Nieuwmeijer C., Marshall N., van Oers B. Dutch Early Years Classroom Teachers Facilitating and Guiding Musical Play: Problems and Opportunities

Keywords: early years musical play classroom teachers

Nieuwmeijer C., Marshall N., Bert van Oers (2020) Dutch early years classroom teachers facilitating and guiding musical play: problems and opportunities. Preschool Education Today. 3:14, 70–79 (in Russian)

This work is licensed under a Сreative Commons Atribiution - NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

2020, 3

Christiane Nieuwmeijer
Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences, Educational Studies, VU UUniversity, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Nigel Marshall
Department of Education, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

Bert van Oers
PhD in Psychology, Professor of Faculty of Psychology and Pedagogy of VU University of Amsterdam (Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Abstract

Musical play is an activity in which young children more or less freely explore and create with sound with limited guidance from a teacher. This study explored the occurrence of musical play in Dutch early years education (4–5 year olds). Twenty early years classroom teachers were interviewed about the content of the music education taking place in their classroom, and about a possible facilitation and guidance of musical play. Findings showed that ten teachers were unfamiliar with musical play, whilst nine experienced it as too difficult due to limited experience and knowledge. One teacher successfully included musical play, due to additional pre-service training. We argue that musical play may be a valuable addition to early years music education, one that enables young children to learn about music more consistent with their age and interests. Based on our outcomes, we advocate the provision of additional teacher education around facilitating musical play.

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