the social nature of games: australian preservice primary teachers first experiences of teaching...

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2002 8: 286European Physical Education ReviewRichard Light

Experiences of Teaching Games for UnderstandingThe Social Nature of Games: Australian Preservice Primary TeachersÍ First

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The social nature of games: Australian pre-service primary teachers’ first experiences ofTeaching Games for Understanding

� Richard Light University of Melbourne, Australia

AbstractThis article reports on a study of pre-service generalist primary school teachers’

experiences of a games unit taught using the Teaching Games for Understanding

(TGfU) approach in an Australian teacher education programme. The study sought

to make sense of the knowledge and dispositions that pre-service primary school

teachers brought into the games unit, the ways in which this shaped their interpre-

tation of the TGfU approach, the impact that this had on their perceptions of physical

education’s educational value and the pedagogy they articulated as intending to adopt.

A sense of ‘joy’ related to achievement and profound learning (Heywood, 2001)

emerged as a central theme in many students’ accounts of their games unit. It is argued

in this article that this sense of joy arose from the holistic, whole-body learning that

is possible in games using a TGfU approach.

Key-words: cognition • emotion • games • holistic learning • teacher education

Introduction

Increasing attention being paid to learning theory among physical educationresearchers has contributed to renewed interest in Teaching Games for Understand-ing (TGfU) as an instructional model that is consistent with constructivist learningtheory (Butler, 1997; Kirk and Macdonald, 1998; Rovegno, 1998). It is, however, asKirk and Claxton (1999) suggest, disappointing that promising and innovative ideassuch as TGfU continue to meet resistance in schools. Teachers’ behaviours anddecisions on how they teach are largely determined by the limits of formal curriculaand their own personal beliefs about teaching and understanding these beliefs needto be considered as an essential step in curricular innovation and change (Behets,2001). In conducting research on teacher responses to TGfU Butler (1996) notes howTGfU can challenge existing teacher beliefs and conceptions of PE teaching. Pre-service teacher education programmes clearly offer a point in the professional develop-ment of teachers at which they might be encouraged to embrace innovation in PEteaching but change in, and development of, PE teacher education (PETE) pre-service

EUROPEAN PHYSICAL EDUCATION REVIEW [1356–336X(200210)8;3]Volume8(3):286–304:028240 EPER

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teachers’ pedagogical knowledge is significantly shaped by their prior knowledge,capabilities, their own experiences of teaching and their interaction with peers(Rovegno, 1998). Research on PE teacher socialization (Armour and Jones, 1998;Dewar, 1989; Dewar and Lawson, 1984; Macdonald and Tinning, 1995; Rovegno,1998) suggests that innovative approaches to teaching such as TGfU may conflictwith many of the values, beliefs and attitudes towards teaching and learning thatPETE students bring with them to teacher education programmes.

While there is a body of literature on processes of socialization for PETEstudents, little such research has been conducted on generalist primary teachers andhow such processes of socialization shape their attitudes to, and conceptions of, PE.In Australia these teachers deliver much of primary school PE. In setting out toredress this oversight in the literature this article examines Australian pre-service,generalist primary school teachers’ experiences of a games unit taught using the TGfUapproach. It considers how their responses were shaped by their prior experiences ofsport and PE, their developing educational beliefs and the institutional contextwithin which they were studying. It also explores the immediate impact that theTGfU unit had on their attitudes to the teaching of games and some of their attemptsat teaching games using a TGfU approach.

The students in this study brought with them values and beliefs about teachingthat were distinctly different to those of typical PETE students. They reported morevaried histories of engagement in sport and consequently brought with them morevaried beliefs about, and attitudes to, sport and PE teaching. One of the features toemerge from this study was the ways in which student experiences of TGfU seemedto impact upon those who did not have a strong attachment to competitive sport andwho previously had seen little educational value in games. For these pre-serviceteachers there was a generally positive response to TGfU and a significant change intheir views of games’ value in the curriculum and their inclinations to make them aregular part of their teaching. This seemed to be tied into the way in which TGfUaddressed many of their misgivings about games and sport and their enjoyment ofthe increased social, physical and emotional interaction that TGfU can stimulate.

Methods

The site and the participants

The research reported on here was conducted over two years at a university in the stateof Victoria, Australia. It forms part of a larger, ongoing, longitudinal study on thedevelopment of innovation in PE. It focuses on teacher education students in theirsecond year of a four-year undergraduate Bachelor of Education degree in which healthand physical education formed a single 54-hour compulsory subject in the first twoyears of the degree. It was offered as an option for the latter two years of the degree.Academic requirements for entry into the programme are relatively high and the pre-service teachers in this study were exposed to constructivist approaches to teaching

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across a range of subject areas. The study was conducted in Melbourne, which is Aus-tralia’s second largest city with a rich mix of cultural diversity that is reflected in thegeneral student population.

