The focus on language for communication and language acquisition within communicative contexts is supported by much of the recent language acquisition research. Young children are more likely to use those words and grammatical phrases that they are exposed to in natural interactions with their carers. Thus the carer's use of language acts as a fundamental support for early language development. Speaker's intentions help guide children in their word learning and provide an important forum for developing awareness of the pragmatics of language.

Nearly all of this research is based on studies that focus on the opportunities offered by interaction between a child and an adult. For many children these early interactions will provide the initial foundations for developing the more sophisticated aspects of language outlined in the recently published National Strategy for Speaking and Listening. These build on and extend the approach first outlined in Teaching speaking and listening in Key Stages 1 and 2 (QCA, 1999).

Many children, however, will not have had sufficient exposure to the kinds of language they will encounter in nurseries and schools. Both the amount and the nature of the oral language input children receive impacts on their subsequent language development and there are significant differences in the amount of oral language input pre-school children experience. The language models provided by adults and peers have a significant impact on a child's developing oral language skills.

Adult recasts of children's utterances and the drawing of appropriate contrasts between words and grammatical constructions are particularly important. In a recast, the adult replies to the child's utterance by copying some of the child's words but also by providing new syntactic or semantic information. The basic details of the child's original meaning are maintained. For example, the child's statement, "It go there" when describing where a paint brush should be placed, can be recast by the adult as, "Yes, the brush goes in the pot". Recasts have been shown to stimulate length and complexity of utterances in children.

In addition contrasts between words provide children with information about the concepts signified by different words and support the development of a rich vocabulary system. The introduction of a new colour term can be contrasted with known colour terms or the introduction of a new size term can be contrasted with known size terms - "It is not the big one, it is the tiny one". This relationship between oral language exposure and oral language acquisition holds across a range of situations including bilingual language acquisition and acquisition for children with specific communication difficulties.

For some children the environmental opportunity to develop language is less rich than for others. Moreover, not all children are equally equipped to learn from the English language experiences they receive: English may be an additional language; they may experience hearing problems, such as otitis media; or the children may have additional special educational needs. These differential opportunities are not a trivial factor since early language skills can have long lasting effects on later academic attainment; it has been estimated, for example, that vocabulary assessed at age six is a strong predictor of reading comprehension at age 16. Thus, differences in children's experiences have an important impact on how prepared the child is to take advantage of the language exposures that are offered in nurseries and schools. For many children the further exposures they receive in nurseries and schools will be of significant importance in moderating the effects of these early differences.

Findings from longitudinal studies support the view that gains in receptive and expressive language skills can occur as a result of participation in quality nursery provision, yet current evidence suggests that, on the whole, pre-school settings are not sensitive language learning environments. They are dominated by teacher talk and this talk has been criticised as being overly directive and unresponsive. The role of teacher talk and the conversational style of the teacher are moderated by a number of variables including the size of the group of children working with a teacher. Our own research in 12 inner-city nurseries has extended these findings. We found that, while in many cases there were excellent small group opportunities that supported oral language development, many children did not have sufficient opportunity to develop their oral language competence. Frequently the children chose to spend large amounts of time in contexts where less supportive language was evident, such as playgrounds and free play. All nurseries offered exposure to books but this frequently occurred in large group settings where children did not have the chance to benefit from the teacher's language scaffolds.

In 2000 we devised a project called Talking Time that aimed to address some of the inequities in children's early language skills. Our aim was to place children in a better position to take advantage of the oral language they would be exposed to in primary school. Talking Time supports the goals of the foundation stage level curriculum by providing opportunities for children to communicate their thoughts, ideas and feelings and by giving opportunities to share stories and experiences. However, we realised that to do this children needed to experience small group opportunities with staff skilled in supporting oral language. Staff also needed to recognise and build on the children's current levels of functioning. We introduced our activities to staff working in inner-city nurseries. Many of the children in the nurseries, the majority of whom had English as a second language, were neither speaking nor understanding at the expected level for their age - indeed the children's oral language was, on average, two years behind what would be expected. Staff were provided with in-service sessions that considered oral language development, the skills of the children in their nurseries and the ways in which oral language could be supported.

Talking Time was built around three activities designed to increase:

1. children's vocabulary, through the use of specially chosen drama activities
2. predictive use of language, through the use of open ended questioning
3. narrative skill, through the use of sets of pictures from familiar tasks and activities.

Children 'worked' twice a week in groups of five or six for a period of six months. The groups comprised children with varying levels of oral language competence, which ensured a variety of child and adult talk. Fidelity of the intervention was ensured by weekly visits to the nursery and children's language skills were assessed at the beginning and end of the intervention. We compared the progress of children in the Talking Time intervention to that of children given the same amount of additional small group exposure just to storybook reading, and to that of children experiencing good pre-school nursery provision.

To date the results of the study are promising. Children in the Talking Time intervention made significantly more progress than children in the alternative intervention in terms of both their receptive and expressive vocabulary: they both understood and produced more words than the comparison children. Talking Time also impacted on syntactic development, with significantly more progress in the Talking Time children's ability to repeat increasingly complex sentences, and to produce longer sentences in their own oral language production. Thus, there was evidence that the building blocks of narrative skill were beginning to be put in place.

However, despite this pleasing acceleration of progress, the overall language skills of the children were still a cause for concern. On a standardised test of expressive vocabulary, the overall mean score for the 'Talking Time'children put them at the 15th percentile of the population (i.e. 85 per cent of children of their age would perform better than this). Their mean score on a standardised test of verbal comprehension put them at the 10th percentile (i.e. 90 per cent of children of this age would perform better than this). In contrast, on a standardised measure of non-verbal cognitive ability, their mean score put them at the 45th percentile, i.e. well within the normal range.

So, we have a mixed message to convey. With carefully planned, structured and monitored language input, it is certainly possible to accelerate the development of children's oral language skills, to enable them to start catching up with their peers. However, a programme lasting for only six months is not enough to get the children to where they ought to be. We would like to see Talking Time built into the nursery curriculum throughout the children's time in nursery, and extended to continue throughout the Reception Year.

Devising a supportive framework for oral language is not easy. Careful preparation is needed to ensure that all children receive these experiences on a regular basis in naturally occurring interactions. Moreover, it is not sufficient simply to provide 'good models'; the language from the adult needs to be carefully tuned to the child's language. It needs to be offered in such a way as to extend and support, and children need plenty of opportunity to practise their fledgling skills. This is especially challenging where children enter nurseries using only a few words and with limited English language comprehension.


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