Week 3: Working with young learners

In this week’s class, we were learning about how we should work with young language learners. It was necessary for us as we will handle these learners in the future. We were divided into six groups; each group will take a sub-topic from the main “big” topic. These sub-topics were; children’s ability to grasp meaning, children’s creative use of limited language resources, children’s capacity for indirect learning, children’s instinct for play and fun, the role of imagination and the instinct for interaction and talk.

I was in Group 2, and the topic that I worked on is “Children’s creative use of limited language resources". This topic talked about the way the young kids excel in making a little language with the language that they know and mastered. Even they did not know the grammatical forms or the correct way to form a sentence; they are very creative to convey the meaning through the language that they know. So, here, the role of teacher is to enhance their creativity skills in using the target language to the fullest. Teacher must also be an active and creative when designing activity for the children. They must create activity/games that can urge them to utter and talk and use the target language effectively.

These are the other five elements;

Children’s ability to grasp meaning

Young children are able to understand what is being said to them even before they understand the individual words. Intonation, gesture, facial expressions, actions and circumstances all help to tell them what the unknown words and phrases probably mean. By understanding the message in this way they start to understand the language. In later life, we all maintain this first source of understanding alongside our knowledge of the language itself. It remains a fundamental part of human communication.

Children’s capacity for indirect learning

Even when teachers are controlling an activity fairly closely, children sometimes seem to notice something out of the corner of their eye and to remember it better than what they were actually supposed to be learning. At times, this can be a frustrating experience for the teacher. But this capacity too can be turned to our advantage in language classroom. It is part of the rather complex phenomenon of indirect learning. Language activities which involve children in guessing what phrase or word someone has thought of are very good examples of this phenomenon in action.

Children’s instinct for play and fun

Children have an enormous capacity for finding and making fun. Sometimes, it has to be said, they choose the most inconvenient moments to indulge it. They bring a spark of individuality and of drama to much that they do. When engaged in guessing activities, for example, children nearly always inject their own element of drama into their classmates. They shuffle their cards ostentatiously under the table so that the others cannot see. They may utter an increasingly triumphant or smug “No!” as the others fail to guess. No matter how well teacher explains an activity, there is often someone in the class who produces a version of their own. Sometimes it is better than the teacher’s original idea.

The role of imagination.

Children delight in imagination and fantasy. It is more than simply a matter of enjoyment. In the primary school, children are very busy making sense of the world around them. They are identifying pattern and also deviation from that pattern. They test out their versions of the world through fantasy and confirm how the world actually is by imagining how it might be different. In the language classroom, this capacity for fantasy and imagination has a very constructive part to play.

The instinct for interaction and talk

Of all the instincts and attributes that children bring to the classroom, this is probably the most important for the language teacher. It is also the most obvious, so there is no need to labor the point. Let us just say that this particular capacity can surface unbidden and sometimes unwanted in all classrooms. Its persistence and strength is very much to our advantage in the primary classroom. It is one of the most powerful motivators for using the language. Children need to talk. Without talking, they cannot become good at talking. They can learn about the language, and the only way to learn to use it is to use it.

Learning about these elements has taught me to be more open minded. I now know how to handle young learners and the activities that suit them. It will be easier to teach with their attention and their won motivation. Guiding them for the knowledge would be easier and they would be able to grasp the main ideas taught to them. Teaching and learning process would be so much fun for me and for them.

All and all, I would like to thank Puan Foziah for this important knowledge.