1.
Explain
and give examples in teaching English about the characteristics young learners!
Nowadays, English as a foreign language is not taught
just for junior and senior high school, but for elementary even for kindergarten
or generally we called young learners. In teaching English to young learners,
we should know the characteristics of them. Because, it will gives a big
influences for the learners study outcomes. The children have their own
characteristics, which are different from adults. The characteristics cover
their ways of thinking, their attitude, their aptitude, etc. Young learners
especially for 8-11 years old have the general characteristics such as:
·
Their
basic concept is formed. They have very decided views of the world.
·
They can
tell the difference between fact and fiction in sometimes.
·
They ask
question all the time.
·
They rely
on the spoken word as well as the physical world to convey and understand
meaning.
·
They are
able to make some decision about their own learning.
·
They have
definite views about what they like and don’t like doing.
·
They have
developed sense of fairness about what happens in the classroom and begin to
question the teacher’s decision.
·
They are
able to work with others and learn from others.
·
They used
language skills long before they are aware of them.
·
They have
a short attention and concentration span
·
They love
to play, and learn best when they are enjoying themselves.
·
Young
children are enthusiastic and positive about learning.
By knowing their characteristics, we can help them to get easier in
learning English. We were also demanded to have much creativities or ideas to
make the situation in classroom is interesting. We can give the learners some
games. Why should games? Because, young learners are identified by much play
although in the classroom. The games that can we share to young learners are Twenty
Questions. The ways to practice it,
ask young learners to think of an object or animal. Our students have to
ask questions to find out what it is. Example: "Is it big?"
"No." "Is it very small?" "No." etc…
Then, we should not just know their characteristic, but we also have
to know how they learn languages. Generally, the children learn languages by:
- Having more opportunities to be exposed to the second language
- Making associations between words, languages, or sentence patterns and putting things into clear, relatable contexts
- Using all their senses and getting fully involved; by observing and copying, doing things, watching and listening
- Exploring, experimenting, making mistakes and checking their understanding
- Repetition and feeling a sense of confidence when they have established routines
- Being motivated, particularly when their peers are also speaking/learning other languages.
In teaching the young learners, we are demanded to be patience, compassion, understanding, playfulness, honesty, creativity and caring them.
For the last my explanation in teaching English as a foreign
language, based on Brewster, Ellis and
Girard (1992) as the expert of teaching and learning made some points about
teaching to young learners:
- Advantage can be taken of certain aptitudes children have in order to start teaching a foreign language at primary school.
- There is no theoretical optimum age for starting teaching; it can vary according to country and linguistic situation. The age of 9 is often settled on after trying other ages.
- Early learning of a non mother-tongue language must be integrated into other teaching in the primary school.
- Whatever else may be achieved, the main concern is to prepare the ground so that the most can be made of the teaching which will be received in secondary school.
2.
Explain
what the expert say about teaching and learning language to young learners!
Sarah Phillips (1993:5) in the
introduction to her book ‘Young Learners’ describes in teaching and learning to
young learners:
“… children
from the first year of formal schooling (five or six years old) to eleven or
twelve years of age. However, as any children’s teacher will know, it is not so
much the children’s age that counts in the classroom as how mature they are.
There are many factors that influence children’s maturity: for example, their
culture, their environment (city or rural), their sex, the expectations of
their peers and parents”.
The child’s learning of a language is not independent of the fact
that they are ‘professional’ learners who spend most of their day in a learning
environment. Therefore, who argue for an integrated approach to language
learning (Garvie, 1991) are simply advocating the full exploration of the
child’s daily learning context. Equally, the characteristics of good language
learners and the way they learn will be highly influenced by the environment,
and the way in which they are learning, particularly with very young learners.
The belief that learning to learn is fundamental when teaching young learners
(Brewster et al.1992; Ellis, 1991) becomes, therefore, of paramount importance.
Lest the above leads you to the dangerous belief that young learners
are so-called ‘empty vessels’ for teachers to fill, some words of common sense
from Susan Halliwell (1992:3) on working with Young Learners:
“Young children do not come to the language classroom empty-handed.
They bring with them an already well-established set of instincts, skills and
characteristics which will help them to learn another language. We need to
identify those and make the most of them.
For example, children:
- are already very good at interpreting meaning without necessarily understanding the individual words;
- already have great skill in using limited language creatively;
- frequently learn indirectly rather than directly;
- take great pleasure in finding and creating fun in which they do;
- have a ready imagination;
- above all take great delight in talking!
While, in other opinion from Howatt,
he clearly outlines two different policies for the teaching of foreign
languages to young children. On the one hand, there are those that argue that
there is little benefit to learning a foreign language early as they feel that
it gets in the way of general education in the mother tongue. They believe that
a foreign language is a ‘peripheral skill’ (1991:299). On the other hand, their
opponents feel that the mother tongue and foreign languages are not mutually
exclusive and that tuition in a foreign language can replace tuition in the
mother tongue. Children who begin a foreign language at an early level seem to
benefit intellectually, their awareness of the language systems in their own
language seems to improve they seem more culturally aware than other children.
