The Characteristics of The Children

world around them as they are centre on the here and now and on the functional purpose of language Brown, 2001: 88. It means that presenting abstract notions should be avoided for children. They will not work well. As a result they will feel bored. 2 Attention span According to Brown 2001: 88, short attention span occurs when children have to deal with materials that are boring, useless and too difficult to them. To keep the children’s attention, activities should be designed to capture their immediate interest. 3 Sensory input The developed activities for children should cover the visual and auditory modes. Since children need to have all five senses stimulated physical activities like role plays, TPR, projects and games should be included. Those kinds of activities and sensory aids help children practice meaningful language and internalize the language Brown, 2001: 89. 4 Affective factors According to Brown 2001: 89 children still have many inhibitions in learning English even though they are often innovative in language form. It can make them reluctant to use the language in communication. 5 Authentic, meaningful language Brown 2011: 90 states that children are focused on the real purpose of the language for the here and now, so they are less willing to deal with language that is not useful. Storylines, real-life conversation familiar situation and characters will create a context in which language can be used to improve children’s attention. Slattery Willis 2008:12 suggest some tips in helping children learn a new language. The tips can be seen as follows: a. Use English in class as the main of language communication.

b. Use gestures, actions, and pictures to help the children understand.

c. Children often need to talk in order to learn –let children use their own mother tongue for communication especially to start with.

d. Recast in English what children say to you in their mother tongue.

e. Answer children in English as much as possible. f. Use their mother tongue for support when you do a new activity or if no one understands. g. Talk a lot in English to your pupils- they need to hear English. Talk about - where things are. - pictures or things children can see. - what you and your pupils are doing in class. - what you want your pupils to do next. As stated in the beginning of this chapter, children in kindergarten are unique learners. Other experts also mention some characteristics of children for example Brewster and Ellis 2003:27. They state that children and adult have different learning style. Some of the characteristics of children are: a. Children have a lot of physical energy and often need to be physically active. It means that they have extra energy to move and play around with their body movement. Adult may never guest that children have another power to do many activities. b. Children are having a wide range of emotional needs. Children are sensitive. They can change quickly the emotional based on the situation so be careful to face the children. They may laugh and the cry in second. c. Children are very emotionally excitable. They are interested in something new that they never knew. For example the new activities they never do. d. Children are developing conceptually and at an early stage of their schooling. They develop their thinking about the concept of how they learn to school at very early. e. Children are still developing literacy in their first language. They develop the information of literature usually in their first language. Based on the characteristics mentioned by the experts above, the conclusion is that the teacher should focus on the technique of teaching that involve children