How to Get Started with Oral Language Development Tips

Introduction 

Oral language is the basis and foundation of all learning. Children develop oral language naturally as they mimic the adults around them. They don't need to attend school or any special training to begin conversing socially in their own language.  However, there's a distinction between social and academic language, the language skill children develop naturally is the social language, while academic language requires development through several stages and processes of learning.  It is important to improve the development of oral language skills because children who develop strong oral language skills are often readers and writers. Teachers play a leading role in modeling oral language development to kids and must give a correct speech model to guide students in appropriate pronunciation, help them understand language structures, and build a larger vocabulary. This article aims to provide ways and procedures that teachers can use to achieve proper oral development and prevent popular verbal errors and accentuations in students.

Objectives

• Teachers will initiate teacher-student interaction as the primary language- base for instruction. 
• Teachers will learn to create responsive and challenging interactions between them and their students.
• Teachers will learn how to collect data for speaking levels-What kind of task? How to get kids talking?
• Teachers will develop an awareness of students’ existing knowledge skills and errors.
• Teachers will learn to work with the following skills: cognitive, social, motor, and oral which directly influence the student’s oral language.

Teachers Tips

Assess Students’ Existing Knowledge and Skills:

The first step to consider while working on students' oral language development is to assess the students' existing knowledge and skills and be aware of their strengths and struggles. Identifying the students' strengths and weaknesses in oral and written language early in the school year would greatly benefit teachers in planning, implementing, and facilitating differentiated lessons as needed. This awareness is the foundation that teachers draw on to identify and teach the next steps.

Create  Verbal Environments:

The verbal environments in which children are immersed greatly influence their language development, including academic language (Dickinson & Porche, 2011; Hoff, 2006). Not all interactions are equal in providing language development opportunities. To best promote language development, it is essential that verbal interactions between early childhood educators (ECEs) and preschoolers be of sufficient quality (Cash et al., 2019) which means interactions must be responsive and challenging.

Create Challenging and Responsive Interaction:

Responsive teacher-student conversations are recognized as the most profitable type of interaction to facilitate language development (Justice et al., 2018; Massey, 2004). During a responsive interaction, teachers use strategies such as being warm and receptive to encourage interaction, following the student’s lead, and encouraging verbal turn-taking (Girolametto et al., 2000). These behaviors support language development because children learn better when actively participating in conversations rather than listening to adults speaking (Justice et al., 2018).

Motivate students to speak:

Engage children in higher-order thinking skills, asking follow-up questions, and extending students’ utterances with more complex vocabulary. Encourage students to talk and demonstrate to their best what they know. Language in everyday life is manifested in various ways to externalize what is produced in the mind, and one of those ways is the oral form, which, through articulated words, is possible (Espinoza et al., 2022). Some students might need a little push-up from the teacher to start conversing, so, ask questions, rephrase the student’s answers, and give prompts to encourage continued conversations.

Encourage interaction among children:

Peer learning is an important part of language development, teachers can use activities involving a wide range of materials to promote talk. The teacher can move lessons from whole-group learning to small groups and pair discussions. Integrating activities that nurture collaboration and discussion, such as completing shared tasks in a pair or group, (e.g. matching, sorting, ranking, etc.), dramatic play, block-building, book-sharing, or carpentry.

Use realias in your lesson to build oral language.

In Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, children discover that every object around them has a name and differentiates it from the others. Children need social relations to develop oral language, bringing real-life objects into the lesson will help spark conversation among children and make the lesson engaging and interactive. When children see objects they can relate to in the lesson, they can make sense of the lesson and help promote their oral language development through interactions.

Learn to work with the following skills: cognitive, social, motor, and oral.

The results obtained from each skill regarding the development of oral language favor the establishment of conversations, fluency, learning and articulating words, narrating events, and understanding sentences. Understanding that for this, it is necessary that the teachers, through the skills, strengthen the acquisition of linguistic signs, since they are constructed in the environment from reality through cognition and social context (Stad et al., 2019).

Parents Tips

Build relationships first: Have a positive, trusting relationship with your child, relationships with children serve as the foundation on which language practices take place. Care deeply for the child's self-esteem, let the child feel secure with you, and feel good about talking, and praise him/her when they speak and link it to language development. “The entire language development has a lot to do with self-esteem”—Lily (Gingras, MP., McMahon-Morin, P., Rezzonico, S. et al.).

Encourage home book reading: 

Home book reading fosters positive relationships, bringing parents and children together and providing opportunities for shared enjoyment, during book reading, parents speak to children in ways that promote language growth which encourages language-facilitating experiences.  (Ganotice et al., 2017).

Engage home activities: Activities such as snacks and lunchtime, shopping, referring to recipes when preparing family meals, engaging children in meaningful conversations while waiting for the bus, taking a bath, cleaning up, etc. contribute to a child's oral development. Parents can do morning chats, read books, and sing songs, children enjoy music, as they listen and sing the words in songs they are developing their receptive and expressive language skills (Gingras, MP., McMahon-Morin, P., Rezzonico, S. et al.).

Encourage storytelling: Choose topics that match the children's interests or use what is happening here and now. Ask children to tell stories about their day, a favorite event, or even an imaginary tale. Discuss children's interests while walking outside, during lunchtime, book-sharing activities, etc. This helps develop narrative skills and creativity (Gingras, MP., McMahon-Morin, P., Rezzonico, S. et al.).

Prepare the physical environment: Physical environment refers to the objects (eg. toys), decorations, or furniture that promote language development. Display pictograms and pictures, and make books available for children throughout the day. An environment that promotes oral language development in the home setting matters a lot. Parents can use family pictures, and educative toys to trigger conversations with children and among siblings this helps to build and develop their oral language.

References: 

Espinoza et al. (2022). Oral Language Development Skills. 

Gingras, MP., McMahon-Morin, P., Rezzonico, S. et al (2023). A Qualitative Exploration of Early Childhood Educators’ Declared Practices when Supporting Preschoolers’ Oral Language Development. Early Childhood Education. 

 Disbray et al.(2022). Talking Together: How Language Documentation and Teaching Practice Support Oral Language Development in Bilingual Education Programs.  International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism,

Laursen et al. (2022). Child disruptiveness moderates the effects of home book reading on oral language development