ABSTRACT
When children use language to learn and to communicate in creatively engaging and motivating contexts, they experience its powerfully provocative as well as evocative potential. This chapter, alongside the next one on drama, focuses on talk as a highly accessible and potent medium for learning, literacy and personal/social development. Dialogic teaching, the creative nature of talk and the role of the teacher as a model of curiosity and creative engagement are all examined. The chapter also shares practical strategies to develop children’s confidence and competence as language artists through oral storytelling (personal and traditional) and in the context of other small-group activities that offer opportunities for engagement and reflection.
