THE IMPORTANT OF TEACHER TO KNOW THE CHARACTERISTIC OF YOUNG LEARNERS

THE IMPORTANT OF TEACHER TO KNOW THE CHARACTERISTIC OF YOUNG LEARNERS

English as one of the foreign languages has got much attention from the Indonesian government. This can be seen from the government’s commitment to teach English at all levels of education. The general aim is to make the students familiar with English in their early age; so that, they are able to understand English both in written and spoken form. However, teaching English to children is not easy; since, the exposure of the language, in most case, is only in the classroom. Nevertheless, English teacher can maximize the class time to help the students in exploring English; so that, it is expected that they will be able to speak English well. Before the English teacher teach the young learners, they must know about many characteristics of young learners, such us, They enjoy imitating and mimicking what they have heard, They have short attention span and easy getting bored, and they are very active.

The first characteristics of young English learners is, they enjoy imitating and mimicking. The majority of them are still developing. Thus, they are also still learning how to regulate and manage their behavior and feelings. Young children are usually spontaneous and flexible. They are natural mimics and will sometimes imitate their teacher without being told. For instance, when children lose interest in things, they will tend to behave in an unpredictable way. Children will quickly let their teacher know if they are bored through either their expressions or actions. Perhaps, they become restless or even distract their friends. By contrast, children might also feel excited with aspects of their language learning class. Ideally, they have a strong instinct to explore their surroundings. Take, for example, a teacher who is explaining about ‘space’ to his/her students. Apparently, almost all of the students are eager to ask a number of questions dealing with that topic. They, of course, are trying to grasp what their teacher says. Sometimes, they voluntarily come forward to draw something about the space on the blackboard or to share ideas to their friends. From these types of conditions, it can clearly be observed that every single student in the classroom is not exactly the same. Therefore, young learners need more careful supervision from the teacher.

Second characteristic is, they have short attention span and easy get bored. Its mean that the teacher must try to ask them to play games, role play dialogues and involve them in competitions. Beside that young learners is easy to get bored, so teachers should vary their techniques to break the boredom. They should give varied activities as handwriting, songs, games, etc. Use realia or pictures to teach new vocabulary is usefull to get the attention of young learners, because they are imaginative. For an example, the teacher wants to teach his/her students about ‘nature’. He/she can, indeed, use several eye-catching pictures to attract the students’ attention. Perhaps, the students would play a game by matching the pictures and the names of each. To make it more enjoyable, the teacher might also use songs or children nursery rhymes which are suitable with that topic and proper for their age. Overall, these kinds of teaching instructions would avoid monotonous activities so that no student finds language learning a drudgery or boredom.

Not only that, the young learners is very active, so teaching young learners need the kinds of instructional practices. As has clearly stated before, young learners are truly different from teenagers and adults. Indeed, the learning instructions given in the class should also meet their needs. For an example, teachers engage their students in social context-based activities with their peers or friends. Suppose that the teacher would teach the students about greetings and leave takings. The students are then directed to carry out a simple activity in corporation with their classmates. They are assigned to talk with their pairs by using standard greeting and leave taking expressions. By demonstrating this kind of language teaching, the teachers will play a role on bridging the students to have accessible interactions along with their classmates. The teacher can using body instruction to face the young learners who an active.

Briefly speaking, working with children, giving them the basic skills for cognitive abilities, encouraging them to be active learners, and teaching them in a fun way would start them a lifelong habit. That is why the teacher must know well the characteristic of young learners before they face and teach young learners.