








































English Language Teaching Educational Journal   ISSN 2621-6485 

Vol. 8, No. 2, August 2025, pp. 152-163  

        https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14368        http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index         eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id  

A framework for playful pedagogy: Nurturing child imagination 

in second language learning 

Dat Bao a, 1, *, Tran Thi Hoang Nguyen b, 2 

a Monash University, Wellington Rd, Clayton VIC 3800, Australia 
b Van Lang University, 69/68 Dang Thuy Tram Street, Ward 13, Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 

 
1 dat.bao@monash.edu*; 2hhnguyentrann@gmail.com   

 

*Corresponding author 

A R T I C L E  I N F O 

 
 

ABST RACT   

 

 

Article history 

Received 15 June 2025 

Revised 17 July 2025 

Accepted 4 August 2025 

 This conceptual article argues that although imagination is a highly 
important dynamic of the mind with strong potential to assist language 
development, imagination alone does not work by itself. Instead, a 
strategic framework is needed to support imagination by connecting it 
with playful teaching and amusing content. The article begins by 
pinpointing what playful pedagogy means and what role imagination 
plays in the learning process. Secondly, the discussion presents some 
challenges to such learning, delving particularly into some constraints 
on child imagination and other constraints on English learning among 
children. Thirdly, the discussion highlights the need for a playful 
pedagogy and amusing content to support it. This is followed by some 
insights into nurturing imagination for learning. Finally, the article 
unpacks the above-mentioned framework in ways that would assist 
task design in language education.  

 

© The Authors 2025. Published by Universitas Ahmad Dahlan. 

This is an open access article under the CC–BY-SA license. 

    

 

 

Keywords 

Imagination 

Creativity 

Playful Teaching/Pedagogy 

Playful Learning 

 

 

 

 

How to Cite: Bao, D. & Nguyen, T. T. H. (2025). A framework for playful pedagogy: Nurturing child 
imagination in second language learning English Language Teaching Educational Journal, 8(2), 152-163. 
https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v8i2.14368   

1. Introduction  

Play is indisputably essential in child education. The essence of playful learning, while relying 
deeply on imagination, needs a pedagogy relevant to it. Children are likely to lose learning interest if 
they happen to be taught by a serious teacher who does not know how to play with them. Playful 
pedagogy is a philosophy that respects children agency to be themselves. It allows the freedom of 
experiencing the world through a child lens rather than following any fixed mindset advocated by 
adults. This understanding is inspired by developmental psychologists such as Vygotsky (1978), and 
by many sociologists, sociocultural theorists, psychologists and neuroscientists. 

Through play with children, educators, instead of teaching, lead children by following them. 
Adopting playful pedagogies in nurseries, kindergartens, and primary schools, educators co-create an 
imagined world with children in which they share resources, build narratives, engage in action, 
develop worldviews, bond with peers, co-construct meaning, and become creative. This philosophy 
is captured in the chart below (Figure 1) in which imagination acts as the core of child learning. Three 
elements centered on imagination to activate it include learner playfulness, teacher playfulness, and 
inspiring content. If one of these components are missing, imagination cannot be optimised, and 
children may not enjoy the learning process. 

 

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 Bao, D. & Nguyen, T. T. H. (A framework for playful pedagogy: Nurturing child imagination…..) 

 

 

Fig. 1.  A playful pedagogy framework 

The rest of the article will now unpack the strategic structure above. First, it provides insights into 
what playful pedagogy means, how the child’s mind works, and what role imagination plays in the 
learning process. Secondly, the discussion presents some challenges to such learning, delving 
particularly into some constraints on child imagination and other constraints on English learning 
among children. Thirdly, the authors elaborate on the need for a playful pedagogy and the need fort 
amusing content to support that pedagogy. Fourthly, the discussion emphasises ways of nurturing 
imagination for learning satisfaction. Eventually, the article unpacks the above-mentioned framework 
in ways that would assist task design in language education. 

2. Method 

2.1.  Research design 

The design of this study is framed by a conceptual qualitative inquiry and grounded in traditions 
of educational research and applied linguistics. This was not a hypothesis testing study but a 
demonstration with regards to work toward pedagogical framework articulated as child imagination 
and playful pedagogy in second language learning more clearly and explicitly. It takes an exploratory 
and interpretive stance, mobilising theory, ad hominem observation, and some selected empirical 
evidence to consolidate a psycho-sociocultural perspective on ELT. 

