Benefits of dramatic play

What It Is and Why It’s Important

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November 5, 2021

Have you ever watched kids play dress-up to prepare for an audience with the Queen, or pretend that they’re astronauts headed into space, or leap around the living room without touching the floor because it’s lava? If so, you’ve witnessed dramatic play in action.

What is dramatic play? It’s the kind of play where kids take on roles and act them out as a way of exploring themselves and their surroundings. By pretending to be someone—or something—else, children can learn new ways to express themselves, share thoughts and ideas, and even get in touch with their feelings. Dramatic play is a very important part of childhood development.

There are three main stages of childhood development. There’s early childhood, which spans birth to eight years old. Next up is middle childhood from 8to 12 years of age, followed by adolescence, which covers ages 12 to 18. Dramatic play is important during the early childhood stage of development, as kids start to grow into themselves more and start to have a greater understanding of their individuality.

There are two types of dramatic play. They are:

• Structured Play: This is the kind of play where there’s a game plan for the kind of play that kids are engaging in. This could mean a teacher or parent has created a scenario that has a definitive end point. For example, maybe they’re shopping at a grocery store, shipping a package at the post office, or buying a bouquet at the flower shop. In these scenarios, there are defined roles that are dictated by the situation, and the play leads to a specific conclusion (for example, completing their purchase at the grocery store).
• Unstructured Play: This form of dramatic play is more freeform and left up to the kids to choose how they want to play, and how—or even if—it ends. This is where the classic “floor is lava” scenario comes into play, but other examples might be pretend play like being a dinosaur stomping around the living room or using a spoon as a “magnifying glass” while hunting for butterflies in the basement.

Examples of Dramatic Play

• Young children may engage in dramatic play in a variety of ways, including:
• Role-playing, such as being the parent to a doll or pretending to be a doctor seeing patients
• Dressing up, whether putting on their parents’ clothes and shoes, or putting on a costume that was made specifically for them
• Fixing things like the TV, the kitchen faucet, or the car, offering their diagnoses of the problem and how they can solve it
• Exploring and adventuring, whether in their own room or the backyard, discovering new creatures and unseen worlds

Dramatic play benefits are numerous. In addition to supporting creativity and self-expression, dramatic play can help children learn real life skills and social skills that can serve them throughout their lives, from engaging in dramatic play for toddlers, to playtime in their preschool classroom, and beyond. Technology can also play a part in dramatic play, giving kids an entirely different arena in which to explore themselves and the world around them.

The benefits of dramatic play include:

• Learning conflict resolution, helping children to learn creative problem-solving skills alongside their peers
• Exploring self-empowerment, allowing kids the opportunity to make choices, act out their feelings, and find a new connection to themselves
• Learning math and literacy, particularly in play that includes playing with numbers (like the grocery store game)
• Blowing off steam, so overly energetic children have another outlet to decompress and have fun
• Engaging in language development, encouraging kids to express themselves in different ways, whether playing a role or playing as themselves
• Embracing self-regulation, especially in role-playing where children are expected to fulfill a particular part in the play scenario

There are many ways that educators and parents like you can encourage dramatic play, both in a school setting and at home. For example, you can:

• Buy some fun clothes from a thrift store and suggest playing dress up at home, encouraging your child to embrace role playing and drive the play narrative
• Make time for dramatic play in the classroom, using a theme as a guide and giving kids an outline to follow within that theme
• Engage in your own form of dramatic play at home and encourage your kids to join in, whether it’s opening a pretend restaurant where you make pizza or going hunting for monsters in the house
• Give students a toy that they must create a narrative around, and break the class up into groups to explore that narrative

It’s important for parents and teachers to collaborate on dramatic play efforts so that each side of the child’s developmental support system is aware of the progress happening both at home and at school. Although many teachers learn about dramatic play while they’re pursuing their degrees, parents might not be as aware of it—and how important it is for early childhood development. By partnering with a teacher who has in-depth knowledge of dramatic play, everyone can collaborate on the themes and approaches that best suit their child.

Although dramatic play can differ from child to child and classroom to home, its results are the same: vibrant, playful children who find strength and comfort in their own self-expression.

