Challenges the belief in contemporary English language teaching that students should be exposed to authentic or natural language focused on achieving practical purposes, and draws some lessons from the classroom from the way young children play with language. (15 references) (Author/CK)

Drawing from experiences in teaching kindergarten teachers in Saudi Arabia to conduct "sharing time" or "show and tell" sessions, discusses the activity's affective and cognitive value, indicating that teacher and peer feedback promotes language development and the growth of curiosity and inquisitiveness. Makes practical…

In all of his published work, Jean Piaget never abandoned his original theoretical framework for the understanding of human development. This framework insists that intelligence is essentially a biological phenomenon; its development is best understood as the development of a sophisticated and highly successful adaptation device. This device…

Discusses the limitations of immersion programs for minority-language children and examines submersion, transitional bilingual education, and reverse immersion approaches according to three criteria: theoretical consistency, fairness to children, and empirical support. Reverse immersion in which children acquire literacy skills in their native…

L. S. Vygotsky's book "Mind in Society" was published more than 50 years ago in Russia, but it is now being recognized as relevant to contemporary research in child development because of the areas of investigation that he suggested. Vygotsky views children as active participants in their own learning and suggests that researchers…