2.2.  Data sources and materials 

Three sources were used in the development of the framework: 

Theoretical and empirical literature foundational work within developmental psychology (e.g., 
Vygotsky, Piaget), sociocultural perspectives (Rifiyanti & Hidayat, 2024), and creativity studies were 
integrated in a systematic manner to create a map of definition and operationalisation of imagination 
and creativity within child learning. Research studies on playful pedagogy as well as on ELT-ELT 
also became particularly useful for understanding second language contexts (Prošić-Santovac & 
Savić, 2021). 

Anecdotal notes – Short stories based on actual experiences with children (e.g., at parks, in 
classrooms, during informal play) were written as expert vignettes. These were not analysed as data 
but as samples which articulate ways in which children employ imagination in their learning or 
interactions. 

Pedagogical examples – Practices, such as role-play, puzzles, storytelling, music and games, from 
classrooms and textbooks were interpreted as indication of how playful language learning practices 
can be documented as evidence of practice. 

2.3.  Analytical procedures 

Analysis adhered to an interpretive, iterative thematic synthesis: 

Stage 1: Identifying concepts – Concepts were identified from the literature including imagination, 
playfulness, content engagement, and teacher– child interaction. 



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Stage 2: Thematic categorisation – These constructs were collated to generate key themes that are 
repeated: activating imagination; playful teaching; playful learning through social and 
emotional sharing; and the significance of amusing content. 

Stage 3: Framework model building – These themes were combined into strategic model with 
bottom abductive (Figures 1 and 2 article). The procedure was iterative, in which 
categories evolved as more data sources were reviewed. 

Stage 4: Pedagogical translation – The framework was used to analyse sample classroom tasks and 
guiding questions in order to verify its utility for ELT task design. 

3. An introductory anecdote about the child’s mind 

Once in a park where children were playing, one of the authors overheard a little girl asking her 
father: 'Daddy, what is the sky made of?' The father nonchalantly replied: ‘I don’t know.’ The child 
looked disappointed. She moved away. Her trust in adults’ wisdom seemed shaken.  

As teachers and parents, we are taught to bond with children by playing with them, sharing what 
they care about, inspiring their curious minds (Chau et al., 2025), and encouraging new questions. 
Unfortunately, we sometimes pay more attention to logic than imagination, routinely holding on to 
established principles and systematic knowledge already documented in textbooks and curricula. If 
students are not interested enough in these ideas, teachers assume students are not learning. In 
behaving as such, we frame children’s worldview within a boundary.  

As our thinking was provoked by the above incident, we wondered if the same ‘absurd’ question 
is being asked to a child, instead of a logical adult, what answer it would be. One day, we directed the 
enquiry to a random child in the park: 'What do you think the sky is made of?’ Without hesitation, she 
replied: 'The sky is made of blue!' As a grownups, we would have never thought of this kind of answer. 
The child’s creative response demonstrates her personal observation and the freedom to articulate her 
worldview regardless of school knowledge.  

4. Imagination as learning 

Imagination is a major ingredient that shapes learning. In children, the inclination to see the 
invisible stimulates and constructs play experience, which is known as imaginative play and which 
can be fostered through simulation, role-play and make-believe situations in a safe, stress-free 
environment (Bao, 2018a; Bao & Liu, 2018). Imaginative play, or dramatic play, allows children to 
make-believe, that is, to play without predetermined rules. It is through such involvement that one 
practises their social skills by mirroring the way others interact for building a better understanding of 
social norms. Such experience represents a vital part of child development including critical decision-
making, cognitive skills, and social skills.  

Imagination, which is the freedom to see, feel, and play that gives rise to creativity, is important to 
be nurture at an early age (Wulandari, 2024). Thanks to that ability, one can play even without props 
and toys. Examples of dramatic play are being astronauts, ballerinas, animals, fictional aliens, and 
mythical creatures. The children conceptualised in this article referred to in the article ranges from the 
early years to early teen age. This is a stage when the development of learning facility takes shape and 
is likely to grow into adulthood if well fostered. A broad range of facilities that are connected to 
imagination include critical thinking, problem-solving skills (Shi & Cheung, 2024), artistic 
perception, an invention mind, motor skills and physicals development, language competence, 
emotional intelligence, social interaction, building friendship and team spirit. By activating their 
imagination, children not only discover concepts and develop mentally but also make friendships and 
learn to collaborate with others. 