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The Incredible Benefits of Dramatic Play in Early Childhood Education

Does your playroom often get transformed into a pirate ship, a train station, or a campsite? Do you find yourself stocking up on Halloween costumes when they go on clearance after the holiday? Does your little one ask to be called “Officer” or “Doctor” rather than their first name?

You must have a kiddo who loves dramatic play!

And that’s a really, really good thing because there are so many benefits to dramatic play in early childhood.

The Incredible Benefits and Importance of Dramatic Play

What is Dramatic Play?

Dramatic play is s a type of play where children assign and accept roles and act them out.

It’s pretending to be someone or something else. Sometimes children take on real-world roles, other times they take on fantasy roles. A child might pretend to be someone new like a supervillain, or someone well known and familiar like mom.

The term dramatic play is sometimes interchanged with pretend play or imaginative play, but the distinction between the two is that dramatic play requires the child to assume a role whereas pretend play doesn’t necessarily require that.

Either way, it is play that involves breaking down the barriers of reality and results in serious and natural learning.

Examples of Dramatic Play

• a child who pretends to feed and rocka doll to sleep
• a child who pretends to fix a leaky faucet in the play kitchen
• a child who pretends to be Spot the dog and plays fetch
• a child who stirs counting bears in a bowl to make bear soup

Pretend play can take on multiple forms, and while pretending may just look like “playing”, it is integral to the developmental learning process and a critical piece in early child development. It should be encouraged, and children need lots of opportunities to engage.

Types of Dramatic Play

There are two types of pretend play, which are structured and unstructured dramatic play:

• Structured play
  • has a pre-determined set and desired outcome.
  • A parent or teacher sets up a scenario for the children to play into, such as setting up an “airport”, and the children then choose and assign roles from what it available and then work through problems that arise within the set.
• Unstructured play
  • is where children have the freedom to choose their own plan scenarios and often create their own sets based on what is available to them.
  • The living room couch might turn into a pirate ship or a shoelace might become a stethoscope in a veterinarian office.

Both have their challenges and advantages, and both should be included in early childhood.

 The Benefits of Dramatic Play

Experts agree that dramatic play is an integral part of a well rounded preschool program as it is healthy for early childhood development. Here are just a few of the many incredible benefits of dramatic play.

Dramatic play teaches self-regulation.

Preschoolers are known for acting with impulse, so dramatic play is a great stepping stone for learning to self-regulate their emotions and actions.

Interestingly, when children assign and accept roles in dramatic play they are motivated to stick to them, thinking of them as rules to follow, even if they are made up by themselves. This helps children develop the ability to coordinate and plan with others as well as control their impulses.

Dramatic play encourages language development.

A question that is commonly asked is, “How does dramatic play promote language development?”

Dramatic play teaches and encourages expressive language and the use of new vocabulary. Children are motivated to communicate their wishes to their peers and therefore must learn to speak from the perspective of their pretend roles. 

Additionally, dramatic play is often a very comfortable place for children who are shy or withdrawn to participate in a group. It serves as a safe place for children to learn and practice social skills.

Dramatic play teaches conflict resolution.

Both unstructured and structured dramatic play offer teachable moments about conflict resolution and problem solving.

Inevitably, disagreements will naturally arise during dramatic play, which offers children a chance to work through their differences and arrange a compromise. It also encourages children to consider alternate perspectives as they recognize various roles of people in their lives and communities.

Dramatic play supports math and literacy.

Dramatic play provides the perfect play setting for children to interact with functional math and print. Consider the child who is playing server at a restaurant. He will interact with both print and numbers as he takes orders, fills them and then rings up the total owed for the meal.

Dramatic play is also known for increasing comprehension as children love to act out their favorite storybooks.

Dramatic play relieves emotional tension.

Dramatic play offers a safe place for children to act out real life situations. Adults tend to cope with traumatic events by retelling stories again and again. Children cope with these events by acting them out.

Dramatic play is empowering to children.

This is not only because children can assign and accept their own roles in the play setting, but also because dramatic play offers a safe play for children to act out traumatic experiences mentioned above.

