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improve students’ attention and retention. Exposing the children with pictures, dialog or conversation which they can easily found in the house or school will be
meaningful for them Halliwell, 1992: 15. Finally, teacher should not broken the language into too many parts because the students will not understand the
relationship. Stressing the interrelationship among various skills is very important so that the students are aware of the connection.
Seeing the characteristic of the children, teaching methods and techniques are very important especially to maintain their attention and to provide authentic
and meaningful language. The followings are the techniques which can be employed to improve the students’ grammar and pronunciation accuracy without
neglecting their characteristics as learners.
2. Techniques to Improve Accuracy
The characteristic of young learners require suitable teaching techniques so that improvement of the students’ grammar and pronunciation accuracy could
be attained. The elaborations above suggest that techniques to teach young learners should be various in activities and practical in delivery to maintain the
students’ interest and attention. The followings are techniques which are possible to be employed to teach young children.
a. Dialog Memorization
According to Larsen-Freeman 2000: 47, the students are required to memorize a dialog in the dialog memorization. The students memorize the dialog
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through mimicry based on a dialog provided by the teacher. After the students finished memorizing the dialog, they take turn with the teacher to practice the
dialog. Teacher can also give opportunities for students to practice the dialog in pair. Finally, they can perform the dialog they have memorized in front of the
class.
b. Repetition drill
Larsen-Freeman 2000: 47 explains that students are asked to repeat the teachers model as accurately and as quickly as possible. In addition, she explains
that this drill is often used to teach the lines of the dialog. Similarly, Richards and Rodgers 2001: 60 adds that utterances must be brief enough to be retained by the
ear. Sound is as important as form and order.
c. Chain drill
Larsen-Freeman 2000: 48 explains that a chain drill gets its name from the chain of conversation that forms around the room as students, one-by-one, ask
and answer questions of each other. The teacher begins the chain by greeting a particular student, or asking him a question. That student responds, then turns to
the student sitting next to him. The first student greets or asks a question of the second student and the chain continues. A chain drill allows some controlled
communication, even though it is limited. However, in practice a chain drill also gives the teacher an opportunity to check each students speech because every
student will have opportunity to speak. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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d. Single-Slot Substitution Drill
According to Larsen-Freeman 2000: 48, the students are required to substitute a part of a sentence with a cue provided by the teacher. The students can
substitute a subject, a be-verb, a verb or an object in a sentence. The major purpose of this technique is to practice students’ skill to find and to fill in the slots
of a sentence.
e. Multiple-Slot Substitution Drill