Freudenstein points out the benefits of the latter point for
children living in multi-cultural and multilingual environment such as Europe is quickly becoming.
Brewster, Ellis & Girard
(1992) make the points, the key objectives of early
foreign language learning as: linguistic, psychological and cultural.
3.
Explain
and give examples how to teach:
- Grammar
Teaching English grammar can be hard going - for the teacher and the
students. It doesn't have to be difficult or painful. However, we
can teach English grammar using fun learning games or it can be taught as
unconscious.
When we are looking for games to use in our classroom, don't just
pick something to be a "time filler" which does not have a definite
linguistic outcome. These games may entertain the students, but when we
don't have much time with them each day as it is, we want our game to do double
duty to get the most out of the time we spend playing games.
Have a clear linguistic outcome for each game. The game can be
a listening game to allow the students to repeatedly hear a new grammatical
structure in use, or it can be a speaking game to allow practice of the grammar
once it has been absorbed through listening beforehand. There are degrees
of difficulty with speaking games from basic repetition in a fun context to
more creative sentence creation for revision or more advanced practice once the
basics have been mastered. The teacher should lead the children through
this progression so that the game at hand is always well within the grasp of
the students. This makes games fun rather than laborious. It is a
mistake to play a speaking game immediately after the new grammar has been
presented. Ideally reading, spelling and writing games come after the new
grammar has been absorbed and the students can use it orally.
When we teach them as unconscious, we can ask them to tell about
their past activities, such as ask them some question, “what did you do
yesterday?” , or “ what did we learn yesterday?” , etc.
·
Vocabulary
Teaching vocabulary, where the young learners work with new words
through pronunciation, writing, memorizing and linking the meaning to the
actual item is a very important task for any teacher of English. Words are best
learnt in a context. The young learners need to start using the words actively
in the lesson and trying to understand the teacher when he/she uses the new
word. The teacher might talk about a lot of other things as well, like giving
them orders and showing her feelings about for instance the rat. "What is
the color of your cat? Have you got a cat at home?" Or when one pupils
says : It is "a hone" she answers "Yes, it is a hen".
Everybody say after me! "It is a hen!" She just goes on without
pointing out the mistake.
To help them understand a story it is important to visualize the
item and get the pupils to repeat or use the item actively. One good way of
doing this is to let them see or perhaps touch the vocabulary item for instance
"a mouse" and let them repeat it in different ways and to listen to
the teacher talking about it. Using an "English Box" where the items
you are going to teach are in the box will make the pupils want to say the word
or join in the guessing activity. In the 3rd sequence "English
Box" in lesson 1 you can see how the teacher uses this technique to
introduce new vocabulary.
To strengthen the learning process the teacher uses the written word
and puts it on display in the classroom. Our teacher uses a "Word
Tree", where all the new words are put up in writing and the pupils can
read them or see the writing and remember how they are pronounced. Repetition
is also necessary to learn new words. Here their teacher uses different devices
to make them repeat. Sometimes they repeat in chorus, sometimes they guess or
remember the word individually, but all the time they say it in different
contexts. In the classroom there must be lots of opportunities to see the new
words in the form of a picture and in the written form. This helps them to
recognize the written form and hopefully to remember how to pronounce it.
The pupils should also work with understanding the meaning even if
they do not understand every single word. They should be encouraged to guess
the meaning and understand that there are many words they do not have to learn
because they are so similar. When we teach we should also remember this and use
easy language with the beginners. Instead of saying "Please repeat after
me" we can say "Say after me" which is easier to understand. We
must build on what they already know ! Ragnhild once showed the pupils a teddy
bear and asked them if they knew what it was. After some time one pupil put up
her hand and said "It is a bæms". Here one could have said. "No
it is not called a "bæms" it is called a teddy bear", but an
even better reply would be "Yes, good, it is a teddy bear". The pupil
suggesting "bæms" has understood a lot of English. She dared to guess
and to make the Norwegian word into English, and she was first told this was good
and then given the right word. Be as concrete as possible when introducing new
words. Bring the item with us or use a picture or act it out. Then we will not
need to translate. Good picture books are a rich source for understanding new
vocabulary and actually understanding the meaning of a story even if one does
not understand each word.
·
Listening
Teaching English to Young
Learners has become a trend nowadays. In every school, English is taught as one
of the main subjects. In teaching young learners is not like teaching adults, children
have their own way of learning. Since children like to play and have fun, the
learning and teaching process should be suited with the nature of the children
themselves. One of the forms of fun activities for teaching listening to children
is through music, and songs are the common form of music that children know.
