Young Learners

Definition of Young Learners

According to Nunan (2011) "young learners are from around three years old of ages to fifteen”. In addition, Phillips (2003) states that “young learners mean children from the first year of formal schooling (five or six years old) to eleven or twelve years of age.” Furthermore, Linse (2006) also states that young learners are children between the ages of 5-12. Moreover, the definition of young learners is mainly based on the years spent in the primary or elementary stages of formal education to the transition to secondary school. This is why the ages of the young learners could be varied from one country to the others. Some psycholinguists say that one of the factors to be successful in language learning is a young age.

The Characteristics of young learners

Young learners have their own characteristic, which is really different from the adult learners. The characteristic covers their ways of thinking, their attitude, their aptitude, etc. They also have their way of learning a language. This, of course, influences the ways of teaching them. A teacher should know and understand their students to give the best quality in teaching English and do not make them to feel bored. If teachers do not know the characteristics of their students, they will have difficulty in teaching and learning process.

There are some characteristics of young learners. According to Nunan (2011) identifying the young learners characteristics as follow:

1. children are pre-school or in the first couple of years of schooling,
2. they have a holistic approach to language, which means that they understand meaningful messages but cannot analyze language yet,
3. they have lower levels of awareness about the process of learning,
4. they have limited reading and writing skills, even in their first language,
5. generally they are more concerned about themselves than others,
6. they have limited knowledge about the world,
7. they enjoy fantasy, imagination and movement.

Young learners are naturally active and creative language learners. They learn and acquire knowledge from what they see, hear, and interact with the environment. Acquisition process is happened for children up the age of six. Some characteristics of young learners according to Brumfit (1997) include:

1. Young learners tend to be keen and enthusiastic learners.
2. Young learners need physical moments and activity.
3. As a group they are totally differ from secondary or adult learners

Based on the general character of young learners above, the writer concluded that teaching English to young learners is not an easy job. So, in this case the teacher is required to be creative or should have a lot of strategies in teaching English for young learners. And there are some important notes about young learner characteristics in learning the language. They are as the following:

1. They respond to the language well through concrete things
2. They need physical movements and real activities to stimulate their thinking
3. They will be enthusiastic if they are taught by using some activate or being involved inactivate
4. They love to play when learning they best when they are enjoying themselves
5. They will learn well through something that is closer to their culture and children like to work together.

Teaching Young Learners

Teaching is a process of giving information that is given by a teacher to student in a range of period and in a special method. Teaching young learners are different from teaching adult. Lessons with young learners should be short, active, fun and extremely fascinating because they can often struggle to focus for a long time on one thing and can become tired quickly. For the successful teaching English to young learners above all, it is essential for the teacher to understand the young learners’ characteristics, instincts, and interests in their cognitive, linguistic, and emotional aspects, because this will play a crucial role in how the teacher builds a lesson, how he or she can make sure that the young learners are fully involved in the learning process, how he or she achieves the objectives of a lesson, and how they respond.

According to Cameron (2003) argues that amongst other knowledge and skill, teacher of young learners needs: 1) an awareness of how children think and learn 2) skill and knowledge in spoken English to conduct the whole lesson orally, 3) an ability to identify children interest and use them for language teaching 4) to be equipped to teach initial literacy.

The Principle of Teaching English to Young Learners

Dr. Moh Uzer Usman (2004) believes that teaching is an effort to organize the environment in relation to students and teaching materials that lead to learning processes. According to Cameron (2001) there are some ways or technique that can beused in teaching language to young learners. First, by using demonstration or pictures and followed by verbal explanation. When using a demonstration or pictures, the learning should be using an object, using a cut-out figure, using gesture, performing an action, using photograph, drawing or diagrams on the board or using pictures from books. When, using verbal explanation, the teacher should use analytical definition, putting the new word in a defining context, and also translating into another language. But, besides of that learning should be fun and natural for children. In order for them to be successful in learning the target language.

Children are more sensitive to anything that touches the senses; they react easily to physical objects. Language is taught by having the students use their senses: touch, see, listen, smell, and even taste if necessary. This will help them relate the linguistics signs to truth that they perceive with their senses. The methods for teaching children should maintain the characteristics of children in order that the students can learn the target language optimally. One of the common principles that may be considered to develop or choose methods for children is that learning English language should be fun and natural. From this principle a language teacher may develop his or her own techniques, such as introducing songs and games to make their learning fun and natural. In addition to the techniques, the choice of vocabulary and structure also make teaching children different from other levels. A language teacher should choose the simple vocabulary and structure that are relatively easy to learn.