1. An Environment that Promotes Play and Social Interactions
REYN Training – Leiden - The Netherlands, June 2015

2. Learning Objectives and Expected Outcomes
To create an environment that supports language development through play.
To provide adequate time for children to play and do activities in small groups in learning centres.
To explain how giving children the opportunity to make choices in play and activities builds language development as well as social emotional development.

3. Introduction
The emotional domain is the foundational to development. Children can only learn when they feel physically and emotionally safe, feel that they are part of the group, and feel supported through positive and consistent social interactions with key adults and with peers. Children at this age develop and learn when they have room and time to play with friends, express themselves, and explore. They also acquire language because they want to communicate with the adults and children they engage with on a daily basis.
A large body of research shows that children’s ability to engage in positive peer interactions, be accepted by peers and make meaningful friendships contributes to the quality of later relationships and well-being they will have life (Kemple and Ellis, 2009).

4. Language development and play
An environment that promotes play is one of the best environments for supporting children’s well-being and social emotional development. Children are also developing language and communication skills while interacting with others in a variety of contexts. Therefore it is essential that the environment be arranged to encourage conversations and different types of play.
It supports well-being because children develop self-esteem, confidence and feelings of competence though play by successfully challenging themselves, by interacting with other children, and by mastering personal, physical, intellectual, and social challenges.
Play is the means by use children best learn language because it is done through interactions with others and with the environment.

5. Language development and play
Play is a spontaneous and active process in which thinking, feeling, and doing can flourish. There are different aspects that are present in play to include:
Pleasurable
Active engagement of the participants
Intrinsic motivation (meaning that it is performed for no external goal or reward).
Freely chosen by the participants
Personally directed or co-directed by the participants
An attention to the means (process) rather than the end (product).
 REYN Training – Leiden - The Netherlands, June 2015

6. Language development and play
Roles of the educator in play:
An observer
A stage manager
A co-player
REYN Training – Leiden - The Netherlands, June 2015

7. Language development and play
We can support children’s play by becoming co-players, guiding and role modelling when the play becomes frustrating for the child or when it is about to become abandoned for lack of knowledge or skill.
We may pose questions that challenge children’s thinking about a situation or show how to use a prop in a different way.
Other times we will notice that a child is reluctant to enter a play situation. Having a trusted adult involved, may help them feel more secure.
REYN Training – Leiden - The Netherlands, June 2015

8. Language development and play
Videos: Playing House ( ) and Robot Bread
Are the children:
actively engaged?
intrinsically motivated?
Did they chose where and how to play?
direct or co-direct the play?
Also observe how the teacher has acted either as a stage manager or co-player in the videos.
REYN Training – Leiden - The Netherlands, June 2015

9. Language development and play
Adding new or novel items to a center such as new dress up clothes to the house area, pictures of construction equipment to the block area, or fabric to paint on in the art area prompts questions and conversations.
Videos: Child Centred Classroom Croatia
and Child Centred Classroom Hungary
As you watch these videos, look for how the environment is arranged and equipped to places to encourage children to communicate with each other.
REYN Training – Leiden - The Netherlands, June 2015
We can promote language development in their play by placing things centres that help children talk. For example, telephones can be placed in different centers. Little figures of people can be added to the block area. Puppets can be placed next to a box that is made to look like a television. Language props such as microphones, megaphones, or walkie talkies can be added. A karaoke machine can be added in the music center or tape recorders where children can listen to each other making funny voices. (Crosser, 2008).

10. Language development in small groups
Videos: Circle Time
Think about how much language are developing in these examples? How could the teacher have adapted this activity to also promote the children’s language development?
Take an activity currently done as a whole group exercise and make it into a small group exercise that encourages children to speak more.
REYN Training – Leiden - The Netherlands, June 2015
Large-group activities are not as helpful for children who are learning a new language because there are much fewer opportunities for the educator to individualize their speech for children in different stages of speech production and to build relationships with individual children. (Both are important in language acquisition). Large group activities also do allow for maximum opportunities for children to practice the new language.

11. REYN Training – Leiden - The Netherlands, June 2015
Playing with language
Play with sounds and noises
Play with linguistic systems such as those involving word meanings or grammatical constructions
Play with rhymes and words
REYN Training – Leiden - The Netherlands, June 2015
Rhymes add to reading

12. REYN Training – Leiden - The Netherlands, June 2015
Playing with language
Exercise: Teach each other some new words using a familiar song that either rhymes, uses alliteration or repeats itself. Using the melody of that song, create actions for it, or new words that will also support the language development in the new language.
REYN Training – Leiden - The Netherlands, June 2015
Rhymes add to reading

13. Scripted dramatic play
Dramatic play in the new language is often above the level of production of new language speakers. Scripting their play by introducing the roles and props as well as giving background in a demonstration prior to the play activity can help those who are not yet producing the new language on their own to be involved.
Exercise: Choose a story that children may know in the first language(s) that is also available in the new language (or translate a familiar story into the new language). Think of props/ puppets for the children to add to the story box.
REYN Training – Leiden - The Netherlands, June 2015
This involves taking an easy story with repetitions and that is easily predictable (such as The Giant Carrot/Turnip) and giving the children the props to act it out (in this case a carrot/turnip, dress objects for the various characters). You could also provide puppets of some kind and puppet theatre where the children can act out the story. First do the activity several times in a small group so that the children can learn the story. Then leave a copy of the story (as a book or pictures of its sequence) with the props in a box and left out for the children to choose to play with whenever they choose.