The semester began with a two-week unit of work on teaching track and fieldusing a conceptual approach. A four-week unit on games taught from a TGfUperspective and covering one major game per week followed the athletics. The ath-letics and games units comprised one two-hour practical session per week with onlyone formal lecture on the conceptual approach used in the athletics and games classes.The games taught were basketball, field hockey, a modified form of cricket known askanga cricket and volleyball. While many of the students in this study brought withthem positive attitudes to sport and PE a significant number had not enjoyed sportand PE at school and brought with them very different dispositions toward physicalactivity. Attitudes to, and prior experiences of, sport varied considerably, with somenot involved in sport at all at the time of the study and disinclined to take part inthe games unit. The cohort was predominantly female (82 percent) and the majorityof the students’ ages (91 percent) ranged between 18 and 21. All names used in thispaper are pseudonyms.

Data generation and analysis

I approached this research from an interpretive perspective of trying to understandpre-service teachers’ emergent understandings of TGfU grounded in their personalhistories and their beliefs about PE teaching. In attempting to gain insight into myown students’ introductory experiences of TGfU I adopted a grounded theoryapproach to make sense of their introduction to TGfU pedagogy. The constant com-parative/grounded theory approach (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) is characterized by aprocess in which informal theory is generated from the data and is tested by furtherdata generation, leading to a substantive theory grounded in data. In this study thistheory was then connected to more formal theory in the final stages of analysis. Allthe pre-service teachers in the classes that I taught were asked to complete a briefquestionnaire to provide a broad picture of their attitudes to sport and PE and guidethe initial design of interviews. Following this, data were generated primarily fromin-depth, conversational semistructured interviews, written reports and observationsnoted in a journal.

All the students in my classes were asked to indicate the most appropriatedescription of their past experiences of sport and games at school, their currentattitude to sport and games, their level of experience in sport. They were also askedto indicate the value that they attached to games in the education of primary schoolchildren and, if given the choice, whether or not they would teach games as a prac-tising teacher. Twenty students were chosen at random each year and asked to takepart in two to three in-depth, semistructured interviews. Those who had the oppor-tunity to teach games using a TGfU approach were also asked to provide writtenaccounts of their teaching. To provide a deep understanding of the participant’s

288 E U RO P E A N P H YS I C A L E D U C AT I O N R E V I E W 8 ( 3 )

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engagement in the TGfU unit I relied primarily on conversational interviews andobservations that I wrote in a journal during and after each game session. I made briefnotes on my observations in a journal while the students were engaged in the gameactivities where possible and expanded them after the class was finished. In some casesI made a mental note of observations and wrote them in the journal after the class.Each week I read over the notes and made analytic comments as part of an ongoingprocess of developing and testing evolving theories through further observationsrecorded in the journal. While the questionnaires provided a broad picture of thecohort, the methods through which data were generated were interview and obser-vation.

The TGfU model

The TGfU model was first developed by Bunker and Thorpe in the early 1980s as analternative to traditional and dominant approaches to games teaching that empha-sized the development of technique. They noted that the teaching of games was domi-nated by a concern with the development of ‘correct’ technique within highlystructured lessons that made little connection between technical proficiency andsound game play. They proposed that in order for students to play games well theyneeded to know not only how to perform skills but also when and why (Bunker andThorpe, 1983). In response they developed a model of instruction in which learningtook place within the context of games modified to suit the learner. The TGfU modelthus stresses the contextual nature of skill performance while highlighting the cog-nitive dimensions of play such as tactical understanding and decision-making. Itrecognizes and accounts for the intimate interrelationship between perception,decision-making and skill execution. The TGfU approach to games teaching providesteachers with the opportunity to realize the potential of team games to develop higherorder thinking such as problem solving without detracting from the physical andsocial development traditionally associated with games (Howarth, 2000; Kirk andMacPhail, 2000).

Units of learning in the TGfU approach typically begin with games modified toreduce skill demands enough to allow students to immediately engage in play and tofocus on the tactical dimensions of the game. Students are encouraged to develop basicgame appreciation and tactical awareness and grapple with the basic problems thattypically characterize play in the full or adult version of the game.

Teachers guide learning through questioning designed to focus the students’attention on particular tactical aspects of the game, such as recognizing options andmaking appropriate decisions for action, and the performance of appropriate gameskills. Although this questioning can be encouraged ‘on the run’, while students areengaged in physical activity, it is in the reflective periods between activities duringwhich concepts and ideas are developed most through verbalization. TGfU lessons aretypically characterized by group discussion that analyses prior physical activity anddraws on student knowledge to inform play in the next game activity. The teacher

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provides the activities in the form of games modified to suit the learners and focusedon a particular tactical aspect of play. The skill demands are reduced so that studentsare freed to engage more in the cognitive dimensions of games and encouraged todevelop skills within the context of modified games.

