The role of pre-school facilitators in the use of guided play activities in the Fosu Municiplality

Abstract

While there is widespread agreement that guided play is good for children’s development in general, the research base is less secure about the role of guided play in children’s learning specifically. This urged the researcher to investigate the role of facilitators in using guided play activities to improve kindergarten (KG) learners listening and speaking skills in the preschools within the Fosu Municipality. Sequential explanatory mixed method design was employed for the study. Convenient sampling was used to obtain the sample of 70. Adapted questionnaires from Kekesi (2019) were used as the instrument for quantitative data whiles the semi-structured interviews were used to gather the qualitative data. The data collected on quantitative aspect were analyzed using descriptive statistics (means, standard deviations, frequencies and percentages). The qualitative data were analyzed in themes to complement the quantitative data. It was found that generally most of the preschool facilitators within the Fosu Municipality have a positive perception on the usage of guided play activities as a teaching technique in the preschools. It was found that most of the preschool facilitators within the Fosu Municipality use guided play activities to improve KG learners listening and speaking skills of learners. It was recommended that school managers and head facilitators within the Fosu Municipality should cultivate a conducive social environment that could promote and motivate facilitators’ behaviour to embrace the use of play as a teaching strategy.