TEYL

 Teaching English For Young Learners

As English has become the international language in the world, it has also become one of the components of tertiary, secondary, primary and even pre-school education in the EFL teaching contexts.Thus, the concept of young learners has started to cover a larger age range than it did 2 or 3 decades ago. This change can clearly be seen in the quality and quantity of coursebooks written for different ages and levels of young English language learners, and the publications made in this area. Moreover, it also brings a demand for competent English language teachers to teach young language learners.

Young learners  differ from older children in many ways. Studies of young children show how learning changes across development. However, we now know that even very young children have a predisposition to learn in certain domains, and that young children are actively engaged in making sense of their world. Young children appear to be predisposed to acquire information.

Misinformation can impede school learning, so teachers need to be aware of the ways in which children’s background knowledge influences their understanding. Such awareness should help teachers anticipate children’s confusion and recognize why children have difficulties grasping new ideas. Strategies for learning are important.

The children have their own characteristics, which are different from adults. The characteristics cover their ways of thinking, their attitude, their aptitude, etc. They also prevail to the children’s ways of learning language. This, of course, influences the ways of teaching them. To give the best quality of teaching English to the children, the teachers should know and understand them.

There are the characteristics of young learners that saw from some side,firstly is from Physical Side.One of the characteristic from physical side is the young learners understandingcomes through hands,eyes and ears.So the teachers should be teaching them use gestures,face expression,action and circumstances.For example;the teachers teaching using song with the topic part of the body.So,they should be sing a song with touch the part of their body or teaching them using the real object,if the teachers will be tach about fruits,so the teachers should be bring and show some fruits to the young learners.

Secondly is from social side,for example is they are happy playing and working in the company of others.The teachers should be ask them to work in groups or give them a game. The social side of games and classroom rituals provides another way in which the brain can attach meaning. Once the students have learned a concept, they can practice it with the partner or in groups. The social relationships of group activities add to the richness of meaning-based experiences for the brain.For example; Students can practice classroom dialogues with partners, or “read” to each other a memorized story that they have written either individually or as a class activity.

Thirdly is from Physicological side,there are young learners get bored easily and they are forgetfull.If the young learners get bored,the teachers should make the material more variety and interesting.Such as; teach them using games,because the young learners more like playing.So,they more comfortoble to learn with games than full material and they also not boring,if the teachers have many games for them.And if they forgetfull,so the teachers should gie memorizing and often give repetition about the material in the last.

The last,other characteristic of young learners is they learn language for communication.It’s mean that they learn the language just know how to use it,not what the rules of the language.The language should be adapted to their ability.So,the teachers should provide activities in which the students can practice the language for communication.For example,the teachers should not teaching them using tenses.

In short,for teaching young learners the teachers must be know and understanding the characteristics of the young learners, because if we understand about the characteristics, we can be easier to teach them, and can be more effective on learning process, and also the situation of learning on the class can be more fun and effective. make the learners enjoy their learning is good for them because, that can make them more easy to learn in learning process. The teaching learning practices should consider the young learners’ characteristics which are different from older learners, Children’s preferred learning styles, which include visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning styles, must also be taken into account.