2.2.1. Teaching English to young learners: advantages and disadvantages
Based on young learners’ development and characteristics, it is indeed to explain why teaching English to young learners is important. Pinter (2006) points out the reason why English should be taught to young learners in primary schools. It is related to term “sensitive period” which psycholinguistics explained for teaching language to children. This term comes from Lenneberg (in Pinter, 2006) who proposed Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH). He states that brain plasticity was only conducive to language learning until puberty. Therefore, children who start earlier than eleven to twelve years of age, given advantageous learning circumstances, such as plenty of input and interaction in an English environment, are more likely to acquire English to native levels without an accent.
Scovel (in Brewster & Ellis, 2004) supports Lenneberg’s idea and points out that language is best learned during the early years of childhood. In addition, an official reference bulletin for educators published by the French Ministry of Education, Bulletin Officiel de I’Education Nationale, (in Brewster & Ellis, 2004) argues that the aim of early foreign language learning was not the creation of bilingual children but more reasonably, to prepare children linguistically, psychologically, and
culturally for language learning.
Moreover, starting foreign language lesson at young age would have physiological advantages. Young learners tend to pick up a language easily, especially as far as oral ability is concerned. Research has shown that individuals learning a language at a young age can achieve near native pronunciation (Huda, 1999).
Therefore, learning language in early years is important for children. They can comprehend their native language and other languages in the early years, and they even can acquire English to native levels without an accent before the age of eleven to twelve because of their brain plasticity.
There are some misunderstandings that many teachers still hold (Cameron, 2001), as follows:
a. Teaching children is easy and simple
Teaching English to young learners is not an easy thing. The first reason is children’s world is different from adults’. They do not have the same access to comprehend the grammar (Cameron, 2001). The second reason is children can lose their interest quickly. They may show their interest at the beginning of the learning but in the middle of it, if the teacher gives them the same thing, they will feel bored.
Therefore, teachers as the instructors and the class managers should know their students and the class well.
b. Children just need to learn simple language
Children are like a piece of blank paper. People around them can write anything on it. If they are just taught with simple thing they will just have that in their mind.
In fact, they may be interested in more complicated thing, such as how to operate a computer, what are dinosaur look like, etc. Teachers should realize those things.
2.2.2. Teachers of young learners
In teaching as well as learning process, language teacher plays an important role in transferring knowledge and skill to the students; to guide them in developing
their mind; to educate them on how to absorb; to analyze; and to expand their individual knowledge and skill.
Concerning the elementary school English teachers’ characteristics, Slattrey (2002) addressed that teachers should encourage students to read in English (stories, comics, reading games) and encourage them to work meaning out for themselves. In addition, it is necessary to explain thing about language as well as use a wider range of language input as their model for language use. He also stated that teachers need to encourage creative writing and help them to experiment with the language.
From statements above, I completely agree with them. Thus, it is crucial for the primary school English teacher to be more creative in teaching, for example by using some interesting media and method. By these ways, the students could enjoy the lesson more.
However, to the extent of teaching English to young learners, Musthafa (2010) delineated requirements that should be fulfilled by teachers of young learners, they are as follows:
a. Teachers of young learners should know who the children are.
It is important for teachers to know who young learners are before they want to get involved in the teaching and teachers of young learners should know how children learn. In order to support this point of view, Stros (1995) pointed out that children learn by doing and they need to make sense of the world – they can “grasp”
meaning even if they do not fully understand language. Moreover, the process of learning is as important as the product and success breeds success.
b. Teachers of young learners should know how children learn foreign language.
In the context of teaching, most people assume that children learn a foreign language in the same way that they learn their mother tongue. Basically, children are potential in acquiring and learning a foreign language, and they even learn it more quickly than those who are learning the foreign language after puberty (McLaughlin, 1978). On the contrary, children are less capable of absorbing or acquiring a foreign language optimally (Long, 1990).
Followings are some ways teachers can apply in facilitating children learning English as a foreign language:
a. Giving exposure by using English for the instruction
In giving the instruction, it is strongly recommended that the teacher used English from the beginning until the end. It is good to provide the target language input and to encourage them to speak English in the teaching and learning process.
In accordance with Pinter (2006) who claims that teachers who often talk a lot in the target language, even in the beginning stages of learning a language, can provide the language input for their students. This helps them to get used to the patterns of intonation and the sounds of the language. This exposure can be a model for the students to communicate in English.
b. Giving children chances to be engaged in the teaching and learning process After the teacher gives the model, the children engage in the learning process by practicing. Teacher also gives them some chances to practice whether it is in pairs or in groups.
c. Giving supports to children
Supporting children by giving appreciation after they perform is important.
Support in form of credit or reward can help children in gaining their self- confidence. If in the performance time they made some mistakes, however, teacher should give the reward first and then after that correcting the mistakes.
d. Providing good techniques of teaching
Teacher should provide good instruction in teaching children. However, in the real life, the instructions that are used to teach the elementary school students emphasize more on mastering grammatical structure, so that the students fell burdened than joy in learning English (Andini: 2007). Moreover, the students are often asked to memorize the material than to give their own opinions (Utami, 2004).
To this regard, teacher should be creative and find appropriate instructions or techniques, which are child-friendly, so that the objectives of the teaching and learning process can be achieved. In addition, the teacher should use a variety of instructions since children have a limited attention span, so they can easily get
bored and lose interest (Harmer, 2002). There are some instructions or techniques that are appropriate to be used in the classroom of young learners, based on many research studies: using stories, using games, using songs and chants, using TPR, role plays, Language Experience Activities (LEA), etc.
e. Providing good media
Media is good aids for helping children to learn better. By the media, children do not have to imagine about the materials given, but they see directly. There are much media that can be used in the classroom, for example: flashcards, audio (songs, storytelling, etc.), video, etc.
f. Providing good environment
Environment can be a good resource for learning. Teacher should facilitate the children learning by providing good environment. For instance, teacher can ask students to work both inside and outside the classroom and ask them to notice the surroundings. In the classroom, teacher can provide the sight words by labeling the things in the classroom (Pinter, 2006).