Results

Prior dispositions and attitudes

Over the course of the study three identifiable groups with quite different attitudesto sport and PE emerged. A small number of the participants had very negative atti-tudes towards sport and PE, arising from their experiences of it at school, and in afew cases this was tied into particular cultural values. They were reluctant to engagein the games for most of the unit, saw no educational value in games and would avoidteaching PE if they could. These students contrasted with a large number who hadpositive attitudes towards sport and PE and approached the games unit with enthusi-asm, were regularly involved in sport and valued games and sport as important in theeducation of primary school children. In between these two groups were the studentswhose attitudes to sport and PE might best be described as ‘ambivalent’. Their experi-ences of games and sport at school had been generally unsatisfying and most of themindicated that they were initially unlikely to teach games as graduating teachers. AsBehets (2001) suggests is the case in Belgium and other countries, in Victoria thereis considerable freedom in primary schools to make curricular decisions based on theteacher’s own individual beliefs and values. Indeed there is growing concern inVictoria that the minimum hours required for PE and sport in government schoolsare not being met. Recent research reported on in the print media even suggests thatone in four primary schoolchildren in Melbourne receive no PE at all (Royall, 2002).

Those for whom sport formed an important and rewarding part of their livescame alive upon entering the gym. They arrived early, were animated, vocal andimmediately occupied much of the space available, wanting to start shooting basketsas soon as they entered the gym. The ‘middle’ group displayed more ambivalent atti-tudes towards games in the unit. At the beginning of the unit some made it clearthat they were reluctant participants. Some of the more disenchanted students evenappeared quite apprehensive. These students tended to arrive late, in clothes that didnot allow for free movement. They occupied limited space and milled quietly at theback of the gym in small, supporting groups. When given the chance many of themwere quick to articulate their anxiety. In an interview conducted after the completionof the unit Anna’s memories of PE at school are typical of those students who broughtwith them quite negative memories of PE:

I hated PE at school, I was never any good at sport and I was always last pickedfor teams and always humiliated by the PE teachers. I really tried to think of away out of the sport classes. (Interview, 2000, Anna, 19)


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Many of the students in the study saw little or no educational value in PE, did notenjoy sport or other organized physical activity and, if given the choice, would notteach games on a regular basis as teachers. Their own personal experiences of PE atschool emerged as the primary reason for their aversion to teaching PE.

Responses to TGfU as learners

Apart from five students who had previously been exposed to TGfU or similarapproaches to teaching, the pre-service teachers’ introduction to TGfU began with atwo-hour session on basketball. Initially much of the class was reluctant and dis-tracted but after the first few modified games the students became more engaged inthe games and the discussions of strategy. Most of the students who initially had beenreluctant began to move, to look for the ball, and look for space and for where otherplayers were positioned. There was also a marked increase in verbal interaction. Theybegan to call to their team mates during activities and interact during their teammeetings. They began to think and act. As the session progressed they became moreanimated, more physically active and increasingly prepared to contribute to the teamdiscussions on tactics. After an hour, as we moved into more complex activities, theywere not just participating. They were increasingly engaged in the games. The sub-sequent interviews confirmed my observations and my ‘sense’ of their increasedphysical, affective and cognitive engagement. Following one session Katherineexpressed surprise at her enjoyment of the concluding game of modified basketball:

I’m not exactly the most skilful person in the world but this way of teachingsport lets you get involved mentally. TGfU showed me how to use my intelli-gence. I was no longer beaten before the game started. I am still not that greatat throwing or catching the ball properly all the time though these skills didimprove. Rather, I had more chance of placing it strategically in defence or inattack. . . . learning basketball this way gave me a feeling of achievement andsatisfaction that I have never experienced in sport. (Interview, 2001, Kather-ine, 19)

When compared to their prior experiences of games this increased interaction andenjoyment of the games played was likely influenced by their increased maturity andself-confidence and this needs to be considered when interpreting their responses.However, observations and interviews suggest that the reduction in skill demands,the development of understanding and the increased verbal and bodily interactioncontributed significantly to their enjoyment. As recent research conducted byO’Reilly et al. (2001) indicates, games in which skill demands and rules are reducedto a minimum tend to increase participation and interaction. A few of the studentsreported in questionnaires not enjoying the TGfU unit. They had brought negativeattitudes towards sport and PE and were unmoved in failing to see the value of gamesin the curriculum. The majority of the participants, however, reported enjoying theunit in terms of increased opportunity for social interaction, having fun and feeling


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some sense of achievement. Jane arrived late for the class and had initially been reluc-tant to be involved in a basketball session. As we moved into more complex teamgames she began to contribute more to the team talks between activities and take amore active and enthusiastic part in the ensuing games. In an interview conductedafter the completion of the session she explained how gaining an understanding ofgames contributed to her sense of achievement and a sense of being valued:

My memories of Physical Education at school are of being last picked for games,being yelled at and reminded that I was no good at sport. I never knew what wasgoing on or what I was supposed to do. I had no idea but here with the gameswe did I actually understood what was going on and felt like I contributed tothe team, and that was enjoyable for a change. I actually have learnt somethingabout sport for the first time. I feel like I achieved something . . . it was sort ofliberating in a way. (Interview, 2000, Jane, 19)

Some of the student responses to their experience of TGfU suggest that their enjoy-ment of the unit may have been tied into a more complete engagement in gamesthrough the ways in which they were intellectually and emotionally stimulated.Sixteen percent of respondents to an open-ended question on the strengths of TGfUin questionnaires nominated increased cognitive engagement and this emerged as acontributing factor to their enjoyment in the interviews conducted. They noted theways in which the emphasis on the tactical dimensions of games allowed them tounderstand the game and promoted social interaction. They also felt that the teamdiscussions on tactics allowed them to be more involved than they had been in thepast and feel that they were valued members of the team. This was perhaps mostnoticeable in the session on kanga cricket, a modified form of cricket.

