The Characteristics of Young Learner

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CHAPTER II REVIEW OF THE RELATED THEORIES

A. Teaching English to Children

1. The Characteristics of Young Learner

Teaching young children is hard. Before deciding to become a teacher of young children, we should fully recognize that the children are not miniature of the adults. Pinter 2006 in http:83ngko3l3n.files.wordpress.com claims that even in the same context there are often significant differences between children within the same age range. In http:83ngko3l3n.files.wordpress.com, Mustafa 2003 recommends six characteristics of children and how they learn in theoretical generalization. a. Children are always active in exploring their environments and accumulating knowledge and experiences. The environment they explore here includes physical, social, informational, and ideological. Children construct their understanding of how things work, including their language use both as a system as well as a way of communication by this exploration. It is not too much to say that children learn naturally. b. Children know a lot of literacy before schooling. For example, their knowledge about traffic signs, traffic lights, and brand names of their favorite toys and foods. c. Children tend to learn things in the form of scripts holistically. This tendency is reflected very well in childrens play such as playing: “school 9 teachers and students,” “a doctor and patients etc. Children learn best when learning is meaningful, interesting, and fun. d. The learning becomes meaningful for the children when the decision- making is related to their needs. Based on this opinion, children must be given different formats of learning activities so that they can choose based on what they think are important and useful. Children learn best when they make their own choices. Children can not be expected to sit down and do a certain activity for a long time. The children get bored easily. They will do what they want to do to make their own decision. e. Children tend to do things and relate to others in a cooperative way, unlike adults who can benefit from spirits of competition to boost up their motivation for achievement. One important implication for the context of language instruction in the classroom is that, rather than encouraging children to compete against one another, it would be more productive if they are to work collaboratively towards the achievement of shared goals. Children learn best as a community of learners in a non-competitive environment. f. Children learn best by talking and doing in a social context. By using the language for social communication in the group, children acquire the language. In the classroom context, this means that English as a foreign language should be treated as a tool for communication and the children should be encouraged to use the language for many different social purposes by talking and doing things in a social context using English. 10 Children themselves cover a wide age range. They can be anybody from the age of three to the age of ten. There is a big difference between what a five year old child can do and what a child of ten can do. Scott and Yteberg 2000: 1- 2 divide the characteristics of the children into two main groups, the first group is the five to seven year olds and the second group is the eight to ten year olds. The former has some characteristics, such as talking about what they are doing, telling you about what they have done or heard, planning activities, using logical reasoning, and understanding direct human interaction. In addition, Scott and Yteberg 2000: 3-4 give the general characteristics of the latter, such as telling the difference between facts and fictions, asking questions all the time, making some decisions about their own learning, having definite views about what they like and do not like doing. From each characteristic, we know that in foreign language classroom, the latter are more ready and have more language awareness than the former. Considering the characteristics of young learner, Scott and Ytreberg 1990: 5-6 state what should be done by an English teacher in his teaching to children as follows: 1 Words are not enough Do not rely on the spoken word only. Younger learners do activities in the form of visualization, movement, and involve the senses. 2 Play with the language Through fun activities like playing, children have great ability to absorb language. It is required for giving situation to the children to play 11 or to have experiments with language they learn, for example playing with words. 3 Variety in the classroom Since concentration and attention spans of the children are short, variety is a must variety of activity, variety of pace, variety of organization, variety of media, and etc.. The varieties in the learning activity will help the children to keep their attention to absorb the materials given. 4 Routines Children benefit from knowing the rules and being familiar with the situation. Children like something familiar with them. 5 Cooperation Most children like to have other children around them, and sitting with others encourages cooperation. Based on the explanation above, teaching young learners differs from adult. It requires the knowledge of knowing all the development differences. Consequently, teaching them requires different methods. Understanding the development differences can help the teacher to develop method and a system of work that he or she will use in the process of teaching. The teacher should know and be aware of some characteristics in order to choose the best technique and media in helping the children to learn. 12

2. Teaching English at Elementary School Students