Sunday 12 December 2010

The Considerations of Teaching English for Young Learners

English becomes one of the most important languages in the world. People from many different countries communicate by using English. For example, they trade and do some political businesses with people who come from different countries that may not speak the same languages by using English as the tool between them to connect each other. Due to its importance as the international language, it is necessary to teach English to the children since they are young. However, there might be some struggles for teachers. There are still several ways to make the classroom run smoothly by understanding the consideration for teaching English to young learners, three of which are apparently obvious: how children learn, the characteristics of young learners, and language learning environment.
The first crucial consideration is that how children learn. Usually the way how children learn is unique. According to Piaget, children are active learners. They construct knowledge from actively interacting with the physical environment in developmental stages. They learn trough their own individual actions and exploration (Piaget, 1970). Beside that, children also learn through social interaction (Vygotsky, 1962). They build up their acquaintance through interaction with other people especially adults. Bruner said that children learn effectively through scaffolding by adults. The adults play a very important role in child’s learning process. He focused on the importance of language in a child’s cognitive development. He shows how the adults use scaffolding to guide a child’s language learning through finely-tuned talk (Joan Kang Shin, 2005). Scaffolding here means what the adults do especially teachers to lead the pupils when they are in the process of learning; such as, create interest in what they learn; for example, it is necessary for teachers to use text books during the class, but in order to create interest for the pupils, teachers may use picture cards, videos and other interactive media to explain the subject matter from the text book so that the pupils will not get bored. In addition, teachers also need to break the task down in smaller steps (Bruner, 1983); for instance, when teachers show the pupils how to make a good contrasting essay with a certain topic, as we consider that making an essay is a difficult task for them, it is better for the teachers to teach the pupils steps by steps. First of all, teachers show them how to decide what the topic for the contrasting essay would be. Secondly, teachers guide them to find the points of contrasting. Thirdly, pupils are given the instruction of how to make the thesis statement. The fourth, teachers give the ideas how to develop the contrasting essay. And the last, teachers teach them how to edit and revise the essay. Moreover, teachers require controlling the children’s frustration during the learning process; such as, when the pupils seem to be ignoring the teachers because they are tired, feel bored and frustrated, teachers sometimes ask the pupils to do such a game to refresh the pupils’ mind.
The second essential consideration is that the characteristics of young learners. Mostly the characteristics of children are different from adults. For instance, children under seven years old have their own attribute that may differ them from the adults through the process of learning, in this case is learning English; such as, they tend to learn things by playing, means that they are not consciously trying to learn new words or phrases, but through playing they are actually learning some new words and phrases in English, they love playing with language sounds, imitate and make funny noise. Several studies show us that teachers in order to increase the pupils’ vocabularies, they play songs and chants. After the songs ended they sing together and try to understand what the songs try to tell about. These ways help a lot in increasing the pupils’ vocabulary bank. Another characteristic of young learners is that their grammar will develop gradually on its own when they exposed to lots of English in context (Joan Kang Shin, 2005). Pupils in grade one of an elementary school even do not understand what grammar actually is, but because of the long process of learning and they exposed to lots of English during class and their daily activities so that when they are in junior high school they will be able to answer what the pattern of present tenses is. It shows us that grammar develops gradually for the young learners. In this case means teachers cannot force the young learners to learn grammar all at once, because the capacity of their brain is not sufficient yet to deal with the complexity in grammar. For example, within two hours of lesson in class teachers cannot teach all the twelve tenses in sequence of gaining the target of teaching time proportion and finishing the chapters in grammar book. The students will be fed up. The worse out of all is they will not catch the explanation from the teachers and it was just a waste of time for both. In a word, by the time of the learning process their grammar skill will gradually improve on its own as their ages are enhance.
The third fundamental consideration is that a language learning environment. The learning environment in teaching English to young learners is quite obvious to be observed. As stated by Brewster, Ellis & Girard, there are two language learning environments which are L1 environment and L2 environment. In L1 environment stage language is highly contextualized, in the real world the language used is authentic and learners are highly motivated. On the other hand, in L2 environment stage when language is more likely unconnected, in the classroom the language use tends to be artificial and learners may not be highly motivated. Due to the difference of the environment stages, teachers might need to pay more attention on their variety of methods in order to be succeeded in teaching English for young learners. The government has set up some of the methods which are relevant to be used during the learning process in class. For instance, in Indonesia the kinds of teaching methods are listed in Undang-undang Nomor 20 Tahun 2003/Sistem Pendidikan Nasional. For instance, role playing method, problem solving, cooperative script, jig saw, Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) method, etc. When teacher can bring the pupils succeed in learning English as the international language by using certain methods above, pupils also benefit from learning English; such as, developing their basic communication abilities in the language. Each individual has the capability in improving language. By learning English at least they recognize another language instead of their mother tongue language that brings them to the understanding of the basic communication abilities in language. Another reason is that encouraging enjoyment and motivation for language learning. If they are exposed to English everyday, teachers give impression to the pupils that English is fun, then automatically the pupils will enjoy learning English and their motivation is increasing. Furthermore, promoting learning about other cultures which end up with their respects of different cultures. For example, we can find many cross cultural understanding text from the text book while we are studying English. We know how children in western countries show their respect to their parents, how they socialize with their friends, etc. The expectation after the pupils read the kinds of cultural understanding texts is that they will respect more to people in different culture and fully understand how we are different from one culture to another in this world.    
The use of English has grown up throughout the entire world in recent years. With this changing point of view in the interest of using English as the international language has increasingly included the number of younger English learners. Nowadays, we can see a growing number of schools offer instruction in English at earlier ages. Teachers use many different teaching approaches that suit for young learners. In addition, the considerations of teaching English for young learners are actually significant to be acquainted with. Teachers need to know how the children learn, because the approach which is used to teach English is quite different than adults. The characteristics of young learner which differ from one to another are affectively to be known to guide the students in understanding English better. Finally, the language learning environment also takes an important part of the consideration in teaching English for young learner. 
Sources:
Pinter, A. 2006.  Teaching Young Language Learners.  Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kang Shin, Joan. 2005. Teaching Young Language Learners. British Council     http://www.britishcouncil.org/english/eyl/article01/html 
Cameron, L. 2001. Teaching languages to young learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Written by
Isna Rakhmawati
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