English as a foreign language is not only by the teaching the linguistic aspect but also by revealing the real expressions or conditions.
b. Children’s Creative Use of Limited Language Resources
According to Haliwell 1992: 4, children not only have the ability to grasp the meaning of unknown words but they also have creativity of concepts.
They are creative with grammatical forms. This phenomenon is fundamental to language development. Hence, in order to make the most of the creative language
skill the children bring with them, teachers must be creative to stimulate them. It can be done by giving them a certain occasions in a form of games. That is why
games are so useful and so important. It is not just because they are fun. Haliwell states “games are partly because the fun element creates a desire to communicate
and partly because games can create unpredictability” 1992: 5. It means that when the children or the students have to get on with the games, they might make
some mistakes. However, there are good reasons why teachers must allow the students opportunities to make mistakes. The teachers’ roles deal with this
problem are observing their students while they are doing the games and making some corrections if they make mistakes.
c. Children’s Capacity for Indirect Learning
According to Haliwell 1992: 5, even when teachers are controlling an activity fairly closely, children sometimes seem notice something out of the
corner of their eye and to remember it better than what they were actually supposed to be learning. It means that students like to guess what phrase or words
someone has thought. Haliwell 1992: 5 states “guessing is actually a very
powerful way of learning phrases and structures, but it is indirect because the mind is engaged with the task and is not focusing on the language.
d. Children’s Instinct for Play and Fun
Haliwell 1992: 6 states “children have an enormous capacity for finding and making fun”. Teachers must understand that children still have a natural
instinct of play and fun. This fact makes teachers to be more creative in teaching their students. It can be done by providing some materials and activities which can
build children’s interest such as conducting games. By doing a game, students might not feel that they are studying; even they might think that they are playing.
Moreover, by activating students’ kinesthetic ability, hopefully they will be more interested to learn English.
e. The Role of Imagination
Besides the instinct of finding and making fun, Haliwell 1992: 7 also states that children delight in imagination and fantasy. It means that teachers
should understand and accept the imagination in children’s mind since it can provide another powerful stimulus for the children. Teachers should stimulate the
children’s creative imagination so that they want to use the language to share their ideas.
f. The Instinct for Interaction and Talk
According to Haliwell 1992: 8, children’s capability to interact and talk is one of the most powerful motivators to use the language. It means that the
effective way of learning a language is by practicing it. It is important for children or students to learn English by building their ability in socializing and interacting
in their environment. Thus, the task of teachers is providing a practical activity which encourages them to have an interaction with others and gives them
opportunities to use the language.
B. Theoretical Framework
Teaching English as a foreign language to children has its own difficulties. The difficulties are mostly in choosing the appropriate way of teaching-learning
with suitable activities for the students so that the students will feel more interested in learning English. In fact, Indonesian people have been conditioned to
believe that someone has to reach a high score in academic field in order to be a successful person in society. They often think that someone who has high IQ will
get a successful life in the future. Thus, this point of view often results in frustration or academic failure for the students who are not good at linguistic or
logical-mathematical competence. According to Leksono as cited in Kompas, 2007, people who have high IQ are successful in their study but not success in
their career. Nowadays, the use of IQ as a base of a success is broken by a new theory
called Multiple Intelligences proposed by Howard Gardner. He states that each child is unique. If the child is not good as one thing, he or she might be good at
another thing. In this study, the writer implemented the Multiple Intelligences theory through a set of integrated materials to teach English to the fifth grade
students. Richard and Rogers 2001: 117 claims that “language is not seen as a limited to a ‘linguistic’ perspective but encompasses all aspect of
