Advices for professional teachers

=Considerations for teachers=


 * The importance of teacher-child conversation for children’s continuing language development


 * Value the children’s talks and ideas for their understanding of the world
 * Children will gain indirectly from such conversation through the teacher’s increased understanding of their ideas


 * Children differ, individually and culturally, in how much they know they will offer in answer. Without teacher requests them to “say more”, some children’s knowledge will be seriously underestimated


 * Teachers need to attend to their students’ inner meanings instead of their surface behaviours (Scheffler, 1968)


 * Language development is crucial to learning because it is through language that young children construct meaning and communicate with others. (Exploring language; A handbook for teachers, p. 8)