5. Constraints on child imagination 

All human beings possess the capacity for imaginative creativity. Unfortunately, sometimes the 
schooling and circumstances in which children are raised can further disconnect them from their 
creative selves (Wakayama, 2025). For example, according to Vasilovici (2024), the introverted 



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culture and outcome-oriented education policies of many schools happens to restrict the development 
of imagination during the adolescent years.  

The continuation of nurturing toward imagination should be a lifelong educational policy. 
According to Wakayama (2025), children begin imitating the people around them in their first year, 
and from this imitation, imaginative or pretend play emerges. Thus, infants may initially imitate facial 
expressions; as they mature, they may recreate or rebuild events they have experienced; subsequently, 
their play will be influenced by their imagination (Bao, 2018c). Youngsters engage in imitative play 
by copying or imitating, and they are not simply duplicating what they have observed, but also 
contributing their own thoughts. Concerning imaginative play in early children, Piaget (1962), 
Vygotsky (1978), and Ewing and Saunders (2025)'s works have explained the role of imagination in 
the development of cognition.  

In Vygotsky’s (1978) conceptualisation, the core of play is that it allows the children cognitive 
independence from tangible reality, which is impossible before the age of three. Ewing & Saunders 
(2025) see imagination as an intellectual ability that can be attained and can improve intellectual 
functioning throughout the life cycle. Young children's play is a transitional stage between the solely 
situational limits of early childhood and the adult thinking, which can be completely free of real-world 
constraints. Without the liberating effects of imaginative play, further cognitive development would 
be impossible (Bežilová, 2024).  

In the meantime, there exist other constraints on English learning among young learners. 
Linguistically, the English language taught as a subject can easily be boring, and many primary school 
students are seen to have a certain resistance to learning English (Vasilovici, 2024). Cognitively, 
compared with adults, primary school students have a stronger ability to perceive and accept-language 
(Frost et al., 2019). Socioculturally, in an EFL contexts, the mother tongue is used in schools, 
workplaces, the broader society, with relatively few opportunities for daily communication in English. 
Primary school students also face a similar situation when learning English. In an environment with 
limited conditions, to help students, master English knowledge and the English language, teachers 
need to improve the effect of classroom teaching and improve students' enthusiasm for learning 
English by enhancing their interest in English teaching (Bao, 2021).  

6. The need for playful teaching 

One of the authors remember having a teacher, back in his primary years, who was a charismatic, 
knowledgeable comedian in the classroom. His classmates and loved to play, of course, but above all, 
they need a teacher who play with us rather than only to guide and observe our playing. Now thinking 
back on those years, he realised that his class enjoyed pushing our playfulness beyond any limit thanks 
to a teacher who is also a clown and who never felt ashamed in sacrificially embarrassing himself for 
the sake of our learning. The connection between a playful teacher and how students respond to such 
a teacher is known as playful learning (see, for example, Vasilovici, 2024). In such learning, 
instructions are suggested rather than being given directly (Wakayama, 2025).  It is by reducing 
control, inhibiting fear, and establishing bonding that playful pedagogy boosts function skills, 
cultivate joy, assist memory, and support cognitive flexibility. 

7. The need for amusing content 

Playful teaching cannot happen by itself but need substance to rely on and proceed. To make such 
substance possible, it is important that teachers think about how to increase interesting content so that 
children are inspired enough to resort to the best of their imagination (Akyildiz, 2023). Some examples 
of such content are vivid stories, cute images, dramatic actions, beautiful songs, interesting games, 
and role-play, among others. 

Research has shown that the effective use of music and songs in second language teaching can 
potentially foster multiple intelligences, reduce anxiety, improve motivation, stimulate imagination, 
enhance recall of facts, and create an emotional climate conducive to learning (Bao, 2023; Bokiev & 
Ismail, 2021; Serea & Regueira Martín, 2023). 

