Young Learners Definition

To define what young learner is, it is related to the word “childhood”. According to Violetta & Irene, the world “childhood” varies to country to country. In many parts ot the word kids take on “adult” responsibilities at ages when in other countries they are still protected within their school. Therefore, the age plays important role to define the young learner starting from becoming young learner to the end phase of young learner. A theory of language acquisition about learning language stated that learning language will become natural and easy if the age of children is young, early is better. As the result that Violetta & Irrene summarize about early start with the following: the sooner the better, meaning children should start at a young age learning a second language in order to benefit from the procedure and acquire as much as possible from the foreign language. 


How about the end of young learner’s age? According to Cameron, young learner is being learner aged between five and twelve years old, so the young learner’s age is in elementary school. while this is not universally applicable, it may be applicable in some regions but the others not, for example: in Indonesia and Korea (Jackons:2012 about teaching young learners in Korea: Adapting and Material to meet their needs article) is work. Most of Indonesian Young learners do finish elementary school education at age of twelve. Moreover, in Indonesia the learners generally learn English in the fourth grade for public school and in the first grade for private school , and there is issue that the subject will be removed from elementary curriculum. However, Nowadays,the learners still learn English. 


From the Violetta & irrene and  Cameron statements, there is the deep differences between young learners’ definition especially, starting  age of young learner, I do agree that to learn language is the sooner the better based in Violltta & Irrene. However, learner can be separated from “school word”. It means they start study or learn in school. Eventually, everything backs to school.  
see the next article about  

1. Young Learners' Characteristics
2. The Role of Teacher Talk for Young Learner in The Classroom 
3. Characteristics of Teacher for young learners
4. Challenges in Teaching English to Young Learner

References 
Teaching Language to Young Learners Book 
Young Learners: How Advantageous is the early start? Journal Download PDF