Playing to become literate: Teachers’ evolving roles during digital game-based learning in a Malawian childcare centre

Background: Integrating digital game-based learning in early childhood education poses challenges for teachers, particularly in resource-constrained settings where traditional methods predominate and educators often lack formal pedagogical training. Aim: To explore how teachers adapt their roles and pedagogical practices in a multi-age classroom where children aged 3–6 years engage with digital learning games. Setting: A community-based childcare centre in rural Malawi where volunteer teachers with limited formal education facilitate digital game-based learning. Methods: Ethnographic participant observation was conducted over one month (34 h across 17 sessions), using a developmental research sequence and focused ethnographic analysis of teacher practices, classroom interactions and adaptation patterns. Results: Four interconnected themes were identified: (1) teachers moved from restrictive control to selective intervention, developing ‘adaptive oversight’; (2) technical challenges persisted, with teachers continuing to rely on external support; (3) embodied practices such as physical guidance and native language instruction remained stable, providing essential scaffolding; and (4) teachers gradually recognised and facilitated productive peer learning in the multi-age setting. Conclusion: Given the absence of mother-tongue content and culturally relevant materials, teachers’ adaptation involved essential yet institutionally invisible cultural mediation work, creating hybrid approaches that bridged global technologies with local pedagogical traditions and children’s lived experiences. Contribution: The study shows how teachers navigate digital learning through simultaneous adaptations: developing selective intervention strategies, managing persistent technical dependencies, sustaining embodied pedagogical practices and facilitating emergent peer learning, all while performing institutionally invisible cultural mediation work.