14. REYN Training – Leiden - The Netherlands, June 2015
Children as helpers
Support for new language speakers can also be provided in small group activities by introducing strategies to the children who speak the language that help them play with others who do not speak their language.
These strategies include:
Initiation: Children can be coached to approach other children, establish eye contact, and ask to play with them or with a particular toy. If their approach is not responded to, coach them to reinitiate.
Request clarification: Children can be coached to request clarification of a response by another child if it is not understood by them.
Expansion: Children can be coached to repeat a child’s attempt to communicate by changing it, expanding upon it or using nonverbal signs if they do not understand what was said (Tabors, 2008).
REYN Training – Leiden - The Netherlands, June 2015

15. Strategies for Sustaining Conversations
Language Stimulation Techniques
Technique
Description
Waiting
The adult uses a slow pace during conversation; actively listens to children when talking and does not dominate the conversation.
Pausing
The adult pauses expectantly and frequently during interactions with children to encourage their turn-taking and active participation.
Confirming
The adult responds to all child utterances by confirming understanding of the child’s intentions and not ignore the child’s communicative initiative.
Imitating
The adult initiates and repeats what the child says more or less exactly. Example: Child: I did the puzzle. Adult: You did the puzzle.
Extending/
Expanding
The adult repeats what the child says and adds a small amount of syntactic or semantic information.
Modeling desired response
The adults demonstrates children a sound, a word or language form that they do not yet produce on their own in the conversation. Modeling can also be used to demonstrate to children what it is they are expected to say or do.
Labeling
The adult provides the labels for familiar and unfamiliar actions, objects, or abstractions (e.g. feelings). Uses pictures or actual items.
Scripting
The adult provides a routine to the child for representing an activity (e.g. First you go up to the counter. Then you say, “I want a hamburger.”) and engages the child in known routines (e.g. “Now it is circle time. What do we do first?”
Narrating
The adult talks about everything that the child is doing as if you were describing it to someone who is not the room to see it. The goal of narration is to pair the child’s play and actions with the appropriate language.

16. Strategies for Sustaining Conversations
Video: Watch the video, Language for Learning: Infants and Toddlers
What strategies do you see the teachers using?
Waiting, pausing, confirming, imitating, extending/expanding, labeling, narrating, modeling desired response

17. Open-ended questions
Questions that have more than one right answer, or ones that can be answered in many ways are called open ended questions. Open-ended questions open up conversations. Close-ended questions usually limit conversation to a one or two word response, and sometimes they end the conversation.
This way of asking questions stimulates language use, acknowledges that there can be many solutions to one problem, affirms children’s ideas and encourages creative thinking.

18. Open-ended questions Types of open ended questions include:
Making predictions – What do you think will happen if….? What might we see, hear at … ???
Stretching thinking – What would happen if there were no….. or if everyone….?
Assessing feelings – How would you feel if ……..?
Thinking about similarities and differences
Applying knowledge to solve a problem – What could you do to….?
Evaluating – What made you decide…. ? Why do you agree or not agree with ….? What would you have done differently?
This way of asking questions stimulates language use, acknowledges that there can be many solutions to one problem, affirms children’s ideas and encourages creative thinking.

19. Open-ended questions Classifying:
Which of these go together? Why? Can any of these be put together?
What could you call these groups?
What are the characteristics of all the things in this group?
How could your rearrange….? Can you find another way to ….?
Describing:
What is ….. like?
What can you see? What did you notice about …..?
How would you describe…. ?
This way of asking questions stimulates language use, acknowledges that there can be many solutions to one problem, affirms children’s ideas and encourages creative thinking.

20. Open-ended questions Explaining
How do you …..? Why do you think….? What do you think caused this?
What might happen if …? Why do you think so?
Can you think of another reason for…?
Generalizing
What is the same or true about all of these?
What can you tell me/us about?
What have you learned/found out about….? What does this mean?
Inferring
What do you think might be happening here? Why?
What do you think might cause this? Why do you think this happened?
Can you think of a different idea?
This way of asking questions stimulates language use, acknowledges that there can be many solutions to one problem, affirms children’s ideas and encourages creative thinking.

21. Questions for Different Language Levels
Write 2 questions for each child:
a child who is the silent, non-verbal stage of speaking a new language
A child who is starting to go public with the new language
A child who is productive in the new language