In this article, I present a narrative conversation that combines six teachers' responses to Maurice Sendak's picture book, "Outside Over There" (1981) with my own responses to their discussions and to the book. The purpose of this research is three-fold: first, to examine how children's literature can be used to evoke reflections in early years…

The aim of this research was to explore the way in which talk is used in teacher focus group discussions. The data from these discussions belong to a wider study on the challenges teachers face when introducing foreign-language mediated education. The research presented here provides a careful analysis of the talk between teachers drawing on…

Although conversations have been identified as an important means to promote young learners' language development, preschool children often have limited opportunities to be involved in complex conversations. This study examined preschool adaptations of Instructional Conversation, a small group discussion between teachers and children in which…

The foundation of an individual's optimum or less than optimum development is laid down during the early years of life, particularly during the age between birth and six years. This age covers pre-school education. This study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of Early Childhood Education programme in preparing Pre-school children in…