There was considerable disparity in skill levels, experience and enthusiasm in thekanga cricket lesson. Some of the males in the class played competitive grade cricketand were highly skilled yet reported enjoying the experience, as they were able toadopt a leadership role in the collective problem solving involved in team discussionson tactics. Tim played competitive cricket on the weekends but, despite the dispar-ity in skill and enthusiasm in the class, he enjoyed the games used in the kanga cricketsession, as he indicated in an interview conducted soon after the cricket session:

Even if you’re a better player the way the games are set up they limit your abilityto dominate through just skill and force you to think about placement and yourteam’s tactics. You have to start thinking about how you use the abilities of theothers in your team. I also enjoyed being able to help the other players in myteam do well. And most of them seemed to get into it. (Tim, 20)

Most of the girls saw cricket as a masculinist activity, a ‘guys’ game’. They knew littleabout it and had no interest in playing. Despite this, their growing game awarenessand generally positive experiences of the basketball and field hockey, and theirdeveloping social relations within the class, seemed to encourage them to engage inthe game. The more skilled cricketers said that the emphasis on tactics and collective


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problem solving kept them interested. Interviews with some of the less able and lessenthusiastic indicate that they felt they were, to varying degrees, able to compensatefor a lack of skill through their cognitive engagement and their contribution to thecollective development of tactics and strategies. The way in which increased cogni-tive engagement in games contributed to their enjoyment and sense of satisfaction isevident in this quote from an interview with ‘Kim’ after a session on cricket:

I had no interest in cricket and can’t play it at all. No skills. Before the cricketworkshop I was sure it would be really boring but after the lesson I found thatI enjoyed it. This session was different. The little team conferences made youropinion valued, not just the skilful players. It was empowering to be allowed todecide as a team what our strategies would be as opposed being told what to doby the teacher. (Interview, 2000, Kim, 19)

Two girls expressed, both bodily and verbally, an aversion to games that was un-affected by the TGfU unit. They were both of Asian heritage and had completed someof their schooling outside Australia. Angela completed her schooling prior to enteringuniversity in Australia. She said that she did not enjoy getting ‘sweaty’ from exerciseand felt uncomfortable and uneasy ‘running around in a team’. She could not see anyvalue in PE as it had made no clear contribution to a career path. Talia had completedher primary school education before her family moved to Australia. She did not objectso much to the physical demands of the games unit but interpreted the social inter-action in quite a culture-specific way. She felt uncomfortable mixing with people shesaw as comparative strangers. While many of her peers enjoyed the social interactioninvolved in TGfU Talia did not. She said that, had they been close friends or family,she would have enjoyed the experience. While by no means conclusive, theseresponses to TGfU hint at the need to consider culture in research on learning.Despite growth in research on TGfU this is an area that is yet to be investigated.

Impact on intended pedagogy and experiences ofteaching

With a few exceptions most of the students enjoyed their introduction to TGfU tovarying degrees. This translated into a significant increase in students’ perceptions ofgames’ educational value and their inclination to teach games. However, those who,prior to the games unit, had not intended to teach games at all proved more intran-sigent, with little change in their perceptions of games’ educational value.

When the students were asked about the strengths or weaknesses of TgfU, mostemphasized its propensity to engage learners of all levels and to make all students feelvalued. Many of those interviewed felt that, despite their lack of experience in sport,the TGfU approach would allow them to teach confidently and to provide enjoyableand equitable experiences of games for all students and not just the more skilled ormore confident. This is evident in this interview conducted two weeks after the con-clusion of the TGfU unit:


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I think the main strength of TGfU in schools is that children don’t need to haveany particular ability in the sport, or knowledge. But, they are still all included.Everyone is actively participating. After seeing the way that TGfU works I feelmuch more confident in my ability to teach sport. (Interview, 2000,Anthony, 20)

The pre-service teachers in this study had few opportunities to teach PE on theirTeaching Experiences (field experience) and it was possible for some of them to neverhave the experience of teaching PE during their ‘Teaching Experiences’. Students whodid have the opportunity to teach games were asked to notify me and discuss theirexperiences or submit a written account of them. Of those who did teach games usingthe TGfU approach some reported resistance from teachers who saw skill develop-ment as the primary aim of PE and could not be convinced by the students that skillswere developed within the context of games. One student reported his supervisingteacher’s concern:

