Teenagers and autonomy The Teenagers and out-of-class language activities

3. The Teenagers and out-of-class language activities

This sub-topic is used to understand how the eighth grade students in this study as the teenagers engage themselves in out-of-class language activities. According to Oxford Dictionary, the teenage as an adjective means: denoting a person between 13 and 19 years old while the teenager as a noun refers to a person aged between 13 and 19 years old. The teenagers in this study refer to the eighth grade students of Joannes Bosco Junior High School Yogyakarta, who were in their 13 and 14 years old. This sub-topic employs the characteristic of teenagers when dealing with out-of-class language activities. The first aspect is teenagers and autonomy, the second aspect is teenagers and Digital Natives.

a. Teenagers and autonomy

According to Anderson 2008, teenagers are ego driven. They are becoming adults and want more control over the language situation where they conduct. Their world revol ves around one question; “What does it mean to ME?”. Anderson sees a need to let teenagers have more choice and begin to take responsibility for their own engagement in language activities. Anderson points out that it should be noted here that it is very difficult to engage in or learn a second language in “a class”. Further, according to Anderson 2008, there just are not enough hours in the school year and the classroom is also very artificial and many times “wasteful” language engagement environment. He points out that to give teenagers more autonomy also means to give them more opportunity to become independent learners. Teachers should direct students to resources for language engagement outside the classroom and provide them with these opportunities. Teenagers can engage themselves in much more efficiently by themselves through input outside the classroom. Briefly, it can be said that teenagers have autonomy to do language activities outside the classroom but they also need support from their teachers. This is one character of teenagers in conducting out-of-class language activities as this study employed for. To understand better the other character of teenagers when dealing with language, it is better to employ also the way children and adult dealing with language. This study focuses on out-of-class language activities whether it is done for learning or not, therefore, the next explanation does not require specific attention to whether children, teenagers or adult doing activities for formal learning or not. This explanation focuses more on the character of children, teenagers and adults when dealing with language especially foreign language whether it is done for informal learning or not. According to Singleton 1999, there is a common misconception even among teachers that children are better at languages. In fact, Singleton points out there is no real “innateness” about language and even children have to learn the language. In general, adults are much better at the initial learning of language because of their conscious metalinguistic skills but children perform better in the later stages of language obtaining vocabulary, accent, patterning. He points out that this may be because of great plasticity and natural strategies in the young brain. Risk taking and affective factors also play a part. In any case, it can be said PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI that the apparen t “ease” by which children deal with language is because of the immense opportunity they have and also the amount of time they can spend “learning” and not from greater ability. According to Singleton, 1999, teenagers have the best of those both aspects. They still have a very flexible and still developing cognitive network, but they also have more “conscious” control of language and the ability to categorize, manipulate and test logically the language they encounter. Teenagers engage themselves in language because it is meaningful to them. Children learn and engage themselves in language because they have a natural affinity and also there is evidence of a deep need. Adults deal with languages for many intrinsic reasons and this may be a reason why they can be so good at learning languages, all things considered. Teenagers deal with a language not only for marks but because it is meaningful. Relating the rationale and purpose of language engagement is a must with teenagers. This aspect makes the way teenagers deal with language in out-of-class language activities is different with children and adults as this study employed for.

b. Teenagers and Digital Natives