Children have their own characteristics in learning a language. It is important for the English teachers of Elementary school to know the children’s
principles in learning a language. Those principles will help the teacher in creating pleasant and enjoyable teaching learning activities.
2.1.3.3 The Principle for Teaching English to Children
The way of teaching children in elementary school is different from adult’s way. Brewster 2004: 39 explains the ten principles for teaching young
learners. The principle s may give direction and guidance to teach language to children effectively.
Here are the ten principles of teaching young learners: 1 Starting where the child is
Children in the classroom have experience of life, knowledge about their world and at least one language. The teaching material and activities should relate
to their world and experience. 2 Encouraging social interaction
Brewster states “learning is an interactive process” which involves both teacher and students in sending and transmitting the message. Primarily, children
are active participants in the classroom. Therefore, the teacher should encourage students to interact with others, as language is a means of social interaction.
3 Supporting negotiation of meaning and collaborative talk early The teacher provides the chance for the students to exchange their ideas or
opinions to train the students in negotiating meaning and collaborative talk. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
4 Allowing the children to be active The teacher guides the students to be active in learning process by giving
challenging materials and asking them to take a risk in learning. The teacher should allow the children to encounter challenges and risks. The challenges and
taking the risks will train students to become independent, motivated, and succeed to progress.
5 Pitching input within the zone of proximal development It is explained before that the children need to encounter challenges and to
take risks in their language learning. The teacher can give the children language input beyond their linguistic level to give them opportunity for challenges and
risks. The challenges and risks can be led to the successful learning. 6 Introducing language at discourse level
Children obtain pleasure when studying a new language through stories, songs, and play. Those are examples of activities to introduce language at
discourse level. Those are examples of how learners can be exposed to comprehensible, meaningful language at discourse level.
7 Planning meaningful and purposeful activities within a clear familiar context The teacher should tell the students the purposes of doing an activity.
Therefore, they know what activities that can support and foster themselves to be more independent. This can be done by introducing pair work and group work, the
use of dictio naries and reference materials. The familiar context will enable teacher and learners to do meaningful activities.
8 Help ing learners to become more independent and autonomous PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
In teaching learning process, the teacher is required to facilitate the students all the time by giving them chances to study by themselves. This will
make the students more independent. 9 Developing a supportive, non-threatening, enjoyable learning environment
The teacher should create comfortable learning atmosphere in the class to support the learning activities. The enjoyable environment can be created by
valuing all learners as individuals, supporting challenges and risks, working on relevant and interesting topics, doing meaningful and purposeful activities and
also discipline. 10 Testing and assessing in the way that we teach
The teacher conducts the test and assessment to know the development of students’ ability and the progress they make in their learning.
2.1.4 Elementary School Students