I tried to tell her about developing the games sense approach but she said, ‘itsall very well for the kids to have fun playing games and I think they should enjoyPE but they need to learn skills don’t they? They need to be taught the funda-mental motor skills so they can play properly’. (Interview, 2001, Tony, 20)

The school cultures into which pre-service teachers and graduating teachers enter havea powerful influence of their approach to teaching through the degrees of support orresistance they offer (Butler and Mergardt, 1994; Kirk, 1988). This is particularly sowith innovative approaches such as TGfU which can present a challenge to manyteachers’ conceptions of teaching (Butler, 1996). The pre-service teachers who had theopportunity to teach games using a TGfU approach reported that supervising teacherstended to express concern at the lack of attention to skill development and this wasmost pronounced with specialist health and physical education teachers. A fewstudents did, however, report on positive experiences of teaching TGfU and of sup-portive teachers. Interviews and written reports indicated that some of the supervis-ing teachers who were supportive recognized the student-centred, constructivistapproach used as the same that they used in their classroom teaching. One studentwho reported support from her supervising classroom teacher said that the teachertold her that ‘this way of teaching physical education fits in well with our commit-ment here to constructivist teaching and student-centred learning in the school’(Written report, 2001, Jane). Others liked the inclusive nature of the TGfU approachand the way it involved students of differing abilities and inclinations.

While in no way representative, there were three interesting accounts of teachinggames in three distinctly different settings that provide insight into pre-serviceteachers’ attempts to teach using a TGfU approach. All three student teachers hadsome problems in their initial attempts to implement TGfU but reported being verysatisfied with, even excited by, the experience. Jane decided to take up the challengeof teaching an unfamiliar game by teaching Australian football at a school in Chicago.


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Although her students knew nothing of Australian football, she found that they wereable to apply their knowledge of other games, soccer in particular, with enthusiasm.She was very pleased with and encouraged by her first attempt at using TGfU. Hersupervising teacher was very supportive.

Mary taught touch rugby in a remote aboriginal community in South Australia.She described her teaching as successful because the students were engaged andplaying cooperatively. Only two of her students had ever seen rugby and they weremore familiar with Australian football and soccer. She found that, although they werelimited in their ability to articulate their knowledge to Mary in English, they exhib-ited great understanding in the way they played:

I had to use demonstrations instead of explanations. Only a few could explaindecisions in English but they showed really good understanding when theyactually played the games. They react better to visual clues. (Writtenaccount, 2000, Mary, 19)

Mary reported that her students’ limited command of English restricted their abilityto articulate an understanding of the tactical dimensions of play, what Thomas andThomas (1994) refer to as declarative knowledge. They were, however, able to displaya considerable mastery of the games in practice. The performance of indigenousplayers at the elite level of Australian football or rugby is typically distinguished byuncanny ‘vision’ and anticipation. As was noted with rugby’s famous Ella brothers,they had a ‘supernatural ability to anticipate each other’ (Tatz, 1987: 91). This maysuggest that Mary’s indigenous students learned and displayed understanding in waysthat were culture-specific.

Dividing knowledge into that which can be articulated as declarative knowledge,and that which is performed in action as procedural knowledge separates abstractknowledge from that which is embodied and expressed in movement. This view sep-arates action from cognition and denies their interaction in games. TGfU’s relianceon the verbalization of understanding may in some ways appear to conceive of actionand knowledge as separate yet this fails to recognize how periods of reflection informaction. There is a conversation-like continuity between the progression of modifiedgames used and the reflection sessions that connect them. Students are encouraged toreflect on prior action and construct new knowledge that informs, and is tested in,subsequent action. Skills developed in this way are given meaning within authenticcontexts and combine the students’ understanding of games with the execution ofskills that is appropriate for the situation in which it is performed.

Dianne was placed in a metropolitan primary school in Melbourne and asked tocoach netball. The other coach was a state netball player and was having troublegetting enough girls to training. Normal training was very much focused on tech-nique and included passing up to hundred times and punishment for dropped balls.Dianne tried to follow this approach but had the same problem of low attendance.She decided to try TGfU and found that she had more than enough for two teamswithin a week.


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After the first session the girls asked if that is the way we would be training nexttime and I said yes. The next session I had two whole teams. It really was success-ful and the girls enjoyed it and continued to turn up and have fun. (Writtenaccount, 2000, Dianne, 21)

Responses from those student teachers who had the inclination and opportunity toimplement TGfU during their teaching experiences indicated that they felt their firstattempts had been successful. While few of them considered learning in their assess-ment, most judged success in terms of student participation, enjoyment and theextent to which TGfU engaged all learners. Most felt comfortable taking a TGfUapproach and saw it as a way of delivering the student-centred learning they valuedin PE.

Discussion

Gendered experiences of TGfU

Eighty-two percent of the cohort was female and 91 percent was aged between 18and 21. Research such as that of Ennis (1999) indicates that girls are more likely tobe excluded or marginalized in PE classes. As Ennis (1999) argues, team sports taughtusing a traditional approach typically allow confident and aggressive males todominate games and to marginalize girls as well as the less skilled, less confident boys.Many of the accounts of their experiences in PE at school given by female studentsin interviews confirmed this.

