2Benefits of Teaching Very Young Learners

8/12/2019 2Benefits of Teaching Very Young Learners

1/7

BENEFITS OF TEACHING VERY YOUNG LEARNERS

I find that the following is a typical list of reasons why teaching very young learners is great:

1.Students can handle a much higher level of repetition than older learners (easier lesson

planning!)

2.Course syllabi typically come with better suggested lesson plans (again, easier lessonplanning!)

3.You get out of teaching what you put inso while classes are high energy, you get a real buzzby the end

4.You can see progress much faster than higher level classes, which means you get a greaterlevel of teaching satisfaction.

5.On a similar note, if youre teaching them phonics to learn to read what better gift is there toa student, than reading?

6.And finally, lets face it kids are cute!

Summary

Very Young Learners are a joy to teach, although teaching a class can be quite intimidating when

you first start.

Once you start to get the routines down pat though, youll begin to love the class, and feel great

about the difference youre making in their lives.

Teaching English for young learners CHARACTERISTIC of CHILDREN

BY: Awang Darmawan (07 25 008)

BACKGROUND

Some of countries in the world are suffering from English-for-young-learners fever (anirresistible desire to instill English into younger learners), based on the belief that language can

miraculously be acquired faster in younger age. Almost everywhere, one comes across courses,pre-schools and play-groups that offer English teaching programs designed exclusively for

children. Its ambitious aim is to equip language learners with full native-like language

competence, particularly competence in communicating orally. There seems to be a growingbelief here that to achieve native-like proficiency, English should be taught in massive doses.

I try to classify the reason why this Phenomenon appears.


2/7

First, the common people believe that children age is golden time to acquire language. It derived

from the Problem of the adult that learn English with hard. It is also supported by language

learning is facilitated when the learner's cortex is still flexible and plastic, making languageacquisition faster and easier. Young learners, it is further believed, are superior in language

learning than adults. These beliefs give rise to what is known as the ""younger-is-better""

hypothesis.Second, With the English language becoming the world's lingua franca -- the internationallanguage of science, technology, international business, and politics this reason force the parent

to think about their sons future. English penetrate into all aspect of the life so that it is an

obligation to put their child to learn it since young age. The parents now think that their childrenmust start learning English since young age. Yet, with the trend of English for young learners,

English education seems to be dominated by early childhood education. Parents are

unhesitatingly send their children to places that sell English teaching programs, seemingly

convinced by the commonly-held notion that young children will do far better at learning aforeign language than older ones.

But we must quest our belief ""younger-is-better"" and young learners are superior in language

learning than adults. Can we guarantee of successful language acquisition of young learner.

Meanwhile we must care to some aspect appears in learning process. Cognitive ability,

environment and social condition influence in language development. So it is still a myth oflanguage learners.

All of the cases above are not as easy as we see. Teaching English to young learners has many

aspect disturbing in practicing process such as children characteristic. Children characteristicinfluence the result of teaching learning process. Inside of class room teacher must know what

problem will be appear so that the teacher can overcome the problem may appear.


3/7

SOME CHARECTERISTIC OF CHILDREN BECOME PROBLEM IN TEACHING ENGLISH

1. Involuntary attention

Children do not pay attention to the language system. Children do not pay attention to the

language system; they have involuntary attention and memory, which means that their mind willbe engaged with the semanticsthe task, topic, or situationbut will not focus on the linguisticcode. If they manage to acquire the form, it will be achieved indirectly, through peripheral rather

than focal attention . One obvious difference between the young child and the adolescent or adult

is the ability of the latter to comprehend language as a formal system. Older learners can learnabout language by consciously studying linguistic rules and apply these in production. In

contrast, younger children, while not totally lacking in meta-awareness, are not so prone to

respond to language form and overt correction . For the young childwho is often unaware of

the mechanisms of the learning process itself language is but a vehicle for expressing meaning.2. Limited attention

Children have a short attention and concentration span, while learning grammar is more like an

exact scienceit requires concentration. Moreover, children tend to focus their attention on theend of words and add suffixes and postpositions before they notice the existence of and begin

using prefixes and prepositions. Thus the teacher has to wait before affixes and prepositions can

be taught successfully.

3. Holistic skills

Even though children may be able to look at language as a separate object for exploration and todistinguish certain parts of it while disregarding others Their approach to language is

nevertheless holisticthey do not analyses it or break phrases into chunks, but treat and learn it

formulaically, integrated with other skills, and there is a clear developmental gap between their

ability to use the L1 and their metalinguistic. The young child lacks flexible thinking and canonly perceive surface similarities andat bestsome deeper analogies

4. Inability to observe regularities and causal relations

Childrens capacity for a conscious learning of forms and grammatical patterns is still relativelyundeveloped; it is only gradually that they become able to generalize and systematize. Without

the ability to infer and generate grammar rules, and to identify causal relations between various

occurrences, they require constant repetition. This is the answer why which is why grammaticalexplanations involving cross-linguistic associations are believed to be more beneficial for the

adult learner.

