Towards Enhancing Children Cognitive Development: Learning through Social Interactions

Abstract

Social interactions are the everyday give and take conversations that occur depending on situations and purposes. During a typical preschool day, there are countless opportunities for children to interact, communicate and play with one another. A social interaction may include saying “Salam” or asking an appropriate question such as “May I sit here?” The interaction can also be in both verbal and non-verbal (e.g., touch, gestures) mode. Through social interaction, children develop their ability to think, to make judgment, to reason out, to negotiate, to regulate their emotion, to deal with conflicts and so on. Failure to go through this process successfully, a child may face a detrimental problem in their schooling years, peer relationships and their future undertakings. This paper explores the social interactions of thirty-one 6 years old children at selected kindergarten in Klang Valley, Malaysia during instructions in three subjects, Malay Language, English and Mathematics. The non-participant observation (direct observation) method was employed for data collection purposes. The findings showed that children are more likely to engage in social interactions during Mathematics compared to the two other subjects. The paper describes the learning activities and the social interaction behavior that children engaged in during instructions in the three subjects. This paper also suggests direction for future implications into how teachers and educators can make effective and meaningful contributions to enhance children cognitive development through social interactions.