For many of the girls who had not enjoyed PE at school interviews indicated thatintimidation by dominant males was a significant factor in their alienation from sportand PE. They also nominated their teachers’ stress on performance as a significantfactor contributing to their dislike of PE:

The bigger boys in the class would just take over and push us out of the way andthe teacher wouldn’t do anything. They’d be showing off to their mates andtrying to be real heroes and most of the girls would just give up. (Interview,2000, Jasmine, 20)

Some of the female pre-service teachers’ accounts of their experiences at school mightwell be attributed to poor management and organization and not to an emphasis onskill development. On the other hand, research (Ennis, 1999; Wright and Dewar,1997) shows that such problems typically arise from an emphasis on the developmentof sport skills in PE classes where disparities in skill level and physical confidence arehighlighted:

My memories of PE at school are standing in line and waiting my turn to showhow unskilled I was before I could go back and hide in the line hoping the teacherwould blow the whistle before I was put under the spotlight again. (Inter-view, 2001 Jacinta)


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For the female pre-service teachers in the study who had negative attitudes to PEthere was a recurring theme of a discouraging over-emphasis by teachers on com-petition that favoured the more physically competent males and allowed them todominate, intimidate and marginalize female students:

Everything was boy oriented, Girls just did it for fun but the boys were reallycompetitive and encouraged to develop technique. The PE teachers encouragedthe skilled and that was usually the boys. (Interview, 2001, Emma, 19)

Studies such as Ennis’s (1996) examination of sport-based PE alert us to the extentto which the dominant, ‘traditional’ model of teaching lacks meaning for girls andthe ways in which it can discourage them from sport and other organized physicalactivity. Interviews indicated that a considerable number of the girls in this study hadnot enjoyed sport or PE at school due to teaching practices that allowed the moreskilled and more confident to dominate. Given the predominance of females in thestudy it is likely that this contributed to them feeling more comfortable due to theabsence of ‘dominant males’. Interviews, however, indicated that the emphasis on thetactical aspects, the modified games used and the increased social interaction involvedin TGfU contributed significantly to their enjoyment. One of the appealing featuresof TGfU nominated by girls in this study was the ways in which it allowed them tofeel a sense of worth and belonging through participation in team and group tacticaldiscussions. During interviews most girls nominated being an active member of agroup during the collective problem-solving activities as the most appealing part ofthe games sessions. Some also indicated that this helped them become more engagedin the game:

I really liked the little team meetings and team talks we had during the games.I felt like my opinion was valued and like I had something to contribute. It alsogave me a better idea of what the game was actually about. It helped me under-stand what was going on and what I was supposed to do. I couldn’t always do itbut at least I had something to do and it made me want to get into it more asthe game went on. (Interview, 2001, Christine, 20)

Emotional engagement: The joy of learning

While Placek (1983) rightly questions student enjoyment as a primary concern at theexpense of the ‘transmission of knowledge’ there can be little doubt that a positiveemotional climate in the classroom or gym makes a significant contribution tolearning. Emotional experience shapes cognition and affective capacity (Vygotsky,1978) and as Heywood (2001) suggests, ‘joy’ contributes to creating a positiveemotional environment. Heywood views joy as a more profound emotion than ‘fun’and one that arises from the fulfilment of human potential. Drawing on Gardner’s(1993) notion of multiple intelligences she suggests that it forms an importantelement in children’s educational experience. Heywood’s notion of joy as arising from


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achieving ‘impossible goals’ and the fulfilment of potential and profound learninggives meaning to the feelings of liberation, enjoyment, empowerment and achieve-ment of which many informants spoke.

The notion of joy as an emotion emerging from a ‘profound sense of learning’ issupported in the PE literature with studies that have examined the contribution that‘fun’ makes to learning. In Hastie’s (1998) study of girls’ floor hockey, participantsexperienced enjoyment when they felt they were improving their skill and were partof a team. The sense of joy that many of the pre-service teachers experienced in thestudy reported on here was also deeply tied into the learning and sense of ‘mastery’that the modified games used and the collective development of understandingallowed for. It was also linked to the sense of belonging, worth and self-esteem theTGfU seemed to provide for through its focus on collective problem solving. As theexperiences of the participants in this study indicate, the modified games used to suitthe learners and the de-emphasizing of skill that characterize the TGfU approach canprovide for immediate engagement in games and opportunities for achievement andinteraction. Indeed, observations and interviews suggest that one of the strengths ofTGfU is the way in which it encourages increased interaction between students andbetween the students and the teacher. In a recent study by O’Reilly et al. (2001) theyalso found that ‘low organization/modified games’ immediately stimulated studentinterest. They found that games with low skill demands and a minimum of rules weredescribed by the participants as fun while more structured and competitive gamessuch as basketball were approached with more caution. Their study and others suchas those of Hastie (1998) and Portman (1995) indicate that a sense of enjoyment ingames arises from the immediate experience of achievement, a sense of worth and asense of belonging.