5. Undeveloped problem-solving skills

Problem-solving denotes the diagnosis of what element is missing in the initial set of information(problem space), where the solution must be generated by the subject rather than found among

the data available It would be unwise to posit this very demanding form of reasoning in young

children, and yet this is what is necessary for hypothesis formation and testing, as well as for

deduction and induction activities.

6. Weak memoryFurthermore, children cannot control what they are taught; the younger the learner, the patchier


4/7

storage and recall, which again makes recycling activities necessary, whereas age improves LL

capacity. Memory consists of three phases: registering, storing (based on repetition, which may

be passive) and recalling (based on active repetition). In order to be able to say that we havelearnt a given item successfully, all three stages must be available (actually, the learners who

progress most rapidly may be adolescents, as they may have better memories than adults). It

show that although the children brain is flexible but they have limitation to learn language7. Limited experienceChildren have limited life and learning experience. Adults, in comparison, do not enter the FL

classroom as virgin tabula rasa, but bring in a wealth of background knowledge and a long

history of learning experiences on which the teacher can effectively capitalize to facilitate theirlearning; especially as they are all already masters of one language, frequently having the

additional invaluable experience of learning another . as much as they experienced by the life

their language better will be easier. For instance a human who goes around the world can know

some vocabularies.8. Hic-et-nunc reasoning

Moreover, childrens reasoning is concrete, concerned with tangible hic et nunc realia and

situations whose reference is observable in the immediate environment ergo we can only teach tothem what we can present or demonstrate. Abstract reasoning is tied to biological growth and

does not develop until between 11 and 14 years of age, which is why abstract grammatical

notions and patterns are beyond childrens grasp. So thatwhy we easier teach vocabulary by

using picture or showing the real thing in front of young learners.9. Undeveloped aptitude

Language learning aptitudea cluster of the specific cognitive qualities necessary for SLA,

separate from the general ability to master academic skillsis prone to influence both the rate ofdevelopment understanding of the concept as how long the learner takes to learn a given

amount of material rather than the amount of material he can learn, notably where formal

classroom learning is concerned.

The aptitude must be developed(1) phonetic coding abilitythe auditory capacity to perceive, discriminate, memorize, and

articulate the meaningful sounds (phonemes) of a language

(2) grammatical sensitivitythe individuals abilityto demonstrate awareness of the syntactic

patterning of sentences in a language of the functions and patterning of forms, and to establish

correspondence between grapheme and phonemic representations;

(3) rote learning ability, to store and recall language material and establish and retain

associations between sound and meaning; and

(4) inductive (language learning) abilitythe ability to infer and notice both morph syntactic and

semantic regularities of the language, to identify similarities and differences, and patterns of

relationship involving meaning and form. Aptitude thus appears to be age-related and develop

along with the general ability for abstract thinking .

10. Mechanical memoryChildren are quick to learn words. They learn predominantly through mimicry , But slower to


5/7

learn complex phrases and structures, which poses the necessity of a constant repetition and

recycling thereof. While vocabulary is based on mechanical, short-term memory (the memory for

rhyme and rhythm, which relies on frequent exposure and repetition, the earliest type of memoryand therefore predominant in young children), grammar is based on logical, long-term memory

a memory for patterns, which develops very slowly (between around 11 and 14 years of age, in

conjunction with abstract thinking tied to biological development) and does not reach fullcompetence until around puberty (except dyslexic children, whose semantic memory comes first,but the mechanical one must be trained). Learners under the age of 12-13 can ably repeat and

memorize long words and expressions, but are not able to analyze them as logical memory is not

well developed yet.11. Lower-order processing

The experts distinguish two broad types of functioning of the left cerebral hemisphere. Lower-

order functioning, associated with Wernickes and Brocas areas (responsible for the

understanding and production of speech respectively, also known as posterior and anteriorspeech cortices). Higher-order functioning, associated with a different area of the cerebral cortex,

involves semantic processing and verbal recognition. They suggested that while younger learners

rely primarily on lower-order processing, which is a function of early maturing, higher-orderprocessing is contingent upon late developing neural circuitry and is therefore available for use

only in older learners.

12. Undeveloped interactional skillsIt is also conceivable that inasmuch as older learners are prone to be more involved in sustaining

a conversation, they will progress more rapidly than younger ones. (After all, few children

display fascination with the meaning expressed through the exhaling noises produced by anotherperson, while lengthy debates of intellectual and other nature form our daily bread.)

