A course in child development offered at a British secondary school focused on language development. The primary objective was to sharpen college students' awareness of the language development of children they meet in their everyday lives and children they study during the course. The teacher's role is to extract linguistic theory from the observations made by students and to encourage students to try out language strategies with young children in different situations. The course topics included: the miracle of language development; developmental ages and stages; talk in everyday situations; language and play; the language of control; rhymes, songs, and stories; reading and books; television and young children; and the wider implications of the topics studied. Problems encountered or addressed in the course planning and implementation include sex-stereotyping of the caretaker role, sensitive areas in the teacher-student relationship such as low-achieving students, student misunderstandings of the course's objectives, and the adequate training of teaching personnel. (MSE)