In order for children to develop language and communication competence at an early age emphasis should be placed on elements of group interaction and cooperation rather than on strict acquisition of new linguistic knowledge.
We propose that starting from an early age children should develop:
1. We understand oral message reception as and propose to work on the development of:
1a.-understanding of overall oral message, through learning activities such as: oral-command games formulated by teachers/students; exercises of auditory comprehension using different modalities to express the oral message such as drawings/mime; exercises of understanding the relationship between verbal and non-verbal elements; exercises of recognizing communication that doesn’t relate to a previously heard message; exercises of recognizing details from a listening text through images/pictures
1b.-intuition of message correctness, through learning activities such as: exercises of selecting correct statements from propositions created by students; games of ordering logically words in sentences; exercises of perceiving phonetically the intonation of interrogative sentences (without terminology)
1c.-word differentiation and connotation, through learning activities such as: games of connecting the word heard with its respective image; exercises of eliminating a word that does not correspond semantically with others from a given list
1d.-interest in other interlocutors’ message in concrete communication situations through learning activities such as: exercises of listening student-to-student/student-to-teacher dialogues on familiar student topics; exercises of developing active listening behavior; exercises of simulating concrete communication situations on every-day activities; group games on given/chosen topics
2.We refer to oral expression as and propose to work on the development of:
2a.-enunciating clear and correct oral message according to specific situations, through learning activities such as: exercises of developing statements with focus on correct/clear pronunciation; exercises of building statements based on pictures using given words on a given concrete situation; exercises of regulating tone, volume, and speed of speech; diction
2b.-new word integration, through learning activities such as: games of recognizing synonyms/ antonyms/homonyms; exercises of using new words in adequate contexts; crosswords/anagrams; exercises of building sentences with new words; exercises of modifying the semantic of a sentence through eliminating/replacing/adding a word; exercises of building a word from a given syllable; exercises of building a sentence of words starting with the same sound; exercises of changing the semantic of a word through the modification of a sound/syllable; exercises of replacing a word with its synonym
2c.-interest and initiative to communicate with others, through learning activities such as: exercises of dialoguing with different persons using formulas of addressing, introducing self; exercises of simulating role-play/communication situations; exercise of expressing own point of view on familiar facts/events
3.We consider written message reception as and propose to work on the development of:
3a.-identification of words and propositions in a printed/hand-written text, through learning activities such as: exercises of word-sound association; exercises of enlarging the text visual through recognition of syllables in the structure of a word, words that appear more than once in a sentence, repetitive models; exercises of selective reading; exercises of reading unfamiliar short texts; exercises of creating collages using text/images of advertisements, invitations, etc;
3b.-understanding of overall text, word/picture association, paced/correct reading, through learning activities such as: exercise of formulating questions and answers based on text/pictures; exercises of creating drawings based on text; exercises of connecting hand-written words with text; true-false exercises; exercises of understanding the role of pictures in text; exercises of stimulating attention to text introducing/omitting text elements;
3c.-interest for reading, through learning activities such as: exercises of accommodation with the book noticing the book, page, direction of reading; exercises of dialoguing about books, familiar characters from familiar stories, libraries; exercises of presenting a specific book; exercises of initiating the reading.
