Child Language Development and the School. by

Language is for living with. Children's language emerges from the lives they lead and we cannot hope to make sense of it without understanding their lives. A considerable portion of their day is lived in school and this too becomes woven intoJheir language- it is the particular kind of shared life created by all those-who work together in a school which will deter-mine how language will be used by teachers and pupils. However, the discussion of children's language must never lose sight of the context in which it occurs, not simply the immediate spur to speech and writing but the life from which the language draws its meaning and the extent to which the school situation inhibits that meaning or nurtures it. Whatever aspect of language we examine, it is real language being used for real purposes which can invest school with meaning and enable children to turn their increasing flow of experience into connected, usable sense. The relationship between child and teacher should be based on mutual trust which comes through the establishment, and maintenance