A Fusion of Constructivism and Instructivism: Examining Classroom Dialogue in Singapore Kindergartens

• In Event: 1-033 - A Cross-Societal Comparison of Teacher-Child Interaction in Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Singapore Early Childhood Classrooms

Integrative Statement

The Singaporean government has launched the kindergarten curriculum reform to promote constructivism since 2003. However, the promoted interactive classroom dialogue conflicts with the traditional pedagogy in Singapore. Thus, Singapore teachers have been suffering from this reform and are still struggling. To understand their difficulties and challenges, we conducted this mixed-methods study with a focus on the classroom dialogue in Singapore kindergartens.

Three kindergartens were sampled from three typical communities of Singapore. The kindergartens had similar backgrounds that cater to middle-class families. One 3-year-old class (K1) and one 4-year-old class (K2) were randomly selected from each kindergarten. Also, the Chinese teachers of these six classes participated in this study. This study examined the actual classroom dialogue through observing the whole-class Chinese literacy-focused activities in six kindergarten classrooms. The classroom observation was conducted in every participating class for a consecutive week with about three hours a day. In addition, all the teachers observed were interviewed individually after observation, which was aimed at understanding their perceptions towards classroom dialogue and Chinese literacy teaching.

Analyses on the observational data and interview data jointly indicated that the classroom dialogue in Singapore kindergartens could be regarded as a fusion of constructivism and instructivism. The form of those dialogues might be discussion, but their function is to transmit knowledge and information. And the dialogues focused on factual knowledge and tended to be teacher-directed. In addition, the classroom dialogue focused more on the quantity rather than quality of dialogue (i.e., knowledge exchange and building). Although the educational authorities promoted interactive and developmentally appropriate dialogue, the teachers practiced an instructivist dialogue. This finding tends to support our hypothesis that both constructivism and instructivism could be found in the classroom dialogue. Although constructivism was strongly advocated in the pedagogical and curricular reform, the instructivism was still observed in the classroom, resulting in a fusion of constructivism and instructivism. The findings imply the urgent need to reflect on the cultural appropriateness of the pedagogical reform in Singapore and beyond.

Authors

• Qiushi Yin, The University of Hong Kong
  Presenting Author

• Weipeng Yang, Singapore University of Social Sciences
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hui Li, Macquarie University
  Non-Presenting Author