Young learners means children from the
first year of formal schooling (six to seven years old) to eleven or twelve
years of age. It means that they are equal to the elementary school students of
the Indonesian schooling system. The years of elementary are extremely
important in their development which influence the way they learn English.
Therefore, the characteristics of the children are very important to describe.
In relation to this, Halliwel (1992: 3-5) clarifies the
characteristics of children;
1. Children are already very good in
interpreting meaning without necessarily understanding the individual word.
2. Children already have great skill in
using limited language creativity.
3. Children frequently learn indirectly
rather than directly.
4. Children take good pleasure in
finding and creating fun in what they do.
5. Children have a ready imagination,
children words are full of imagination and fantasy, and it is more than simply
matter of enjoyment.
Furthermore, the characteristic of
young learners mentioned by Clark (1990: 6-8):
1. Children are developing
conceptually: they develop their way of thinking from the concrete to the
abstract thing.
2. Children have no real linguistics,
different from the adult learners that already have certain purpose in learning
language, for instances, to have a better job, children rarely have such needs
in learning a foreign language. They learn subject what school provide for
them.
3. Children are still developing, they
are developing common skill such as turn talking and the use of body language.
4. Young children very egocentric, they
tend to resolve around themselves.
5.
Children
get bored easily. Children have no choice to attend school. The lack of the
choice means that class activities need to be fun interesting and exciting as
possible by setting up the interesting
activities.
In
addition, (Phillips
1993: 5,6) Phillips supposes the years at primary school as “extremely
important for children’s psychological, physical, and social development. They
go through a series of stages, progressively acquiring skills that are thought
necessary by the society they live in. Many of these skills are interdependent,
and if one has not been sufficiently developed, the acquisition of another may
be impeded.
Firstly, the physical world of young
learners is dominant. On the physical side, children at this age need to
develop balance, spatial awareness, and fine control of certain muscles in
order to play sports and perform everyday action such as coloring, drawing, and
writing. Their understanding comes through hands, eyes and ears. Furthermore,
they are capable of attaining native like a foreign. In short, as the physical
development of young learners is going on, it is better to consider activities
in the English class which involve active movement.
Secondly, socially children need to
develop a series of characteristics to enable them to fit into the society they
live in, to become aware of themselves in relation to others, to share and
cooperate, and to be assertive without being aggressive. In addition, they are
happy playing and working in the company to others. They like to have other
children around them, and sitting with others encourages cooperation.
Thirdly, on the psychological side,
young learners have short concentration span. If the concentration spans
between adults and young learners are compared, the concentration and attention
spans of young learners are shorter. They are free of prejudice, too. They like
imitating. Furthermore, they get bored easily and forgetful. They also have
high curiosity. Therefore, it is suggested to the English teachers that they
should make variety of activity, place, organization and voice as well as
repetition.
Knowing the fact that young learners
have unique characteristics, an English teacher of elementary school has to be
careful to select activities and sources which are interesting for the
learners. There are three important sources that could be interest children in
the classroom. The first, pictures, are obviously mainly a visual stimulus. The
second is both visual and audio. And the third is used as visual and audio
channels as well as activates language production and sometimes physical
movement. Because young learners learn the language without knowing the
purpose. They do not know why they have to learn it. Therefore, the materials
and the techniques must be
selected carefully and interesting for them.
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