It is important to spend time playing with children as it promotes the use of language in a natural setting.
Here are some ways that you can encourage language learning and production through play: 

• Describe your actions to your child.  This will provide a match between actions and words, for example, "I'm going to make teddy clap his hands. Look, teddy is clapping!"
  
• Provide a running commentary of your child's actions, for example, "You are playing with the blocks. Now you are putting the yellow block on top of the blue block. That makes a nice tower!"
  
• Imitate what your child says, for example, if he says "car" then you can repeat it, "yes, a car!" Your child will then be more likely to say that word again.
  
• Expand your child's utterances to make them sound more adult-like. For example, if your child says "car down" you can say, "Yes, the car went down the hill." You can also add further information to their remark, for example, "The car went down the hill and through the tunnel."
  
• Break down your child's utterance and then build it back up again, for example "Yes, the car went down the hill. The hill. Down the hill. The car went down the hill."
  
• Ask your child lots of questions about what they are doing now and what they are going to do next.   
  
• Provide your child with a choice between two known toys or games and encourage him to say which one he would like to play with. This will provide your child with the motivation to communicate.
  

While your child is playing, describe what he is doing, imitate what he says and give him choices of what to play with.