Opportunities for language development: Small group conversations in the nursery class

Abstract

The development of children’s oral language skills is clearly recognised as a key element of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum in England. However, most current advice is based on research from dyadic interactions between mother and child and stresses the importance of one-to-one conversations. There has been limited research on the benefits or drawbacks offered when talking with young children in groups, or the use of group conversations as an opportunity for teaching and developing children’s language and communication skills. The present study presents data on the interaction patterns of different children, in terms of the topics they talk about and overhear, their individual initiation and response rates and the feedback they receive, and relates this to their progress in language development. Video observations of nine 3- to 4-year-old children and their key worker during so-called ‘family group’ sessions in a nursery class were analysed for each child in turn, to give a measure of the number of verbal initiations and responses made to and by the child during each session. The findings indicate some of the adult behaviours and conversation topics most usefully employed during small-group conversations in the nursery setting, to provide opportunities for language use that individual one-to-one conversation may not encourage.