Gardner’s (1993) notion of multiple intelligences and other recent developmentsin learning theory increasingly challenge the conception of cognition as an intra-indi-vidual process restricted to the mind and removed from the body (see e.g. Davis,1999; Maturana and Varela, 1992; Rogoff, 1991). These developments in learningtheory recognize learning as a complex, multidimensional and ongoing process. Thisallows us to see emotion as a significant, interrelated dimension of the learning thattakes place in and through games and to see how it is interdependent with cognitionand movement. Within the PE literature this is evident in Rovegno’s (1991) studyon knowledge change in pre-service teachers’ experiences ‘in the field’. She found thatchanges in their knowledge were shaped by emotion and affective experience, ‘Morethan a cognitive process, a strong affective thread was woven throughout knowledgechange’ (1991: 210).

Cognitive engagement in games: ‘understanding what’sgoing on’

Most students in this study enjoyed the unit but with good teaching they may well have enjoyed it using approaches other than TGfU. The reasons that emerged as


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contributing to this enjoyment are significant for this study. Games have an essentialcognitive dimension that, I would argue, has been obfuscated by the traditional focuson psycho-motor skills that characterizes much of PE teaching in schools. The waysin which the TGfU approach highlights the cognitive dimensions of play and theincreased social interaction that this produced seemed central to student enjoymentof games in this study. The joy that many students seemed to experience, expressedas having fun, seemed to be tied into the way in which understanding their immedi-ate physical and social context allowed them to make informed decisions:

. . . for the first time ever I actually knew what we were trying to do instead of beingcompletely lost and intimidated. I though, yeah, I know what’s going on here andit made me feel more like getting involved. (Interview, 2000, Jane, 19)

The responses of the pre-service teachers in this study indicate that the way in whichTGfU can engage students cognitively and provide for increased understanding con-tributed to their enjoyment of games. This seemed particularly so for those with littleprior experience of games and who had been previously denied the satisfaction ofachievement in games due to their lack of skill and confidence. For these studentsTGfU seemed to provide intellectual stimulation, increased social interaction and, insome cases, an embodied pleasure of movement. As one student explained soon aftera lively basketball session had finished:

. . . in the end I couldn’t believe how much I was enjoying it. Like I have neverreally liked playing sport but when the game finished I really wanted to keepgoing. We were going really well and I was just so into it and didn’t want it tofinish. This is the best way to teach sport. (Interview, 2001, Amy, 19)

I would suggest that the sense of satisfaction and enjoyment that many of the pre-service teachers in this study experienced was tied into the ways in which TGfU high-lights the cognitive and social dimensions of games. There is growing recognition oflearning as a complex, multidimensional process that is socially and culturallysituated (Davis and Sumara, 1997; Lave and Wegner, 1991; Vygotsky, 1978). Thereis also increasing recognition of the complex and interconnected nature of learningin PE and the possibilities for learning that can arise from movement when appro-priate pedagogy is adopted (Kirk and Macdonald, 1998; Light and Fawns, 2001).

Conclusion

Kirk (2001) contends that resistance to TGfU is particularly evident among primaryschool generalist teachers and he suggests that this is largely due to their lack of experi-ence and competence as game players. On the other hand, this study indicates that, inthis case, despite a lack of experience in, and knowledge of, games most of the pre-service primary school teachers involved seemed amenable to the TGfU approach. Thismight be due to a personal realization of its educational worth and the provision of amethodology through which this might be realized. The constructivist approaches to


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teaching across other subject areas at the university, and particularly in maths, madethe participants in this study more open to TGfU pedagogy. As one pre-service teachercommented, ‘actually this is similar to what we are told to do in other subjects but Inever thought you could do it in PE’ (James, 20). Although a few pre-service teachersin the study successfully taught using TGfU in their teaching rounds, they have yetto negotiate the difficulties that arise from adopting innovation as beginning teachersand the resistance that they are likely to meet. They also had yet to wrestle with theproblems of implementing units of work where, as Rovegno’s (1998) study of pre-service teachers shows, they can have problems seeing the relationships between indi-vidual lessons and the broader concepts of constructivism. The relatively short durationof the students’ exposure to a constructivist approach to PE teaching is also a limitingfactor in drawing conclusions from this study. As an ongoing, longitudinal study thisresearch will hopefully provide more insight into this issue. These differences may alsopoint to the need to account for cultural and institutional differences in such studies.

