Essential Principles of Good Learning Materials for Children

18 The second, we can easily observe in our environment that in their own child-like ways- children of today participate in literate activates in a wider social context. Childrens knowledge about literacy artifacts in their environment such as traffic signs, traffic lights, and brand names of their favorite toys and foods represents and emergent literacy. Children know a lot of literacy before schooling The third, unlike adults who can learn very comfortable from parts to whole such as arranging words to form a sentence and putting sentences into a program, children tend to learn things holistically, in the form of scripts. This tendency is reflected very well in childrens play such as playing: “school teachers and students,” “a doctor and patients etc. Children learn best when learning is kept whole, meaningful, interesting, and function. The fourth, when the decision-making is related to their needs the learning becomes meaningful for the children. Given this thinking, children must be given different formats of learning activities so that they can choose based on what they think are important and useful. Children learn best when they make their own choices. Children can not be expected to sit down and do a certain activity for a long time. The children get bored easily, and they will do what they want to do, they make their own decision. The fifth, Children tend to do things and relate to others in a cooperative way unlike adults who can benefit from spirits of competition to boost up their motivation for achievement. One important implication for the context of language instruction in the classroom is that, rather than encouraging children to compete against one another, it would be more productive if they are to work collaboratively towards the achievement of shared goals. Children learn best as a community of learners in a non-competitive environment. The last, children learn best by talking and doing in a social context. By using the language for social communication in the group, children acquire the language. In the classroom context, this means that English as a foreign language should be treated as a stool for communication and the children should be encouraged to use the language for many different social purposes by talking and dosing things in a social context using English. Based on the explanation above, children differ from adult in many ways. Consequently, teaching them requires different approach. The above facts about children have to be accommodated accordingly and activities in class should be in line with these facts. Therefore teachers need to incorporate a variety of activities into the classroom to ensure that everybody’s preferences are catered. The teachers may also use their best judgment in deciding about the most suitable materials and techniques to fit their learners of different ages in different context.

C. Essential Principles of Good Learning Materials for Children

By knowing the characteristics of children and how they learn, the teachers may know how to treat and teach them English in the classroom. It can also lead the teachers to select the materials which are appropriate to the ways children acquire the foreign language. In selecting the materials for children, there are some principles that the teachers have to take into account: o The material should be fun and motivating. o The material should be relevant in which refers to “the features’ that the children have in their mind and should have been experienced by them. 19 o The material should be functional which indicates meaningful, relates to their needs and personal interest. o The material should be explorative, containing many aspects, element to be exposed. o The material should be accessible in which it is understandable easily. o The material should have no grammatical mistakes. Referring to children who are easy to memorize and imitate. o The material should have physical content that can be acted out. o The material should be not too long or too short which is to accommodate the children’s short span of attention. o If it is a text, the material have enough space, the letters should be readable the size of letters o The material should have less distracter that might make them confused. o If it contains a pictures, it should not be too well-formed of illustration which might make them move their attention. Building on the basic principles of selecting materials above, Mustafa 2003 proposes some ideas about how to engage young learners in indirect learning or acquiring English by way of non conventional technique. The ideas include the use of stories, games, TPR techniques, song, repeated shared readings using big books Language Experience Activities LEA, and sociodramatic play role play, and other techniques media.

D. Essential Principles of How to Facilitate Children Learning a Foreign Language