Young learners' Characteristics

Children are unique learners and they can easily imitate something for example a language. To know a language, they need an environment surrounded by targeted language that is meaningful because of the context and because of the way the teacher speak to them. As a language teacher, it is better that before teaching young learner, teachers should know the young learners’ characteristics in order to give ease to understand them. The characteristics cover their ways of thinking, their attitude, their aptitude, learning language, et cetera.

Here some researchers give their ideas as below                                                                                   1.    Brumfit (1997: v) gives a list of the characteristics which young learners share:

a.      Young learners are only just beginning their schooling, so that teachers have a major opportunity to mold their expectations of life in school.

b.      As a group they are potentially more differentiated than secondary or adult learners, for they are closer to their varied home cultures, and new to the conformity increasingly imposed across cultural grouping by the school.

c.        They tend to be keen and enthusiastic learners,

d.      Their learning can be closely linked with their development of ideas and concepts, because it is so close to their initial experiences of formal schooling.

e.       They need physical movement and activity as much as stimulation for their thinking, and the closer together these can be the better.

2.      Halliwel (1992: 3-5) clarifies the characteristics of children; 

a.      Children are already very good in interpreting meaning without necessarily understanding the individual word.

b.      Children already have great skill in using limited language creativity.

c.       Children frequently learn indirectly rather than directly.

d.      Children take good pleasure in finding and creating fun in what they do.

e.      Children have a ready imagination, children words are full of imagination and fantasy, and it is more than simply matter of enjoyment.

3.      The characteristic of young learners mentioned by Clark (1990: 6-8):

a.      Children are developing conceptually: they develop their way of thinking from the concrete to the abstract thing.

b.      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.

c.       Children are still developing; they are developing common skill such as turn talking and the use of body language.

d.      Young children very egocentric, they tend to resolve around themselves.       

e.      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. 

Furthermore we can conclude that the characteristics of young learners are

1.       They have short attention span. So teachers should vary their techniques to break the boredom. They should give varied activities as handwriting, songs , games etc.

2.       They are very active. Try to ask them to play games, role play dialogues and involve them in competitions.

3.       They respond well to praising. Always encourage them and praise their work.

4.       They differ in their experience of language. Treat them as a unit, don't favour those who know some English at the expense of those who do not know.

5.       They are less shy than older learners. Ask them to repeat utterances, resort to mechanical drills.

6.       They are imaginative. Use Realia or pictures to teach new vocabulary related to concrete meanings.

7.       They enjoy learning through playing. Young learners learn best when they learn through games. Let games be an essential part of your teaching.

8.       They are less shy than older learners.

9.       They enjoy imitating and skillful in listening accurately and mimicking what they have heard.

10.    They respond well to rewards from the teacher.

11.    They are imaginative but may have some difficulties distinguishing between imagination and real world.

see next article about the Characteristics of Teacher for Young Learner

References

http://farwaniya03.tripod.com/id6.html

http://peni.staff.uns.ac.id/2008/10/10/young-learner-characteristics/

http://beddebah-haterulez.blogspot.co.id/2012/06/characteristic-of-young-learner.html

http://brendabrendon.blogspot.co.id/2012/12/characteristic-of-young-learners.html

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ANIMAL

The web page was designed for young learners (preferably between the ages of 6-9) of EFL with the aim of teaching animal-related words and verbs. In designing the web page, Dreamweaver 8 was used, accompanied by Macromedia Fireworks as image editor. Additionally, sound files in mp3 format were used in order to teach children the pronunciation of the words. Furthermore, some mp3 files are animal sounds, which are said to be effective tools in teaching animal sounds in related activities and exercises. The exercises were designed using Hot Potatoes 6, and range from matching to quiz exercises.

