In response to the needs of developing human resources, the teaching of English as a foreign language has been extended to reach the elementary school level. For instance, in my brother’s school, SDN Pagentan I Singosari, English has become a compulsory course since in the first grade. This means that students learn English much earlier as they are young learners. The hope is that students will get more exposure to English and as a consequence, the expectation to get a better learning is more open. However good the expectations are, that would be meaningless if the students feel that learning English is difficult to accomplish and they often do not enjoy learning English. Moreover, linguists and educators from Taiwan said that learning English in early age could hamper the children’s mother-tongue acquisition. Whereas, based on the research by professor of the university's Graduate Institute of Linguistics, children or students who have a good command of their mother tongue, they learn second language faster (http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/ ; accessed: September 7, 2010). There are several ways to make students enjoy learning English without neglecting their mother tongue, three of which are important: creating a pleasant atmosphere in a class, learning language through music, and using stories in language teaching.
The first step that teachers should do is creating a pleasant atmosphere in the classroom. Classroom should be a place where students could learn language happily. Students should enjoy and satisfied when they learn and receive new information in the classroom. It is necessary to create a pleasant atmosphere in the classroom in order to make students enjoy their study. Then, if they felt enjoyed, the information would be easier to absorb. Now, the question is how to make the classroom as a good place to learn? First, teachers should respect and like their students without any exception. Teachers should make no difference in treating their students. For instance, if there is a student who makes mistakes and gets a punishment, other students who might make the same mistake should get the same punishment. Besides, the classroom has to be a familiar place for both, teacher and students. The classroom should be decorated not only by teacher’s tools but also by the students’ work and if it is necessary, teacher can put physical object that makes the learning process more interesting. For example, when the teacher gives an assignment to students, they can put their assignment on a display board on the wall or teacher can use pictures when teach about occupation or identify things around the environment. In addition, students should grant freedom from teacher in order to make them not afraid in making mistakes while they are learning, for making mistakes is the process of learning.
The following point is learning language through music. As we know that people learning language by listening to them, processing the structure, then starting to speak the language. It is almost true that most of language learners understand more than they can say, and when children learn language they respond to language before they can speak. From that point, I would say that to introduce second language to children we can use listening approach and probably it would be better if we use music. Teachers can make a rhyme or a song about the English skill they are working on. It is easier to remember since the brain of human could react to music. Moreover, teacher can use CDs about English to give the opportunity to students to hear the right pronunciation of words as well as the correct syntax and order of the words (http://eHow.com/; accessed: September 7, 2010).
The last point to make language learning interesting is by using stories in language teaching. As I know, most of the language teachers are focusing in teaching grammar, vocabulary, and even pronunciation that are covered in textbooks. Indeed, those aspects are important but there is more interesting and pleasant way to introduce all those common requirements. We know that a story is something that everybody is familiar with and people used to listen to stories and even liked them. This is the same as the children. Children like stories so much and actually, we can teach them everything through stories, but in this case, we use stories to teach them language to improve their language skills such as listening, speaking, reading, writing, and vocabulary learning. Students do a large part of listening, listening to the teachers, to each other, and to pre-recorded material and we know that listening tasks are extremely important because most of people respond to language long before they learn to speak. They often listen to the language around them, internalize it, and formulate their own structure to produce their language (Young Learners, S. Philips, 1997, p.17). By listening to stories, students are able to understand simple sentences and new vocabulary used in language. Teachers can also use stories, especially children stories such as Hansel and Gretel, Gingerbread Man, Little Red Riding Hood, and so forth, to improve students’ ability in speaking and vocabulary learning. For example, students can retell or read one of the stories that have been mentioned aloud to practice their speaking skill, pronunciation, and even their reading ability. Stories are more interesting to read. Besides, it is more effective to teach students about words in context rather than one by one because they can know the usage and the meaning of the words.
It is true that learning second language, especially English, in early age is quite important in the needs of improving and developing human resources. However, we should think of how to make learning more interesting for the students in order to make them enjoy and not to hamper them. Actually, there are many ways that teachers could think about and three of them, that have been mentioned, are important. Teachers should be able to create a good classroom atmosphere to make students comfortable and confident in studying. Teachers should also be able to be innovative in choosing teaching material, for example, they can teach language through music or even stories to improve the students’ proficiency.
Source: Žigárdyová, Lucie.Bachelor Thesis: Using Stories In Teaching English to Young Learners.2006.BRNO
written by Wahyu Kartika W
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