Typically when children act out dramatic or frightening experiences they place themselves in a powerful role. They choose to play mommy or daddy, two important figures in their lives, or a superhero with great powers. A child who has lived through real trauma, like a car accident, for example, might choose to be a paramedic or work at a doctor’s office.

How to Encourage Dramatic Play

With so many benefits to including dramatic play, it’s important that it’s not overlooked when writing lesson plans for preschool. It’s all the more important to be deliberate and intentional about.

However, not all children naturally know how to play in a dramatic play setting. The learning experiences we create with our dramatic play ideas matter in the classroom. Here are some ways to encourage dramatic play.

• Let kids play by themselves and with others.
  • When kids play alone, they create their own games and their ideas have no limits. When playing with adults or peers, children are more likely to play along with social norms, which can help further develop their social-emotional skills.
• Allow children to take the lead.
  • As adults, it is tempting to guide children engaged in dramatic play. If they ask for help in navigating their storyline, you can suggest ideas. Otherwise, allow children to make the decisions and assign roles.
• Encourage your preschoolers when they make creative use of toys and play items.
  • The most valuable dramatic and pretend play doesn’t follow an instruction manual. Rather, encourage your children to turn a box into a tank or pirate ship, or use the play silks as superhero capes.
• Play dress-up.
  • This is the quintessential dramatic play act. Stock up on fun costumes and provide a variety of props that can be used in different scenarios. Turn the kitchen area into a grocery store or vet clinic, for example.
• Build forts.
  • Nothing encourages the imagination like a fort. With a few sheets draped over a couple of chairs, children can pretend they’re guarding a castle against invaders, hiding out from enemy spies, or camping out in the wilderness.
• Host a tea party.
  • This idea is another classic. When having a tea party in pretend play, children pick up on social interactions with people around them as they observe relationships. Tea parties are a great way to encourage empathy and kindness, too.

How to Set Up the Dramatic Play Area

Even if you are in a home setting, dramatic play benefits are abundant, if planned for. Here are 70+ easy ideas for the dramatic play center.

Further Reading

The Vital Role of Play in Early Childhood Education by Joan Almon

The Benefits of Dramatic Play by Ellana S. Yallow, Ph. D.

Literacy-Building Play in Preschool by Scholastic Teaching Resources

What is Dramatic Play and How Does it Support Literacy Development in Preschool? by Scholastic.com

Sarah Punkoney, MAT

I’m Sarah, an educator turned stay-at-home-mama of five! I’m the owner and creator of Stay At Home Educator, a website about intentional teaching and purposeful learning in the early childhood years. I’ve taught a range of levels, from preschool to college and a little bit of everything in between. Right now my focus is teaching my children and running a preschool from my home. Credentials include: Bachelors in Art, Masters in Curriculum and Instruction.

stayathomeeducator.com/

Role-playing games as a method of teaching a foreign language

Author : Azimova Umirkhon Odilovna

Category : Pedagogy

Posted by in young scientist #18 (256) May 2019G.

Publication date : 05/06/2019 2019-05-06

Article viewed: 748 times

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Azimova, U. O. Role-playing games as a method of teaching a foreign language / U. O. Azimova. - Text: direct // Young scientist. — 2019. - No. 18 (256). — S. 21-22. — URL: https://moluch.ru/archive/256/58671/ (date of access: 12/06/2022).



In recent years, language teaching has focused on the learning process rather than language teaching. The emphasis is not only on the language competence of students, but also on the development of their communication skills. To develop the communicative abilities of students, the teacher needs to create a scenario for teaching the target language in a bright, active and interesting way. Many English teachers are learning and trying new and innovative methods in the classroom. They turned to dialogue, open scripting, and role-playing.

Jacob Moreno (1889–1974) found that the activity of dramatic improvisation was therapeutic for his actors and began to think of applying this approach as a type of individual and family treatment. Moreno had a very prolific mind and tied together many ideas about social psychology and group dynamics. He was one of the pioneers of group psychotherapy and even pursued his own type of philosophy, emphasizing the need to recognize the fundamental importance of creativity in life.

