Background of Study INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides the problems and the importance related to the topic of this study. It presents through the background of this study, research questions, purpose of the study, and significance of the study.

A. Background of Study

As globalization spreads, mastering English as an international language seems to be an advantage. This language can be used to break cultural and language barriers among people from all backgrounds. The popularity of English study, therefore, is widespread all over the world, including in Indonesia. Indonesian learners believe that mastering English could raise self-reliance. In turn, they would be able to compete in global markets. Therefore, it is necessary to think system of teaching and learning of English to young learners to gain an optimal result. In the other word, it has been supposed if the government take a role through their policy. Due to the fact, in Indonesia English is taught starting from secondary level. Meanwhile, in primary level, English is only taught as an extra-curricular or additional subject. There is no policy that regulated English should be taught since kindergarten or elementary school. However, the teaching and learning of English in primary school provides the students’ English language competencies in the golden age; the age that children can learn anything easily. Based on the study conducted by a team of scientists from McGill University in Canada, the optimal age to learn a second language is before the pre-puberty. 1 Rendering an English lesson to the students of primary level is an appropriate decision viewed from the fact that the students of kindergarten and elementary school have a period called golden age and they have critical period, the period that children are able to learn anything easily. In this period, their 1 Tatiana Gordon. Teaching Young Children a Second Language. London: Praeger, 2007 p. 56 brains are still flexible so that they are able to learn anything, including languages. Besides, children’s attitudes to other languages and culture are open and these attitudes help the children learn the languages. In acquiring a language, vocabulary, as one of the knowledge areas in language, plays a great role for young learners. Linse states that young learners’ vocabulary development is an important aspect of their language development. 2 As we know that young learners especially students in kindergarten have big memory to memorize everything they learn. Brown argues that children acquire authentic pronunciation while adults generally do not, since pronunciation involves the control of so many muscles. 3 In addition, as cited by Lenneberg in Najafi, critical period is a range of time with a specific onset and offset during which language is easier to be acquired. 4 According to the Critical Period Hypothesis by Lenneberg, adults no longer have the same plasticity as children that would enable them to cope with new mental activities. 5 The difficulty faced by adults to attain a native like fluency could be due to the fact that the developmental changes in the brain that affect the nature of language acquisition after the end of the critical period. Furthermore there is another problem deal with teaching English to young learners. It has been known that the requirements for the teacher to be able to teach English well at kindergarten level were seldom discussed. For this reason, the teaching of English to young learners does not accompanied with special training of kindergarten teacher and there is no standardization for English teacher who teach kindergarten in Indonesia. Moreover, there are many English teachers in kindergarten are coming from various educational background. In the other 2 Caroline Linse and David Nunan, Practical English Language Teaching: Young Learners, New York: McGraw Hill, 2005, p. 122. 3 H. Douglas Brown. Principle of Language Learning and Teaching: Fifth Edition. New York: Longman, 2007, p. 63-65. 4 Saeid Najafi and Hadi Hamidi, Critical Look at the Available Literature on the Appropriate Time to Start Approaching a Second Foreign Language, Advances in English Linguistics, 1, 2012, p. 76 – 77. 5 Javed Akhter, et. al., Comparison and Contrast between First and Second Language Learning, Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 7, 2016, p. 132. hand, department of English education is created only to provide professional teachers for the secondary level. This might become a challenge for the teachers in kindergarten. As kindergarten is the place for students to learn English for the first time, the students just learn the basic vocabulary. Vocabulary is very important to be mastered first since it is an essential means in conducting communication. Based on the reason above, the focus should be on the vocabulary in the kindergarten level. It can help them understand the basis of studying English and prepare to study English in higher level. Vocabulary is major concern in kindergarten materials because vocabulary is an essential means in conducting communication. Students who want to improve their English should master the vocabulary. Vocabulary is one of the important aspects in learning English. The mastery of it would be very helpful when one was learning foreign language having a great mastery on it; it would also facilitate him to comprehend the subject learnt in which it was in English. Vocabulary is used in any situation; it is in the form of spoken or written language. We should have an adequate vocabulary to improve the four language skills. Without grammar very little can be conveyed. Without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed. As the writer concluded that the quality of one’s language skill depends on the quality and the quantity of vocabulary mastered, the more vocabulary he mastered, the easier to develop four language skills listening, speaking, reading and writing and learn English as second language generally. Moreover, Cameron stated that vocabulary, as one of the knowledge areas in language, plays a main role for young learners when they acquiring a language. 6 Y oung learners’ vocabulary development is an important aspect of their language development. Children start learning language from their environments. They liste n and try to imitate the adult’s conversation. Uniquely, once they listen, children will repeat and find out the meaning of what you say. It shows how children learn a language naturally through their environment. 6 Lynne Cameron, Teaching Languages to Young Learners, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001, p.11. To teach vocabulary for young children is not an easy way. Teaching for students of kindergarten is not the same as teaching adult because they have different characteristics and motivation. They are different from adults, so the way of teaching must be different too. According to Scoot, there are some general characteristic of the children in the beginner level 5-10 years old; a they will tell what they heard, b they use their fantasy, c they love playing and learn best when they enjoy doing something, d they are enthusiastic and positive thinking, e they rely on the spoken as well as the physical words to convey and understanding meaning, f they learn from the direct instruction, g their own understanding comes trough eyes, hands and ears, h they have very short attention and concentration. 7 Based on the preliminary observation at TK Negeri Pembina I Tangerang Selatan, English has been taught in the B group students. For some students, English is their first foreign language, so they feel difficult in learning the English lesso n. It becomes the teacher’s job to find out the suitable methods or techniques in teaching English, especially in English vocabulary, in order the students can learn the English lesson easily and the teaching learning process will be succeed. However, they have lack amount and type of exposures to English. Their experience of the language outside the classroom is very little. They just hear and speak English in the classroom, and the time is so limited, it is about 90 minutes per week. Regarding the issue of English limited exposures, most of young EFL English as a Foreign Language learners will be very depend on explicit or direct vocabulary instructions. In direct vocabulary instructions, teachers’ role is very crucial because they introduce new vocabulary to the learners using some appropriate techniques. Techniques employed by teachers depend on some factors, such as the content, time availability, and its value for the learners. This makes teachers have some certain reasons in employing certain techniques in presenting vocabulary. 7 Wendy A. Scott and Lisbeth H. Yteberg, Teaching English to Children, London, Longman, 2000, pp. 1 –4. Departing from the discussion above, it is assumed that techniques in English teaching at primary school will affect the students’ understanding to the lesson, specifically vocabulary. Hence, this study will describe the techniques used in Teaching English to Young Learners at TKN Pembina I Tangerang Selatan. The result of this research is expected to show the present condition and provide useful information which later is expected to be a professional source for other young learner teachers.

B. Problem Identification