 



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Teaching, ideally, should be entertaining so that students can receive education with joy 
(Vasilovici, 2024). Primary school students are in a growth stage, especially because they like to play 
various fun games. In English teaching, teachers can teach English through fun games according to 
the characteristics of primary school students. For example, teachers can hand out puzzles with 
English words for cats and dogs to students, and let them spell out complete patterns of cats and dogs. 
When the pattern is successfully spelled out, the students will see the English words for cats and dogs. 
Students can know and master these words unconsciously. Compared with the traditional English 
teaching mode, this fun puzzle game is not to write the English words of cats and dogs on the 
blackboard, and then guide students to memorize them mechanically, but to let students enjoy the joy 
of winning the puzzle in the process and mastered English words unconsciously. 

Teachers can use stories to increase interest (Cindrić & Milković, 2023) . Incorporating stories into 
primary school English teaching can turn mechanical and boring English knowledge into vivid 
images, and through plot descriptions, it can create a light and pleasant English classroom 
environment, make English teaching more dynamic, and fully stimulate students to learn English 
knowledge motivation and enthusiasm (Bao, 2018b; Harris, 2022). For example, when explaining the 
positional prepositions “in, on, under, and behind,” if the meaning and usage of these prepositions are 
purely explained, it is difficult to stimulate the interest of primary school students, and it is difficult 
for students to learn and understand. Teachers can use these prepositions to design a vivid story, such 
as a treasure hunt story in a castle, like using "in" for gems in a box, "on" for a clock on a table, etc. 
Treasure hunters search for treasures in the castle and find treasures one by one, attract students' 
attention through vivid plots, and learn and master the usage of these prepositions in the story. 

Primary school students have a strong ability to imitate (see, for example, Brilianti & Sugirin, 
2024). When they see other people doing something, if they find it interesting, they tend to imitate it 
(Telaumbanua et al., 2025). Given this, before carrying out English teaching, teachers should pay 
attention to which scenes, which behaviors, and which characters students like to imitate. After 
mastering what students like to imitate, have them imitate using English. In the scene, the teacher can 
first design the dialogue between them and put the English words to be learned into the dialogue. For 
example, some students like to play the role of salesclerks and consumers in the supermarket, then the 
teacher can design the supermarket shopping dialogue, so that Students play the roles of salesclerks 
and consumers, and integrate words such as money, buy, and thing into English conversations. The 
key is that teachers should know what kind of roles students like, and then carry out targeted teaching 
design. 

8. Nurturing imagination in children 

Childhood is an important stage where the mind has elasticity ready for establishing values and 
mindsets (Harris, 2022). Pedagogy plays a huge role in helping children learn through imaginative 
play. To foster learning through imaginative play, teachers might make a few basic modifications to 
their preschool classroom. Indeed, imaginative play can be utilised to present any skills or concepts 
that a teacher has taught and wants students to practise. Literacy abilities are spontaneously fostered 
in language acquisition through imaginative play, as children communicate and act out coherent 
stories (Harris, 2022). Teachers can promote the language acquisition of students by providing 
scenarios in which they can demonstrate or apply what they have learned.  

Imaginative play can be proof of student learning. Observation and documentation of child 
experiences are helpful strategies for gathering assessment information. In teaching English as a 
foreign language (EFL) to young children, factors to be considered include which language skills to 
teach and how, where the language will be used, the classroom environment, the choice of suitable 
content and materials, and evaluation criteria (Graddol, 2006). To effectively implement imaginative 
plays in early childhood classrooms, it is necessary to change the learning process in Thai schools, 
which is predominantly passive and teacher-centered, to a child-centered or learner-centered 
approach, in addition to incorporating the previously mentioned factors into the teaching approach.  

9. Some considerations for creative task design 

ELT Materials for young learners need to incorporate conditions for children’s imagination and 
creativity to grow in both linguistic and social skills. If creativity is not well cultivated in young 



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children, it may be lost as children get older, especially when the society requires too much 
conformity. The current discourse has not researched enough on ways of connecting children 
imagination with second language acquisition. This reality applies to a wide range of academic books 
which devote primarily to children’s L1 and L2 education theories such as the works of Prošić-
Santovac & Savić (2021), Vasilovici (2024), among others; with a few exceptions such as a book by 

Copping (2016) that deals with creative case studies. While many scholars highlight the need for 
nurture children creativity, few principles and approaches are offered to provide such support. In the 
meanwhile, the discourse related to teacher training mentions a number of qualities that would enable 
someone to effectively teach English to children. The qualities include knowledge of children’s 
holistic development, cultural understanding, age-appropriate pedagogy, scaffolding skills, and 
effective communication (Vasilovici, 2024) without much discussion on teacher strategies to bring 
out creative potential in the child. 