Role play has several useful characteristics in language teaching and one of the aims of this paper is to present and discuss the benefits of using role play in teaching English in the early grades. It should be noted that role-playing games are not limited to language practice, since language learning certainly also takes place during games. For role plays to be effective in this way, they must be part of the category of language learning methods. Role-playing games open up opportunities for real use of the language. Role playing also provides opportunities for deep learning along with the process of challenging our existing ideas about how and why things happen, breaking them down and coming up with a new model or set of postulates to replace the old ones.

There are many types of role playing that can be used in elementary school classrooms. The goal of all these methods is to engage younger learners in real thinking and problem solving. One type is called "option display". This method works well in situations where a contentious issue is being considered, where the answer is not very clear. The procedure will be to list the problem/question and then build a display of possible solutions and decide on the correct solution. In such a situation, students may be given role-playing tasks by their teacher; by doing this, the student is then forced to see the problem as best as possible through human eyes. Role plays are useful for practicing appropriate behavior in more complex social interactions where students must choose from a wide range of possible behaviors. Good role play topics include sharing materials, including classmates in activities, and supporting someone who makes a mistake. Role play allows the teacher to recognize the complexity of these situations and give students practice in making responsible decisions.

Larsen-Freeman (1986) explains that role plays, whether structured or less structured, are important in a communicative approach because they give students the opportunity to practice communication in different social contexts and in different social roles.

Role playing is a very flexible learning activity that has a lot of room for variation and imagination. According to Ladousse (1987), role play uses a variety of communication techniques and develops language fluency, promotes classroom interaction, and increases motivation. Here, equal learning is encouraged and there is a division of responsibility between the teacher and the student in the learning process. Role play can improve students' speaking skills in any situation and helps students interact. For shy students, role-play helps by providing a mask where the students have difficulty in speaking out. Plus, it's fun, and most students would agree that having fun leads to better learning.

Traditionally, roles for learners have been specifically defined in the role-playing method using verbal instructions or role cards. However, Kaplan (1997) objects to role-playing games that focus solely on prescriptive topics that emphasize specific areas of the vocabulary because they do not capture the spontaneous, real flow of conversation.

The teacher should take on some additional responsibilities in the role play. In particular, the teacher must keep students motivated by stimulating their curiosity and keeping the material relevant by creating a so-called "tension to learn". Because role plays are real scenarios, the materials should mimic the materials that would be used in the real world. For example, blocks or sugar cubes can be used when simulating a construction task. In the role play, "extraterrestrial" toothbrushes, clocks, light bulbs and keys can be used.

Role playing can be a fun way to get students to become more involved in the classroom. When using role play to teach students, the teacher's goal is to suggest which activities will be easiest for their students and which will be most difficult and which other roles and situations would be appropriate for role play in their classrooms.

The role play procedure was described by Ladousse (1987). Ladousse considers 11 factors in role play. These factors are: level, time, goal, language, organization, preparation, warm-up, procedure, follow-up, remarks and variations. There are various role-play exercises. Level indicates the minimum (and sometimes maximum) level at which activities can be carried out. Timing may vary depending on whether students need to read articles, reports, etc. Indicates the broader purpose of each activity, such as developing confidence or sensitivity to concepts expressed in the language.

Language teaching can be an interesting challenge when teachers make the effort to explore different approaches. Role playing is just one of the many methods available for exploitation. With some attention given to student needs, both the teacher and students can play an active role in the classroom, making language classes more alive, challenging and, above all, rewarding.

So, role-playing increases motivation. Always talking about real life can get very boring, and being able to imagine different situations adds interest to the lesson. Role play provides an opportunity to use the language in new contexts and for new topics. Children, teenagers, and even adults often imagine themselves in different situations and roles when they play games. It is an effective method of teaching foreign languages ​​to young learners because "fun" should be the most important part of their learning.

Literature:

1. Burns, A.C., & Gentry, J. W. Motivating students to engage in experiential learning. - Сambridge: Сambridge University Press 1998.
2. Kaplan, M. A. Learning to convert in a foreign language: the Reception Game. — New York: Longman, 1997.
3. Larsen-Freeman, D. & M. H. Long, an Introduction to Second Language Acquisition Research. — New York: Longman, 1991.

Basic terms (automatically generated) : role play, game, classroom, language teaching, student, teacher, English, opportunity, learning process, situation.

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