CHARACTERISTICS of YOUNG LEARNERS

Posted by : Unknown Rabu, 02 Juli 2014

Young learners mean children from the first year of formal schooling (5 or 6 year old) to eleven or twelve year age. Young learners have own special characteristics that differentiate them from adult learners. There should be known and understood by the teacher to give contribution to improve their quality of teaching and learning process.

Some young learners have their own characteristic. There are some of their generally characteristic that teachers and parents should know :

Physical side

The physical world of young children is dominant.
Their understanding comes through hands, eyes, and ears.
They perform physical activity in many ways: such as coloring, drawing, and writing.
They are at the developing stage (Critical Period).

Social side.

They are happy playing and working in the company of others (Sitting with others encourages co-operation ) (Philips). Young learners learn best when they learn through games. Let games be an essential part of your teaching.
They are aware of themselves in relation to others.

Psychological side

They have short concentration span. So teachers should vary their techniques to break the boredom. they should give varied activities as handwriting , songs , games etc.
They are free of prejudice.
They get bored easily. Children have no choice to attend school. The lack of the choice means that class activities need to be fun interesting and exciting as possible by setting up the interesting activities.
They are forgetful.
They like imitating. They enjoy imitating and skilfull in listening accurately and mimicking what they have heard.
They have high curiosity.
They are risk taker.
They are imaginative. Use pictures to teach new vocabulary related to concrete meanings, but may have some difficulties distinguishing between imagination and real world.
They are very active. Try to ask them to play games , role play dialogues and involve them in competitions.

Other Characteristics

Their first language is not fully developed.
They need to develop their native language (s).
They don’t need linguistic knowledge.
They learn language for communication (how), not the rules (what).

The characteristic of young learners mentioned by Clark (1990: 6-8):

Children are developing conceptually: they develop their way of thinking from the concrete to the abstract thing.
Children have no real linguistics, different from the adult learners that already have certain purpose in learning language, for instances, to have a better job, children rarely have such needs in learning a foreign language. They learn subject what school provide for them.
Children are still developing; they are developing common skill such as turn talking and the use of body language.
Young children very egocentric, they tend to resolve around themselves.
Children get bored easily. Children have no choice to attend school. The lack of the choice means that class activities need to be fun interesting and exciting as possible by setting up the interesting activities.