When the songs are introduced; the first skill that the children
learn is listening. This section will focus on activities which will practice
the skills of listening. The activities include detailed listening
comprehension, listening for summarizing or writing, listening to isolated
vocabulary and listening for word order based on Griffee, 1992. The first
activity is listening comprehension, before being introduced to the songs, the
children are given several questions, for example, “Is this song going to be
happy or sad?” “Who do you think is the singer, a girl or a boy?” and
“Do you think you will like the song?” After answering the
questions, the teachers play the song, and followed by other questions. The
teacher might ask these questions: “How do you feel when you listen
to the songs?” “What words do you remember?” “Do you like this song?” “Why or
why not?” The second activity is by providing the children a paraphrased
version of the song before they listen it. This activity is especially good to
introduce songs that tell stories because it gives children the story line
before they listen to the actual song. The activity goes like this, the
teachers read the paraphrased version of the song to the children.
The third activity is listening to
isolated vocabularies, the teachers give the children two lists of words.
The first list is indicated by using
numbers and the other one by using the alphabet. The teachers play the song and
ask the children to draw a line from a word on the first list to a word on the
second list. The two words or phrases should follow each other on the same line
in the song. The last activity, the teacher then play the song, as the children
listen, they are asked to circle any words that they do not understand, and
they also write the complete lyrics of the song.
·
Speaking
Young learners in the communicative classroom should get as many
speaking opportunities as possible and their speaking time should slowly but
steadily rise so as to prepare them for various communicative situations.
Keeping in mind that each classroom offers a wide range of learners differing
in their abilities, knowledge, confidence, motivation and learning styles, a
teacher should provide them with a proper environment that would help them
develop their skills, independent of their basic characteristics and diversity.
Combining the approaches, varying the cognitive styles, mixing and matching various methods and tools – e.g. songs, games, chants, rhymes, dialogues, etc. – Provide the students with maximum variety and (in turn) offers them plenty of opportunities to play an active part in communicative situations, ranging from simple imitation to conscious exchange and internalization of certain vocabulary items / pronunciation styles / grammatical points / communicative techniques, at the same time building strategies that will help them later on when their knowledge of English has advanced and moved to a higher level.
Combining the approaches, varying the cognitive styles, mixing and matching various methods and tools – e.g. songs, games, chants, rhymes, dialogues, etc. – Provide the students with maximum variety and (in turn) offers them plenty of opportunities to play an active part in communicative situations, ranging from simple imitation to conscious exchange and internalization of certain vocabulary items / pronunciation styles / grammatical points / communicative techniques, at the same time building strategies that will help them later on when their knowledge of English has advanced and moved to a higher level.
·
Reading
Students should build their reading skills so they can read silently
and understand words, then sentences, and finally texts.
Using visuals
tell the class the story, using and pointing to the pictures before
they read it.
get your students to tell the story from the pictures before they
read the text.
ask your students to point to the object / picture which relates to
the unknown word as you read.
remove unfamiliar words from the text before your students read it;
ask them to use the pictures to complete the gaps with the best word in their
own language, then supply them with the English words. In this way, they reach
the meaning before they hear the word.
Reading aloud
Developing reading skills
Make reading fun for young learners. In this way, they will learn to
read in English without noticing. Reading
·
Writing
The first thing we are going to need to think
about is what kind of writing we would like our young learners to engage in,
and whether it matches both their cognitive and linguistic development up to
this point. We need to think about where the inspiration to write about
something can come from in the students, and how this can materialize into a
clear topic or task.
In terms of ‘what kind’ or writing to engage in,
we may peruse a school-based L1 writing textbook and see tasks there that
encourage the students to “compare and contrast”, create a “how-to paper”, make
a “descriptive narrative”, or argue in support of an opinion. I’ve had the
experience of being forced to utilize textbooks like these with young EFL
learners, and if the results were frustrating enough for me to want to avoid writing
subjects in future, imagine how our students felt? It was in actuality a
perfect example of
getting so deeply into discreet skills and
writing processes that the actual act of producing anything meaningful and
personal became very much secondary.
How explaining ‘processes’ and writing concepts
can end up taking up more EFL class time than the actual act of writing.
Why and how many young students get turned off
the prospect of writing almost from the get-go.
The
best sources of prospective writing material have come from two distinct areas. One has been from actual reading – the stories and themes
the students read about in other sections of the curriculum. It may be an
over-generalization, but it bet that the more our students read, the more (and
more willingly) they will be able to write. For example, if we’ve just read a
story about an animal character in the jungle, a good writing topic as follow
up would be to write a similar story about a different animal character in the
same jungle. The students could be asked to change the story they read, or
continue it. From an EFL/ESL perspective, at least they have a nice bank of
vocabulary and sentence models to start working with a theme or concept that is
meaningful to them.
4.
Explain
and give examples the teaching materials for local content in Pontianak
As I know, nowadays English was a local content for elementary
school in West Kalimantan. Especially in Pontianak Pontianak