There are navigation buttons on the left side bar, which help the teacher and the learners navigate between the vocabulary page, the activities and exercises. The vocabulary page includes the target words to be learned, with their pronunciations (audio files), additional sound files (sounds of the animals) and image files. The suggested activities to be found on the activities page are just some recommendations and can be expanded by the teacher. The exercise page includes sound and picture matching exercises, an odd-one-out quiz and a flash card exercise, which will be discussed below. Although the page was designed for classroom use, it can also be used as a self-learning tool, as the instructions are clear and the website is user-friendly. However, as Reinders & Lewis (2005) put it, materials that may be perfectly suitable for use in a classroom environment may not be in a self-access context. So clear instructions should be supplied by the teacher before the students are encouraged to use the activities and exercises themselves. 

As stated above, the vocabulary link includes the target words to be learned. The images of the animals can be clicked to listen to the sounds. In separate boxes, the verbs related to each animal are supplied. Additionally, again in separate boxes, the pronunciation of each word is given to the students, as pronunciation is considered to be an integral part of speaking skills. The teacher should use this page to introduce the words to students and this can be either accompanied by a story prepared by the teacher, or directly navigating through the image and sound files. It should be kept in mind that children learn best if learning is made fun for them.

source: Olcay sert, Newcastle University, UK (http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/animals)

1.      Vocabulary

 Design: merancang

Link: menghubungkan

Sound : suara

Accompanied : menemani

Separate : memisahkan

Mind: pikiran  

Focus on

Enrich vocabulary with games

The activities link consists of three suggested activities in which student are asked to form groups below are the games that presented on the web page:

1. Guess What

- First students are introduced with the animals and their sounds via the animal chart on the vocabulary page.  - Then the teacher forms two groups. - A child from the first group clicks one of the pictures and one child from the other group tries to say the name of the animal. - The child from the first group clicks to the player link to listen to the correct pronunciation. - The game continues until all animals have been reviewed.

2. Online Flash Cards

- In groups of 4 or 5, the students open the flash card page to review the animal sounds. - As the picture of the animal appears, one of the kids chooses someone from the group and asks for the appropriate verb. - If the student cannot remember the appropriate sound, he is asked to imitate the animal. - All students in the group repeat the full sentence.

3. Logical Reasoning

- The teacher opens the odd one out quiz.  - S/he introduces information about domestic, farm and wild animals. -The students try to find the odd-one-out and discuss.

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Teaching "Family" to Young Learner

Everyone has a family and this makes the topic an excellent theme for learner

The family is a topic that can be introduced quite early on to children learning English as a foreign language. The theme is ideal because it provides many talking points.

Place    : Classroom Setting 
Level    : Young Learners 
Student: Whole Class 

Activities 

1. Introducing Family Words with Flashcards

• Starting with a picture of a family is a great way to open the activity. From here, individual family members can be introduced. How extended the family should be depends on the level of English within the group and the amount of lesson time available. For 25 minutes, introducing a mother, father, daughter, son, sister, brother, grandmother and grandfather are usually sufficient.

• Writing the name on the board and place the picture near it. It is important that the teacher highlights shortened forms of the name, for example father – dad daddy. In addition, the difference between American and British spellings can be explained to older groups. When the family words have been introduced, the teacher can ask the children if they have a brother or sister and how many.

• Then, Asking them to draw their family and after that introduce the picture in front classroom. The teacher can also tell about each of the family members, for example “my brother is younger than me but taller than me” or “my sister likes shopping”. This is also a good opportunity for the teacher to highlight that all families are different.

.     2.  Labeling the picture

• Labeling each family member and providing some details about each person. Each child can then have a turn to show his or her picture to the group and tell about each family member. A word of warning: some children may have painful family situations and the teacher should be prepared for dealing with this, if it arises.

     3. enrich vocabulary
  

        Cross word

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• Father               
• Mother            
• Daughter         
  
• Son                   
• Sister               
• Brother           
• Grandmother     
• Grandfather       
• Uncle                 
• Aunt                

Reference:  Teaching family words to young learner 

 

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