Drawing on the playful pedagogy framework proposed earlier, I would like to recommend the 
following five conditions that task designers might need to consider as elements that can promote 
children’s creative learning. The recommendations outlined below, which include how to boost 
imagination and enable playfulness, serve to unpack the framework, which is presented again here 
with more details (Figure 2). 

 

 

 

Fig. 2.  Unpacking the playful pedagogy framework 

9.1.  Activating imagination  

Imagination, being centered in the middle of the chart, is the core of all child learning. Children 
with rich imagination have more inner space than others. They tend to be resourceful, observant, 
adaptable, and capable of coping with challenging situations in life. Coursebook tasks need to inspire 
in children the passion to see the world through their own lenses. An example of such a task would be 
one that invites learners to invent or complete a story, which allows imagination as connected with 
the child’s experience and personality (see, for example, Harris, 2022). Besides, tasks should activate 
learners’ intrinsic motivation, so that children want to engage with an activity out of interest, 
enjoyment, and willingness to take challenge. Ewing and Saunders (2025) argue that children vary in 
how they develop creative behaviour. Some are born with a creative disposition while others depend 
more on learning experience and interaction with social environment. Because of these differences, 
some learners might need more stimulus than others. 

9.2.  Playful teaching and learning through social sharing  

As children have different dispositions, preferences, and behaving styles, their responses to events 
can be highly diverse. Possibility thinking is fundamental to creativity (Ewing & Saunders, 2025), 
which can be manifested through both self-creation and self-expression. When being encouraged to 
find their way around a problem, children are likely to activate their resourcefulness for options. Once 
a child produces an exciting idea or a lovable item, he/she might wish to make it known to peers. Gok 
(2023) contends that creativity does not happen inside one’s head, but through the interaction between 



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a person’s mind and sociocultural context. Course materials need to build the social space for such 
interaction to happen and tap into individuals’ original efforts.  

In addition, activities can be designed in ways that allows teachers to interact positively with 
children. As Richert et al., (2024) indicates, creative thinking, which is connected to inquiry and 
problem solving, should be supported through teacher support. Classroom interaction can either 
nurture or repress creative development. For example, negative verbal interactions can make young 
children feel inadequate, confused and frustrated. Conversely, children feel capable, enlightened and 
encouraged with positive verbal interactions (Wakayama, 2025). According to Noor et al. (2025), it 
is important that during their early years of L2 learning children like their teacher in order to enjoy 
learning the language and willingly participate in classroom activities.  

9.3.  Playful teaching and learning through emotional involvement  

Many educators and theorists perceive creativity as a cognitive and socio-affective process 
(Feldhusen, 2001; Prošić-Santovac & Savić, 2021; Vasilovici, 2024). They believe that creativity 
encompasses both rational and emotional dimensions. The rational dimension refers to creativity as 
thinking practice, such as to guess or pursue an idea; to come up with relevant ideas around issue; to 
seek unusual or clever alternatives; to combine things into a novel form. The emotional dimension, in 
the meanwhile, internalizes creativity as a feeling process, which include curiosity about a topic, 
manifested in wondering and asking questions; a tendency to play with ideas and follow intuition to 
see what happen; the courage to expose oneself and willingness to share ideas with others; and the 
willingness to take risk or take challenge. Some of the above elements have been widely discussed in 
the discourse, which contends that creativity involves divergent thinking (Telaumbanua et al., 2025), 
self-determination (Vasilovici, 2024), curiosity (Ewing & Saunders, 2025; Prošić-Santovac & Savić, 
2021); imagination (Vygotsky, 1930/1978), flexibility (Vasilovici, 2024), risk-taking (Ewing & 
Saunders, 2025), immersion (Vasilovici, 2024), innovation (Ewing & Saunders, 2025) and 
collaboration (Vasilovici, 2024).  

