Everyday preschool talk about Christchurch earthquakes

ABSTRACT: This article investigates young children’s interactions with their teachers following the Christchurch earthquakes in New Zealand in September 2010 and February 2011. Drawing on conversation analysis and psychological literature, we focus on one outdoor excursion to visit a water pipe broken by the earthquake to show how the participants mutually accomplished trouble-telling and storying. The use of pivotal utterances to transition from talking about the damaged environment to reflecting on actual earthquake events is also evident. This article shows how teachers initiate and prompt children’s informal and spontaneous story telling as an interactional resource for discussing traumatic events