ABSTRACT
In playing, the child, or adult, is free to be creative, and playing is itself a therapy that has immediate and universal application. The importance of imaginative play in the emotional development of the child and its language has been the subject of thorough research. So the teacher's role is to assist the full flowering of the creative potential of the developing and maturing child. The teacher's opening question enables the pupils to volunteer a beginning for a story. From Seth's idea that it would centre on 'a haunted house', the teacher next coaxes the group to be more specific by asking where the house is to be located. The teacher ignores the provocation from Michael and because the boundary lines of 'play' have been firmly established earlier, she only needs to begin to utter a warning to convey the desired change in his behaviour.
