Educational circle time in pre-school : A qualitative study of pre-school teachers' thoughts on the circle time for children's linguistic and social development

The purpose of this study is to examine how pre-school teachers think about the importance of circle time in regard to the child's language and social development from a sociocultural perspective. Furthermore the study will include what role the educators’ have during the circle time. To answer our purpose we have chosen the following question: What is the role of the teachers in the circle time? What are the teacher’s thoughts about the circle time’s importance to children's social development? What are the teacher’s thoughts about the circle time’s importance to children's language development? The study is constructed on qualitative methods, where we conducted structured interviews with six preschool teachers and observed their circle time to collect our empirical material. The study is also based on Vygotsky's sociocultural perspective which says that all learning takes place through relations and interaction with other people in the cultural context you are in. The results have shown that pre-school teachers are aware of the circle time’s importance to children’s development, and purposely plan the circle time to give children the opportunity to develop both socially and linguistically skills