9.4.  Amusing content that evokes the child’s risk-taking, playful nature  

Being playful refers to the inclination to be humorous, the desire to give an unusual response, and 
the willingness to accept risk or ambiguity. The unprejudiced tendency to explore the world is 
inherently the nature of many children, and when such behavior occurs, an extensive range of 
alternatives might result. Scholars have widely agreed that divergent thinking is a process well 
recognized particularly among young children (Baer & Kaufman, 2005; Telaumbanua et al, 2025; 
Vasilovici, 2024). Rich thinking proves to be active across different types of play which stimulate 
young children’s creativity (Richert et al., 2024). Materials need to allow alternatives to occur through 
open-ended, problem-solving, and imaginative resources (e.g., puzzles, play-dough, blocks, sand, etc.) 
that can be employed in multiple ways. Of course, divergent thinking alone is not equal to creativity, 
simply because divergence does not capture the entire description about creativity (Ewing & Saunders, 
2025); instead such thinking needs to interact with a range of other factors, some of which have been 
mentioned in this chapter. 

9.5.  Amusing content that brings out the child’s individual personality  

 

Children’s creativity is often demonstrated in an original, unplanned, and self-expressive manner 
(Richert et al., 2024). A number of features make children’s L2 learning processes quite distinctive 
from adults’ L2 learning. For example, children’s concentration tends to be shorter than adult’s; young 
learners easily lose interest in activities that are predictable (Shih, 2025); children tend to focus more 
on meaning than form (Vasilovici, 2024); children resist formal teaching and prefer to learn 
experientially and acquire language incidentally. 

It is important to note the above inclinations among young children in order to provide age-
appropriate support. Sometimes, to encourage young learners’ expressive disposition, educators might 
like to focus more on the creative process itself rather than worry about the excellence of their 
creations (Richert et al., 2024). It is because children may not yet have the expertise and skills to 
ensure high quality in the output (Prošić-Santovac & Savić, 2021). It is also necessary to realise that 
the creative ability of each child is linked to his/her own personal stage of development (Ewing & 
Saunders, 2025) and can be considered as being original for that child in relation to children in his/her 
class or age group (Gok, 2023). Besides, the knowledge and skill resources that children employ for 



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their creative expression is not confined within second language learning but may also be transferred 
from their first language and culture (Telaumbanua et al., 2025).  

10. Guiding questions and examples for playful teaching and learning  

The guiding questions below, which are processed from the principles discussed above, can serve 
as an instrument for course writers to consider for supporting creative activities. These criteria, which 
is explained in Figure 2, can also be used to detect the innovative nature of second language tasks, 
that is, to recognise the extent to which a task brings out learners’ creative potential  

10.1.  Activating imagination  

• Do tasks stimulate learners’ observation and adaptive responses?  

• Do learners have a chance to visualize something hidden/incomplete/non-existent?  

• Do tasks encourage multiple ways of seeing?  

• Is there a chance to tie objects/events together in a less common way?  

10.2.  Playful teaching and learning through social sharing  

• Do tasks build a social space for children to enjoy interaction?  

• Are learners asked to brainstorm ideas?  

• Can learners share personal thoughts?  

• Are learners encouraged to be resourceful?  

10.3.  Playful teaching and learning through emotional involvement 

• Do tasks arouse learners’ curiosity as well as pursue it?  

• Are there stories for learners to say what they think and how they feel? 

• Do activities allow learners to explore a range of emotions?  

• Are learners invited to take risk and/or challenge?  

10.4.  Amusing content that evokes playful nature 

• Do tasks make learners sometimes laugh? Do they encourage learners to become flexible 
thinkers? Do they tease out learners’ unusual responses?  

• Do tasks collect new ways of seeing, acting, and saying things?  

• Do tasks allow for different types of play? 

• Do tasks meet learning purposes through clever, unusual content/structures/sequences?  

10.5.  Amusing content that encourages self-expression and personality  

• Do tasks respect learners differences by allowing choices and preferences? 

• Is there a chance for self-expression/personality-based responses?  

• Do tasks sometimes focus on the creative process itself rather than judgement of the outcome?  

• Are tasks suited to the child’s own stage of development (without too much emphasis on 
adults’ judgement and social knowledge)?  

In recommending these dimensions of creative effort, we do not mean to divide and place creativity 
in any convenient compartments. Instead, these features of creativity might be mutually overlapping 
in reality. To ensure the questions above are clear to the reader, we would like to provide a few 
examples.  

