Let’s talk!

Creating opportunities for children to express themselves

Creating opportunities for expression

Talk about…

Oneself

Things around and experience in school

Pictures

Stories

Talk about oneself

Connect with the lives of children. Ask them about their :

• Thoughts/ideas• Needs, wishes, desires• Experiences• Emotions

Talk about objects and experiences in school

Children could accurately observe : trees houses

flowers bee-hives butterfliesshops

street taps drains

…and various other things around them and talk about it

Talk about pictures

Each group can be given a picture from :

• Newspapers • Magazines• Calendars• Stamps• Labels• Posters

Children can discuss the picture within the group and the spokesperson can describe it to the whole class. Pictures can be used for creative and analytical talk.

Talk about pictures

With the help of pictures we can direct the child to do thefollowing things:

Finding - Eg. Who is sitting on the chair?

Reasoning – Eg. Why is the girl crying?

Projecting – Eg. What will the little girl say to the lady selling the vegetables? (projecting into an imaginary situation)

Predicting – Eg. What will the girl do when she reaches home?

Relating - Eg. Did you ever sit on a bicycle? What does it feel like?

Listening to stories and talking about them

Give the children a chance to :

- Listen to the story

- Relate to the story

- Imagine characters and events

- Complete the story

- Recreate the story and its characters in a meaningful way

Role play

Playing the roles of characters in a story develops:

- communication skills

- insight and imagination

- group decision making

- conflict resolution

Tips for teachers

• Allow the child to say the whole thing

• Be interested in what he is trying to say

• Control your desire to contradict

• Respond by saying elaborately what the child has said, bringing in new vocabulary and a richer sentence structure

• Ask for more information

• Direct the child to a new aspect of the topic

• Adapted from the handbook, “The child’s Language And The Teacher” by Krishna Kumar