Definition of young learners in primary school

Table 2.1 Characteristic of Young Children in Primary School Adopted from Brewster, Ellis, and Girard, 2002:27-28 Physical Characteristic Emotional Characteristic Developmental Characteristic Have a lot of physical energy Get bored easily Learning more slowly and forget things easily Tends to be active and restless Short attention span Capable of realistic thought Very enthusiastic about almost everything Still developing numeracy and literacy in their first language and still learning to master complex grammatical expression Can be easily distracted Need opportunities to be encouraged to question and work things out. Have many emotional needs, such as developing self-esteem and confidence in learning Still quite egocentric Need to have other children to share and play Have unstable emotions Basically, understanding all characteristics above can help the English teachers in teaching the young children more effectively. However, there are some particular characteristics of the young children which are useful in learning language in this case, learning English language. The characteristics of young children which can support them as language learners are proposed by many researchers Slattery and Willis, 2001:4; Brewster, Ellis, and Girard, 2002:162, 172; Phillips, 2003:34, 68; Moon, 2000:4-9; and Cameron, 2001:1. Referring to the theories by some researchers above, some characteristics of young children that can support them in language learning are presented in Table 2.2. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI Table 2.2 Characteristics of Young Children as Language Learners No. Characteristics of Young Children as Language Learners 1 By nature, young children like to have fun and enjoying constructive play and games. 2 Young children can imitate the sounds they hear quite accurately. 3 Young children like songs, rhythm, and chants. 4 Young children are naturally curious, enthusiastic, and lively learners. 5 Young children have short attention span. 6 Young children consider their teachers as role models. 7 Young children are less hesitant in learning new language. 8 Young children tends to use their mother tongue to help them in learning new language. 9 Young children go for meaning rather than form in understanding new language. 10 Young children are comfortable with routines and enjoy repetition.

c. Principles of teaching English to young learners in primary schools

As widely discussed in previous parts, English is still a foreign language in Indonesia since it is not widely used in the society. Related to its status in Indonesia, English is learned as the second language by the young learners. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge the theories of language acquisition to help us in understanding better about the process of young learners in acquiring English. The theories that will be discussed include the behaviourist theories, innatist theories, and interactionist theories. These three theories are actually the basic theories of first language acquisition but then these theories are also relevant with second language acquisition since first language acquisition is widely used as the ideal model how the second language might be taught. The first theory is known as behaviourist theory. This theory stated that the first language is learnt by children through stimulus, response, and reinforcement,