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2. Young Learners
In this part, the researcher would describe the theories of young learners, including the definition of young learners, the cognitive development of young
learners, the learning strategies of young learners, and the teaching English to young learners.
a. The Definition of Young Learners
Acording to Suyanto 2007 young learners are the elementary students in the age of 6-12 years old. They can be categorized into two groups, namely, younger
group in which the students are in the age of 6-8 years old and older group in which the students are in the age of 9-12 years old. Based on the grade level, they also can
be put into two groups. They are lower classes and upper classes. The lower classes are including students from grade 1, 2, and 3, whereas the upper classes include
students from grade 4, 5 and 6 Suyanto, 2007. Additionally, Smith 1982: 16 also categorize into two different levels: the first three years are called the primary grade
whereas the last three years are called intermediate grade.
b. The Cognitive Development of Young Learners
The young learners of this study are about 6-8 years old. According to Piaget’s periodization of cognitive development, they are included in the concrete operational
which begins at age 7 to 11years old Clarke, 1985: 308. The term concrete deals with the fact that child can reason only about touchable objects, such as milk and
cookies. The term ‘operational’ deals with a mental activity that transforms or
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manipulates information for some purpose. It is also an integral part of an organized network of related thinking.
Faw 1980, as quotes from Marjito 1997: 20 states the characteristics of middle childhood’s cognitive development. They are as follows.
1. Concreteness: initially the world of middle childhood is still concrete. Problems
that can be solved are those that can be experienced in concrete ways 2.
Egocentrism: children in the middle childhood no longer view the world from their own unique vantage point. They have capability to realize that others
perceive the world differently. As the children become older, they may even seek out an understanding of other perspectives in order to appreciate more
fully the problems. 3.
Centration: children in the middle childhood can consider more than aspects of a problem at the same time and their attention are not dominated by the
perceptual characteristics of a stimulus array. In essence, they can look from one tree to another rather than focusing on the biggest tree. Thus, they can see
the forest as well as the individual trees. 4.
Attention to transition as well as states: an important acquisition in the cognition of middle childhood is the ability to conceptualize both the states
through which one moves in getting from one situation to another and the process that allows for those changes to take place.
5. Reversibility: the understanding of the concept of reversibility is one critical
consequence of the child’s ability to conceptualize the transition that exists
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between states as well as the states themselves. In addition, to the symbolizing the transition from state one to state two, the child can symbolically represent
the reverse transition, which returns things to their original state Marjito, 1997:20
Clarke 1985: 320 explains three important aspects in the concrete operational development. First is reversibility. It refers to a major advance of concrete
operational thinking. Children in this stage can realize that milk poured from one glass to another can be poured back again. They can perform inversion. It means that
children can recognize that the effect of one manipulation can be reversed by applying the opposite. Second, is decenter. Decentering is focusing on and
coordinating two or more dimensions for example height and width. Children at this stage recognize reciprocity – that one dimension, go beyond the narrowness of the
glass, may make up for or compensate for its other dimension, height. Third is the ability to put manipulation of objects in symbolic form. In this period, children are
able mentally to represent and remember events and objects in symbolic forms. From the quotations above, it is clearly stated that children in the middle
childhood can solve more than one problem at a time. In addition, Siegler 1991: 37 adds that although children in concrete operational have capability in solving
problems, sometimes children find difficulties in certain types of abstract reasoning. Consequently, the presence of concrete object such as picture will help them to
overcome this difficulty.
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c. The Learning Strategies of Young Learners