13. Motivation

While real motivation comes from within each individual. young learners rarely have clear

motivation; they may come to class simply taking it for granted, or because they like the teacher.They will all at once be less able to assume responsibility for their learningto use the

metacognitive strategies of focusing, arranging, planning, monitoring, and evaluation. In effect

also ruling out any serious attempt at large-scale comparative assessment of their progress soolder, especially adult students will know the importance and see the point of study. We as

teacher must motivate our children to learn because it is nature characteristic of children.

14. Literacy (and numeracy)While adolescents and adults, when they embark on the language-learning program, havefor

the most partalready developed the skills of reading or writing, children are far behind taking

their first steps with the alphabet; how, then, can we expect them to be able to analyses language

data, if these can only be presented as fleeting utterances, with the capacity limitations of short-term memory not allowing the learners to store more than a couple of utterances at the same

time. A whole new code must be taught alongside the introduction of literacy.

15. Ongoing categorization

A great many wordsif not the preponderancerefer not to individual entities, persons, events,etc., but their classes. Thus, children who are still acquiring their first language have to establish


6/7

the range of reference of the lexical items and find out the boundaries of the relevant classes

While older second language learners are also faced with this predicament, they have the great

advantage over Young Learners in that they already know most concepts and have establishedhow their culture pigeonholes the world.

The Benefits of Learning Language Young

Young children are uniquely suited to learning a second language. The developing brain is hard-

wired to acquire language. Never again will it be this natural or this easy!

Lifelong Benefits

The gift of language is an investment that lasts a lifetime!

Young learners enrich their lives and open doors to their future by gaining:

An expanded world view Greater intercultural appreciation and sensitivity The ability to learn additional languages more easily A competitive edge in future markets and the global marketplace

Children Learn A Second Language Naturally

Exposing your child to a second language while young allows him or her to optimize his or her

learning potential, helping to shape the brain at its most flexible stage. Young children areuniquely suited to learning a second language. Learning a second language at a young age is

cognitively as easy as learning a first language.

In taking advantage of thiswindow of opportunity,young learners enjoy a wide range of

benefits:

Linguistic Benefits

Young language learners can acquire native-like fluency as easily as they learned to walk, incontrast to an adult language learner. Where adult learners have to work through an established

first-language system, studying explicit grammar rules and practicing rote drills, the younglearner learns naturally, absorbing the sounds, structures, intonation patterns and rules of asecond language intuitively, as they did their mother tongue. The young brain is inherently

flexible, uniquely hard-wired to acquire language naturally.

Older learners lose the ability to hear and reproduce new sounds by age 8-12, according to

experts, resulting in a permanent foreign-sounding accent in any language. Younger learners
http://www.languagestars.com/program-overview/programs/parents-and-tots/14-programs/curriculum/66-the-benefits-of-learning-language-young.htmlhttp://www.languagestars.com/program-overview/programs/parents-and-tots/14-programs/curriculum/66-the-benefits-of-learning-language-young.htmlhttp://www.languagestars.com/program-overview/research-about-language-for-kids/window-of-opportunity.htmlhttp://www.languagestars.com/program-overview/research-about-language-for-kids/window-of-opportunity.htmlhttp://www.languagestars.com/program-overview/research-about-language-for-kids/window-of-opportunity.htmlhttp://www.languagestars.com/program-overview/research-about-language-for-kids/window-of-opportunity.htmlhttp://www.languagestars.com/program-overview/programs/parents-and-tots/14-programs/curriculum/66-the-benefits-of-learning-language-young.html


7/7

benefit from flexible ear and speech muscles that can still hear the critical differences between

the sounds of a second language, as well as reproduce them with native-like quality.

Cognitive Benefits

While some parents worry that starting their toddler on a second language will interfere withdeveloping English skills, the opposite is actually true. Children can differentiate between two

languages within the first weeks of life. "Learning another language actually enhances a child's

overall verbal development," says Roberta Michnick Golinkoff Ph.D., author of How Babies

Talk.

The research goes on to show a number of additional cognitive benefits to learning a second

language at an early age. Children who study foreign language show higher cognitiveperformance in overall basic skills in elementary school. According to the College Entrance

Examination Board, they go on to score higher on SATs. Children who learn a foreign language

at a young age also exhibit better problem-solving skills, enhanced spatial relations, and

heightened creativity. Learning a second language early on encourages flexible thinking andcommunication skills, helping children consider issues from more than one perspective.

Additionally, research shows that multilinguals have enhanced memory, planning, and multi-

tasking skills. When learning multiple languages young, the brain is trained to attend to salient

information and to disregard non-pertinent information, a skill that later supports better focus,memory, planning and multitasking abilities. Research shows that multilinguals use more of their

brains than monolinguals and outperform monolinguals on creativity tests.

Documents

2Benefits of Teaching Very Young Learners