15 The object of the research is the students of elementary school. Therefore,
‘young learners’ mentioned in this research is the ones which refer to children of their end of first year of formal school that is when they are 7-12 years old. In
Piaget’s theory, it is in the stage of between the concrete operational and formal operational stage. The character of this age young learner can be summed up as:
first, ready to use logical and systematic manipulation of symbols which related to concrete objects. Second, begin to think less egocentrically with increasing
awareness of external events. Third, start to involve concrete references, and fourth, they start to be able to think about cause and effect. Another theory is from
Mc Kay’s which defines it as a period in which children begin to develop: first, their ability to ‘manipulate’ thoughts and ideas. Second, develop their use of
language to the ability of predicting, hypothesizing, and classifying. Third, develop their understanding of cause and effect and fourth, their understanding
and ability to talk about recent events, plans for the future and career aspirations.
b. Social and Emotional Growth
Children also are growing socially and emotionally as they enter formal school. Mc Kay 2006: 8 states that as children enter formal school, they
gradually develop from a main interest in self towards greater social awareness and understanding of the self in relation to others and ability to function in groups.
Their need for love, security, recognition and belonging gradually shifts from dependence on adults to peer group support and approval.
When children are 5 to 12 years of age, socially, they gain in confidence and reduce dependency. During their school time, their contact with peers expands
16 greatly. They learn to interact with peers, to deal with hospitality and dominance,
to learn to be leader so as to lead others, to deal with social problem and to develop a concept of self.
At the age between 5 and 7, children develop their ability to take part in small group task by which they learn to cooperate and share and take turns with
others. At this period, they might start to develop feelings of independence but they still feel anxious when separated from familiar people or places.
When children are around 11 years of age, they have become sociable and like to spend time with friends of the same sex and their ability to work and play
with other keep developing. They appear relatively calm, with short-lived moments of anger, sadness or depression. They often are able to hide feeling of
their anxiety that they behave and act over confident. At this period, they are defining themselves in terms of their physical characteristics and their likes and
dislikes. They are sensitive to criticism and their feeling of success or failure is dependent on how adults and peers respond to them.
Children of the age 5 to 12 years are in a sensitive and unstable emotional condition, therefore the assessment or test should be familiar and use texts of
familiar content, such as home and family, school, and simple genre like children’s stories and folktales Mc Kay, 2006: 10.
c. Physical Growth
