The Definition of Young Learners The Cognitive Development of Young Learners

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2. Young Learners

In this part, the researcher would describe the theories of young learners, including the definition of young learners, the cognitive development of young learners, the learning strategies of young learners, and the teaching English to young learners.

a. The Definition of Young Learners

Acording to Suyanto 2007 young learners are the elementary students in the age of 6-12 years old. They can be categorized into two groups, namely, younger group in which the students are in the age of 6-8 years old and older group in which the students are in the age of 9-12 years old. Based on the grade level, they also can be put into two groups. They are lower classes and upper classes. The lower classes are including students from grade 1, 2, and 3, whereas the upper classes include students from grade 4, 5 and 6 Suyanto, 2007. Additionally, Smith 1982: 16 also categorize into two different levels: the first three years are called the primary grade whereas the last three years are called intermediate grade.

b. The Cognitive Development of Young Learners

The young learners of this study are about 6-8 years old. According to Piaget’s periodization of cognitive development, they are included in the concrete operational which begins at age 7 to 11years old Clarke, 1985: 308. The term concrete deals with the fact that child can reason only about touchable objects, such as milk and cookies. The term ‘operational’ deals with a mental activity that transforms or 14 manipulates information for some purpose. It is also an integral part of an organized network of related thinking. Faw 1980, as quotes from Marjito 1997: 20 states the characteristics of middle childhood’s cognitive development. They are as follows. 1. Concreteness: initially the world of middle childhood is still concrete. Problems that can be solved are those that can be experienced in concrete ways 2. Egocentrism: children in the middle childhood no longer view the world from their own unique vantage point. They have capability to realize that others perceive the world differently. As the children become older, they may even seek out an understanding of other perspectives in order to appreciate more fully the problems. 3. Centration: children in the middle childhood can consider more than aspects of a problem at the same time and their attention are not dominated by the perceptual characteristics of a stimulus array. In essence, they can look from one tree to another rather than focusing on the biggest tree. Thus, they can see the forest as well as the individual trees. 4. Attention to transition as well as states: an important acquisition in the cognition of middle childhood is the ability to conceptualize both the states through which one moves in getting from one situation to another and the process that allows for those changes to take place. 5. Reversibility: the understanding of the concept of reversibility is one critical consequence of the child’s ability to conceptualize the transition that exists 15 between states as well as the states themselves. In addition, to the symbolizing the transition from state one to state two, the child can symbolically represent the reverse transition, which returns things to their original state Marjito, 1997:20 Clarke 1985: 320 explains three important aspects in the concrete operational development. First is reversibility. It refers to a major advance of concrete operational thinking. Children in this stage can realize that milk poured from one glass to another can be poured back again. They can perform inversion. It means that children can recognize that the effect of one manipulation can be reversed by applying the opposite. Second, is decenter. Decentering is focusing on and coordinating two or more dimensions for example height and width. Children at this stage recognize reciprocity – that one dimension, go beyond the narrowness of the glass, may make up for or compensate for its other dimension, height. Third is the ability to put manipulation of objects in symbolic form. In this period, children are able mentally to represent and remember events and objects in symbolic forms. From the quotations above, it is clearly stated that children in the middle childhood can solve more than one problem at a time. In addition, Siegler 1991: 37 adds that although children in concrete operational have capability in solving problems, sometimes children find difficulties in certain types of abstract reasoning. Consequently, the presence of concrete object such as picture will help them to overcome this difficulty. 16

c. The Learning Strategies of Young Learners