Teaching English to Children

2 Attention span Children have a short attention span. It means that they have limited duration when dealing with learning activities. The duration can be lengthened when the activity is interesting and fun to them. 3 Sensory input Children need to have five senses stimulated. In relation this, the teachers need to design activities to achieve the optimum results of teaching and learning process. 4 Affective factors Children are often innovative in language forms but still have a great many inhibitions. However, children are much more fragile than adults. Their egos are still being shaped, and therefore the slightest nuances of communications can be negatively interpreted. The teachers need to help them to overcome such potential barriers to learning. The teachers also should generate children confidents and self-esteems, and should make them ignore anything which can interrupt their minds when learning language and doing activities in the language lesson. 5 Authentic, meaningful language Children are focused on immediate needs. It means that they have much concern with something ‘here and now’. That is why teachers need to provide the children with language that is relatively tangible to the children. Teachers should avoid presenting language without context in isolated forms. Based on the principles, there are some considerations for the teachers before conducting the teaching and learning process. The first is the children should be given familiar topics. Kindergarten children will easily learn something that is familiar with them. The second, it is important to give interesting and various activities. The consideration is that kindergarten children are children that bored quickly because they have a short attention span. Stern 1970: 57-58 cite in Brown 2000: 50-51 proposes second language teaching method or procedure on the basis of first language acquisition. a In language teaching, we must practice again and again. Child repeats things over and over again. During the language learning stage he practices all the time. This is what we must also do when we learn a foreign language. b Language learning is mainly a matter of imitation. Teacher must be a mimic. Just like a small child, he imitates everything. c First we practice separate sounds, then words, then sentences. That is the natural order and is therefore right for learning a foreign language. Watch a small child’s speech development. d A small child listens and speaks and no one would dream of making him read or write. Reading and writing are advances stages of language development. e Teacher does not have to translate. f A small child simply uses language. He does not learn formal grammar. It is unnecessary to use grammatical conceptualization in teaching a foreign language. g Teacher should define the appropriate materials for children the understanding of children characteristics is also needed to obtain the language learning purposes. Grammatical items are some language elements which should be approached carefully and with extreme caution Scott and Ytreberg, 1990: 6. Teacher cannot directly bring the grammar rules into the class but introduce them the children in certain times such as when student asks for an explanation and when correcting written work. Materials consisting of contextual tasks and activities are needed because children seem to talk about what they already know and about information surround them Aitchison 2003: 135. Further, teacher needs to plan activities which are requiring children to get them body moved, to provide interesting media, and to give modeling action to student 1 the language learning Scott and Ytreberg, 1990: 5. Moreover, by dealing with the situation around them, children practice and increase their abilities to solve problems by themselves Paul 2003: 172. According to Brown 2000: 88-89 language lessons can at times be difficult for children; the teacher has to make them interesting lively, and fun. He notes that the teacher can do the following advice. 1. Because children are focused on the immediate here and now, activities should be designed to capture their immediate interest. 2. A lesson needs a variety of activities to keep interest and attention alive. 3. A teacher needs to be animated, lively, and enthusiastic about the subject matter. Consider the classroom a stage on which you are the lead actor, your energy will be infections. While you may think that you are overdoing it, children need this exaggeration to keep spirits buoyed and minds alert. 4. A sense of humor will go a long way to keep children laughing and learning. Since children’s humor is quite different from adults, remember to put yourself in their shoes. 5. Children have a lot natural curiosity. Make sure that you tap into that curiosity whenever possible, and you will thereby help to maintain attention and focus.

3. Learning Materials Design

a. Learning Materials

There are some points of view in relation with ‘materials’ and ‘materials design’. Tomlinson 1998: 2 states that ‘material’ refers to anything which is used by teachers or learners to facilitate the learning of language. It can be in the form of textbook, cassettes, videos, dictionaries, newspapers, etc. He also states that ‘material development’ refers to anything, which is done by the writers, teachers or learners to provide a source of language input and to exploit those sources, which maximize the possibility of intake experience of the language. In other words, they can be anything, which is deliberately used to increase the learners’ knowledge andor experience of the language. The materials should be interesting, using many kinds of media and activities so that the children will be motivated and interested in the teaching learning process. There are materials those can be used to teach English for children. Paul 2003 explains three kinds of materials. They are course book, worksheets, and workbooks. The first materials are course book. He said that the course books should be fun and colorful. The second materials are worksheets. The worksheets can be used for practicing any four skills; listening, speaking, reading, or writing. The third materials are workbooks. The workbooks are also usually supplied ready-mad by the publisher of the course book. Furthermore, Brewster.et.al 2003, state that the teachers can produce their own materials. The worksheets can be exercises and activities which are drawn, written, or word processed and photocopied. They also explain the worksheets should be clear, simple, and attractive. The instructions are in the children’s own language. Tomlinson 1998: 7 also states that there are some criteria for good learning materials. Materials should achieve impact, materials should help learners to feel at ease, materials should help learners to develop confidence, what is being taught should be perceived by learners as relevant and useful, materials should require and facilitate learner self-investment, learners must be ready to acquire the points being taught, materials should expose the learners to language in authentic use, the learners’ attention should be drawn to linguistics features of the input, materials should provide the learners with opportunities to use the target language to achieve communicative purposes, materials should take into account that positive effects of instruction are usually delayed, materials should take into account that learners differ in affective attitudes, materials should permit a silent period at the beginning intellectual, aesthetic, and emotional involvement which