Research findings indicate that role play can contribute to children's language growth through furthering: (a) growth in imaging, (b) increased recall, (c) discriminative listening, (d) development of novel forms of communication, (e) learning of socially appropriate communication, and (f) motoric actions. Teachers can facilitate role-playing by providing abundant and various instructional and constructional materials and real and toy objects. Teachers can unobtrusively influence the imaginative play of their students by (1) providing clock time in the classroom for the children to become familiar with materials, (2) gathering information on the children's immediate interests, desires and concerns and using the current information to provide direction for role play, (3) encouraging children to tell, express and show their thoughts and feelings as vividly as possible, (4) providing open-ended comments and suggestions, (5) altering the materials to suggest new uses, and (6) introducing new objects into the role play situation. (Author/RH)