Abstract
This chapter addresses the process of communication in Developmental Education. Teaching children how to construe meanings through communication with others is the core of Developmental Education (DE). Communication is at the heart of DE activities. From a Vygotskian point of view, the chapter describes some interactive processes in the development of young children’s abilities to collaboratively make meaning and exchange communicative intentions. The chapter addresses questions like: How do educators communicate with young children in the context of their cooperative activities? How can they encourage children to communicate with each other? On the basis of classroom research of children’s communication and the roles that teachers take in this communicative activity with the children, different strategies of communication in children’s play are discussed, particularly with regard to vocabulary and narrative structure.
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Notes
- 1.
The author would like to thank Jeannette Schut and Jeannette Pals for participating in the data collection and/or the analysis.
- 2.
For more information about the story-telling telling table see Chap. 4, section “Developmental Perspectives in Constructive Play”, note 3.
- 3.
I have attempted to translate the Dutch of teacher and children as close to the original colloquial speech as possible.
- 4.
In our research on teachers’ guidance in the inquiry curriculum in the upper grades of DE primary school, we have adjusted the drama metaphor to a sports metaphor: we can use the same criteria to distinguish between outside intervention: a trainer (instructor), coach (stage manager), and inside intervention: captain (play leader) and co-player (van Rijk 2008).
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de Haan, D. (2012). Learning to Communicate in Young Children’s Classrooms. In: van Oers, B. (eds) Developmental Education for Young Children. International perspectives on early childhood education and development, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4617-6_5
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