A small number of the pre-service teachers in this study had very negative atti-tudes towards physical activity and appeared to be unaffected by the TGfU unit, whilefor those with personal histories of positive engagement in sport and PE the experi-ence confirmed their views of games as educationally valuable and rewarding activi-ties. The third, ‘middle’ group, those who had been ambivalent about games and otherphysical activity, seemed to have been most affected by the experience of TGfU. Thedepth of their engagement in the games made a significant impact upon their per-ceptions of games’ educational value and their inclinations to teach them. This seemsto be very much shaped by their subjective experience of games taught using TGfUand the ways in which this addressed their prior concerns with PE and sport. As pre-viously discussed, the extent to which this impacts upon their teaching remains to beseen. It could also be that the generally positive responses to the unit are as much aresult of ‘good teaching’ as opposed to some of the ‘bad teaching’ that they reportedexperiencing at school. Certainly many of the issues raised by the students in thisstudy relate to management and organizational issues more than pedagogical ones.Despite this, and the particular institutional context within which the students tookpart in games, I am encouraged to suggest that one of the factors that most con-tributed to positive student responses is the way in which the TGfU approach encour-ages a more wholly engaging experience of games. As Whitehead (1990) argues,movement experiences in PE offer the opportunity for total experiences of the body.By emphasizing the tactical dimensions of games and providing for collectivedecision-making TGfU highlights the social nature of games. The increasedemotional, social and cognitive engagement that this encourages also allows forincreased physical interaction during the modified games that are employed. Manypre-service teachers in this study reported enjoying not only physically taking partin the games, but also the ‘little team talks’ where their opinions were valued andwhere they felt part of the team. This seemed to motivate them and facilitate moreactive and rewarding play as they developed understanding, not only of the game, butalso of each other. Indeed, the ways in which the TGfU pedagogy adopted seemed to


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facilitate interaction provides an explanation for, and connects, the positive experi-ences reported by the participants in this study.

This article seeks to provide an understanding of pre-service teachers’ experi-ences of TGfU and the impact that it had on their beliefs about the teaching ofgames in the primary school. At the same time it also provides some insight intoyoung people’s experiences of TGfU as learners. The social, physical and emotionalinteraction that some of the young people in this study experienced and describedas ‘liberating’ and ‘empowering’ hints at the type of holistic learning that I, alongwith others (see e.g. Light and Fawns, 2001) suggest is possible in games whenadopting a TGfU approach. In games teaching I would argue that there is notalways a single, predetermined and correct way to perform tasks or skills, no morethan there always a single ‘correct’ solution to tactical problems. In TGfU learningis not restricted to a process through which teachers pass on or transmit predeter-mined knowledge. While the TGfU teacher guides students towards particularlearning outcomes and may have predetermined answers or solutions in mind, heor she may also take part in the development of new knowledge. TGfU pedagogydoes not confine learning to reducing errors in performance where the teachercorrects mistakes. Through appropriate task selection and design and open-endedquestioning that allows for constant, positive reinforcement, the teacher engages inconstant dialogue with the class.

As Butler (1997) contends, open-ended questioning that draws on existingstudent knowledge can be seen as the key to constructivist pedagogies such as TGfU.Questioning can also form part of good teaching using other approaches to gamesteaching but it is a core feature of TGfU pedagogy. Such questioning also connectsthe verbalization of game concepts and strategies with the experiences of physicalengaging in the games in what constitutes a form of conversation. By ‘conversation’I mean not only the speech exchange that typically takes place between activities inthe TGfU lesson. I also refer to any flow of interaction brought about through the useof a public semiotic system, such as ballroom dancing or gestures, and this includesthe playing of games. In this way there was continuity for many of the pre-serviceteachers in this study between speech interaction in ‘team talks’ and the movementinteraction in games. Through this connected experience they developed under-standing and meaningful skills that empowered them to act in informed ways ingames. I suggest that the ways in which this increased interaction, and the depth ofengagement in games that it engendered, addressed the prior misgivings about theeducational value and relevance of games in the primary school curriculum that manyof the subjects expressed made a significant contribution to their positive responsesto TGfU.

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Resumen

Este artículo da a conocer un estudio sobre experiencias desarrolladas sobre unidades didác-

ticas de juegos, llevadas a cabo con profesores generalistas de enseñanza primaria no exper-

imentados, a partir del empleo de (TGfU) contenido en un programa de formación de

profesores australianos. El estudio trata de poner de manifiesto las sensaciones, conocimien-

tos y disposición, con que los profesores principiantes se enfrentan a la enseñanza de los

juegos; las formas que tienen de entender e interpretar el TGfU, y los resultados de estas

interpretaciones sobre los valores educativos referidos a la Educación Física y como se artic-

ulan e implementan en la práctica. Un sentimiento de felicidad y de gran capacidad de enseñar

(Heywood, 2001) aparece como tema central en la reflexión de los estudiantes sobre su

trabajo. Se plantea desde este estudio que desde esa sensación plena de felicidad que

impregna los aprendizajes es posible el empleo del TGfU en los juegos.

Richard Light lectures in physical education at the University of Melbourne.His researchinterests lie in the corporeal dimensions of learning and the hidden curriculum of physical


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education and school-based sport. He also researches on the relationships between thebody, learning and culture with a particular interest in Japanese sport.

Address: Dr Richard Light, Lecturer in Physical Education, Department of Mathematicsand Science Education, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia. [email:[email protected]]


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the social nature of games: australian preservice primary teachers first experiences of teaching...

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