Most of us recall with pain the unpleasant experiences associated with the teacher's announcement that we would once again initiate a unit of learning designed to both widen and deepen our knowledge of the words of our language. This was said to establish the foundation for all of our future academic pursuits. A strong vocabulary was said to be a…

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)