that the apparen t “ease” by which children deal with language is because of the
immense opportunity they have and also the amount of time they can spend “learning” and not from greater ability.
According to Singleton, 1999, teenagers have the best of those both aspects. They still have a very flexible and still developing cognitive network, but
they also have more “conscious” control of language and the ability to categorize, manipulate and test logically the language they encounter. Teenagers engage
themselves in language because it is meaningful to them. Children learn and engage themselves in language because they have a natural affinity and also there
is evidence of a deep need. Adults deal with languages for many intrinsic reasons and this may be a reason why they can be so good at learning languages, all
things considered. Teenagers deal with a language not only for marks but because it is meaningful. Relating the rationale and purpose of language engagement is a
must with teenagers. This aspect makes the way teenagers deal with language in out-of-class language activities is different with children and adults as this study
employed for.
b. Teenagers and Digital Natives
The other aspect that relates to this study is employing the teenagers as digital generation nowadays. This aspect is important because this study
employed some teenagers out-of-class language activities which were done by using gadget. According to Prensky 2001, recently, a good deal of attention has
been paid to teenagers as digital learners or as in his paper labeled it, “Digital
Natives”. Digital Natives means a person born or brought up during the age of digital technology and therefore familiar with computers and the internet from an
early age. This study was conducted for eighth grade students as digital natives, therefore, it is better to employ the aspect how the students as digital natives deal
with language in out-of-class language activities using their digital gadget. Prensky 2001, points out that teenagers learn differently, they have
hypertext minds. They do not learn in a linear model anymore. Images are the driving force of learning and text supports. He points out that experience in
dealing with gadget teach es and changes or “trains” teenagers‟ brain as they spend
hours upon hours using computers, watching the video, text messaging. This too often is not considered by the language teacher. According to him, in the context
of classroom language learning, teenagers crave “the new” and “the now”.
Content should be up to date and authentic materials promoted. Further, teachers should give students more opportunity to produce materials in their classrooms
and thus “ensure” current content.
Prensky 2001, p. 3 elaborates that children and teenagers nowadays grow with the computer and they think differently from the rest of us. They develop
hypertext minds and their cognitive structures were parallel, not sequential. He states that it is better to understand how the teenagers use their brain, learn the
language and engage themselves in a new language. They crave rich and multimodal content. An adult might not like all the sensory input that a teenager
would. It can be said that the way how teenagers train their brain by using PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
computer and internet in their daily live affect the way how they choose the kinds of out-of-class language activities.
In other words, teenagers are different. They are neither children nor the adults. They bring to the classroom the language engagement situation in a
unique set of cognitive, emotional, social factors which is different from children and adults. They spend the time to engage in language activities outside the
classroom in a unique way also. They do the language activities differently. In so many ways, teenagers are the same like all learners. They respond to different
forms of motivation, they take in language and try to make sense of it, they struggle with pronunciation and remembering vocabulary. However, there are still
some important differences mostly in the affective aspect that need to be highlighted as this study employed for.
4. The Previous Studies on out-of-class English Language Activities