Below are some examples of imagination-focused tasks: 

• Choosing what to wear for different types of party; painting with unconventional tools 
other than a brush (adaptive response) 



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• Seeing through a closed door; imagining a missing part; walking through a jungle 
(visualization) 

• Reinventing a new function for object items; noticing something one never saw before; 
drawing a green sky and blue grass (multiple ways of seeing) 

• Imagine how the wind makes friends with a tree; building a character with peculiar 
features (combining things) 

Examples of social-sharing tasks: 

• Making up a story together (enjoyable interaction) 

• In groups guessing what happens next (brainstorming ideas) 

• Making new rules for classroom conduct (personal thoughts) 

• Finding ways to save a cat that fell into a pond (being resourceful) 

• Examples of emotion-oriented tasks: 

• Guessing, asking, observing, finding, comparing, describing, explaining, drawing, etc. 
(pursuing curiosity) 

• Expressing ideas and feelings about characters, events, and problems (personal view) 

• Helping or comforting less fortunate person; reading to children and asking them to share 
feelings (exploring emotions) 

• Discussing how to build a tree house or how to wash a gorilla (take risk and challenge)  

Examples of playful tasks: 

• Removing constraints from reality; changing proportion of things; pretending one can fly, 
giving human features to animals, (flexible thinking & unusual responses)  

• Becoming someone else or slipping into the role of non-humans; making characters out of 
sticks and leaves; giving new names or new functions to items (new ways of seeing) 

• Miming, decorating a cake, travelling through space, singing a song, finding as surprise 
gift for a close friend (different types of play) 

• Showing an alien around; shuffling words to make up new texts; answering questions 
before reading the story (unusual content/structures/sequences) 

Examples of self-expressive tasks: 

• Designing a dream bedroom, making a floor plan of one’s favourite school (allowing 
choices and preferences) 

• Creating a new dish; designing an ideal tv program (personality-based responses)   

• Drawing an alien; designing a robot; collectively develop a cute monster (focus on the 
creative process itself) 

• Designing a bird nest, creating a bird family, making paper planes, miming animal walk 
(child’s own stage of development) 

11. A Concluding Anecdote About Learning Satisfaction 

Having begun the article with an anecdote, we would like to close it with one too. Once during one 
of our class discussions on learning, one of the authors raised this question: ‘Does learning or playing 
bring more satisfaction?’  

One student, a highly diligent person, responded: 'Learning brings satisfaction as learning shapes 
the future'. A second student explained: ‘Playing is more satisfying as play makes me feel good!’ Then 
a third student suggested: ‘Playing after learning brings joy because you don't feel guilty'. The 



161 English Language Teaching Educational Journal   ISSN 2621-6485 

         Vol. 8, No. 2, August 2025, pp. 152-163 

 Bao, D. & Nguyen, T. T. H. (A framework for playful pedagogy: Nurturing child imagination…..) 

discussion went on for a while, until we realised that we did not have to separate learning from playing. 
Why choose one while we could have both simultaneously?  

Eventually, both students and the lecturer agreed that it is learning through play that brings the 
most satisfaction. To make this possible requires the teacher to walk through imagination with 
students. Creative imagination can be prioritised over boring reality as a way to make learning more 
fantastic. Playful learning happens at its best when teaching is also playful. Students are willing to 
play and become silly when the teacher is willing to play and behave in silly ways. 

 

 

Acknowledgment 

The authors thank all the participants who have shared their voices so that this study could be 

accomplished. The authors’ gratitude also goes to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive 

and substantial feedback so that this manuscript could be published and reach wider readers. 

  

Declarations 

Author contribution : The research was collaboratively undertaken by both authors, 
encompassing topic selection, proposal development, 
methodological application, data analysis, and the preparation of the 
discussion section. Author 1 assumed primary responsibility for 
managing the publication process, while both authors jointly 
contributed to covering the publication fee. 

Funding statement : No funding is available for this research. 

Conflict of interest : We declare that there are no competing interests. 

Ethics Declaration : As the authors, we confirm that this work has been written based on 
ethical research principles in compliance with our university’s 
regulations and that the necessary permission was obtained from the 
relevant institution during data collection. We fully support ELTEJ’s 
commitment to upholding high standards of professional conduct and 
practicing honesty in all academic and professional activities.   

Additional 
information 

: No additional information is available for this paper. 

 
 

 

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