and nursery schools to ease and facilitate the learning of children. Even though, teachers and parents have limited knowledge on the impact of constructive types of play in the learning of children some researchers have confirm their importance. There is negligence at the level of implication of constructive play styles that are use to bill the capacity of learning and teaching of pre-nursery and nursery school pupils in Cameroon. Also, there is lack of proper training in the curriculum of teacher training colleges on play styles advantages on pupils which has made the teachers to have a poor mastery curriculum which affect the rate of implementation of play lessons. Therefore, play should be reviewed and implementation of constructive play types in Cameroon pre-nursery and nursery schools because of its importance in the learning process of the children. It is based    on this view that, the researcher wants to find out the impact of play in early childhood education in Bamenda.

1.3 Objectives of the study.

1.3.1 Main objectives

To investigate the impact of play in early child hood education in Bambili, North West region of Cameroon.

1.3.2 Specific objectives

• To examine the effect of socio-dramatic play as an achievement among children involved in early childhood education in Bambili.
• To examine the role of instructional play in educational achievement of children attending schools in Bambili.
• To examine the effect of manipulative play use by children involved in early childhood education in Bambili.

1.4 Research Questions

1.4.1 Main Research Question

What is the impact of play in early child hood education in Bambili, North West region of Cameroon?

1.4.2 Specific Research Questions

• What are the effects of socio-dramatic play as an achievement among children involved in early childhood education in Bambili?
• What is the role of instructional play in educational achievement of children attending schools in Bambili?
• What are the different types of manipulative play use by children involved in early childhood education in Bambili?