Enriching students' oral language through active play.

Abstract

The purpose of this Master’s Thesis Project was to identify the relationship between active play and oral language development and create the Professional Development Project: ENRICHING STUDENTS' ORAL LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT THROUGH ACTIVE PLAY. The Professional Development Workshop provided teachers with the tools to implement a play-based curriculum and with activities to use in their classroom. A literature review was conducted and the aspects that were explored included the relationship between play and oral language development, what a play-rich environment includes and how it can be implemented into the school curriculum to promote language development. The findings indicated that play and language and cognitive development are intimately linked.