Language and Communication Difficulties

This chapter explores issues raised by teachers working to develop children’s language. In the first vignette, Diane, an early years professional, talks about the increasing numbers of children starting the nursery school with speech and language needs, and insufficient school capacity to meet these. In the second, a group of teachers reflect on some of the ‘challenges of EAL’ (English as an Additional Language) and different school responses. The academic contributions, from Heather Price and Maggie Maclure, reflect on the tensions that language presents for schools and teachers. Desires and pressures to ‘correct’ and to ‘remedy’ deficits in English communication contrast with aspirations to change classrooms and home–school relations to capitalise on the range of different language practices in which children are immersed. The various contributions in this chapter also raise the question of continuity and change. Are the issues discussed here perennial ones that successive generations of teachers, leaders and politicians continue to grapple with? Or are social and technological changes, and expectations of schools, creating new challenges to which both teachers and academics must respond?