Objective of the Research Significance of the Research
children, teachers have to be aware about their young learners’ characteristics, so
they can threat them appropriately. b.
Teaching children Linse 2005:2 states that teachers of young learners should provide the
care necessary to m eet children’s basic physical and psychological needs so that
they can thrive and focus on learning. Brewster, Ellis and Girard 2002:40 point out that teachers also need to create a balance in their classroom between
providing support and providing challenge. If all language work is over-guided then it becomes too east, safe or repetitive. Similarly, if all work is challenging,
too difficult and threatening, children become demotivated. Therefore, teachers have to fulfill their needs by being aware of their physical and psychological
development. By being aware of what children can and can’t do developmentally, teachers are better able to provide appropriate learning experiences for their young
learners. Linse, 2005:3 Teaching a foreign language to children should be different from teaching
adult because they learn language with different goals and ways. They are still think freely and do not have certain goals in learning foreign language. They are
motivated to learn for something they are interested in. As their developmental age, they are interested in the activities that need physical movements. They are
so enthusiastic if they do activities that they like but get bored easily if they do not. They are also easily distracted to their environment. Therefore, it needs a
special environment and attention in which all of them can go in line together to encourage their learning.
However, both teaching young learners and very young learners are not precisely the same. Very young learners will still operate in a very egocentric
way, where they find it difficult to consider others’ needs, tend not to cooperate with others as effectively as older children and can become easily frustrated if
their needs are not met Brewster, Ellis and Girard 2002:28. Therefore, Slattery and Willis 2003:18 suggest teaching tips for teachers of very young learners:
1 Introduce English slowly with enjoyable activities.
2 Support what teachers say with gestures, actions, movements, and facial
expression. 3
Help the children feel secure by repeating familiar activities, e.g. songs and rhymes.
4 Repeat in English what children say in their mother tongue.
5 Use a puppet to talk to in English.
6 Use drawings and photos.
7 Tell lots of stories using pictures for support.
From the statements about teaching children especially very young learners, it can be concluded that teachers need to provide an appropriate
treatment to teach them by considering their ages and stages of developments. To help them acquire English as foreign language, teachers have to provide
appropriate materials and use scaffolding to support their learning so that they can accomplish the tasks they could not do by their own.
c. Theme-based language teaching
It is considered that teaching which is integrated around a theme suits the way children naturally learn Cameron, 2001. The theme integrated in the
teaching approach is commonly called theme-based teaching. It is one of the approaches within the broader model of content-based instruction in which the
emphasis is on exposin g students to a “highly contextualized” second language
environment by using the subject matter as the content of language learning Wesche Skehan, 2002:220. It is an approach to language teaching in which
the whole course is structured around certain themes or topics. Brinton, 2001. Cameron 2001 believes that new vocabulary items can be learned easily,
with the theme providing a meaningful context for understanding, and for the natural use of a wide range of discourse types, both written and spoken.
Moreover, Cameron 2005:180 states that in theme-based teaching many different activities are linked together by their content; the theme or topic runs
through everything that happens in the classroom and acts as a connecting thread for pupils and teachers. Freeman and Freeman 2006:64 also suggest that when
the content of the lesson is relevant and interesting, students are more likely to try harder to understand and to stay focused.
In addition, children can be encouraged in learning English if they find their learning activities are interesting that finally make them become more
interesting in English. In conclusion, theme-based teaching brings the children to learn English naturally in meaningful context that increase children’s motivation
in learning.