This paper is a part of its author’s wider research concerning the issue of the reinforcement of preschoolers’ social abilities. Each information exchange process always involves some aspect of teaching. During an interaction, once the meaning of the environment objects has been defined, the coordination of individual’s activity lines takes place. Therefore, it is not a mere observation of a performing adult, but above all, an interactive exchange that stimulates child’s cognitive development. A modern approach to effective education cannot neglect the significance of the partnership between a teacher and a learning child during an interactive situation. David Wood (1995), an expert on tutoring, points out two cardinal mistakes in adult’s teaching strategies: - teaching at the lower border of the zone of development, resulting in the underestimation of child’s cognitive development - the creation of “ overscaffolding”, which does not allow a child to find its own way of solving a problem and which finds its manifestation in a direct and evident supervision by an adult, who also determines child’s role in a given interaction. Such defects in social interactions confirm child’s incompetence, thus discouraging an adult who, in spite of a great effort and hard work invested in his/her teaching, does not achieve any educational success. Peer teaching seems to avoid such traps and dangers, as there exists a common point of developmental reference, which enables both participants of an interaction to implement similar behavioural schemata in a task solving situation; that is a more competent child adopts the role of a teacher. The extension of a knowledge of teacher’s behaviour in a reversed asymmetrical relation, when an adult is taught by a child, has proved very promising and challenging. This asymmetric relation will not focus on finding a solution to a problem but it will concentrate on child’s ability and commitment to keep an adult in a child’s line of activity. This paper presents the phenomenon of teaching and being taught in the context of an adult’s and child’s behavior types during a didactic game.

The study group comprised kindergarten children from Cracow at the age of five and six. The implemented method consisted in a teacher teaching the children the rules of “ Memory”, a board game. Then, the children were asked to teach some other adult how to play the game. Not only was it observed which of the elements of the previous instruction used by the teacher ( being an algorithm ) were implemented by a child , but also the types of a teaching behaviour towards a partner were focused on.

The modern approach to a teacher’s role as a guide for a child on its individual path of development, makes it clear that various forms of tutoring need to become an integral part of a teacher training process. The results of the research seem to support the view that four and five year old children are fully capable of becoming tutors and that they undergo the process of the interiorization of social skills ( being taught and next becoming “teachers”).