Ways in which schools can develop the lively arts of language--listening, speaking, reading, and writing--through furnishing a learning ecology, is the focus of this paper. The establishment of a learning ecology is described as being based on the primacy of talk. In this context, teachers must personify the ways in which talk joins people. The methods used by teachers in creating common human bonds can include improvised drama, classroom discussion, choral speaking, and telling stories. To teach children how to read literature so as to gain its highest satisfactions, a planned program is said to be of prime importance. The elements of such a program are described, and its advantages enumerated. Listening is said to be a precondition to writing in that it helps the student to know how the words should go. The teacher's approach to teaching the child to write creatively is described. (DB)