The Young Language Learner

The young language learner we can find a big difference between what children can do. Some children develop early, some later. Some children develop gradually. Others in leaps and bounds. For the successful teaching of English in primary schools, above all, it is essential for the teacher to understand the young learners´ characteristics, instincts, and interests in their cognitive, linguistic and emotional aspects, because this will play a crucial role and how the teacher builds children´s knowledge.

We should take into account that children hare short attention span. So teachers should vary their techniques to break the boredom. They should give varied activities as handwriting, songs, games, etc.

ü  Children are very active. Teachers must try to ask them to play games, role plays dialogues and involve them in competitions to get their attention.

ü  Children respond well to praising. Always encourage them and praise their work. They differ in their experience of language. Treat them as a unit, don´t favour those who know some English at the expense of those who do not know.

ü  Children are less shy than older learners. Teachers should ask them to repeat utterances, resort to mechanical drills. They are imaginative, use realia or pictures to teach new vocabulary related to concrete meanings.

ü  We shouldn´t forget that children enjoy learning through playing, young learners learn best when they learn through games. Let games be an essential part of our teaching.

Most activities for the younger learners should include movement and involve the senses, Teachers needs to have plenty of objects and pictures to work with. Demonstrate what teachers want to do with them.

Let the pupils talk to themselves, make up rhymes sing. Songs, tell stories, play with the language make the learning easily for children.

ü  Children are crearly capable of learning foreign language through participating in the discourse of classroom activities; thus, vocabulary teaching has a centre stage in the way how teachers teaching. Besides, although opinions differ how much grammar can be taught, vocabulary learning can be stepping stories to learning and using grammar. It so, very young children learn vocabulary items related to the different concepts they are learning, when children learn numbers or colors in their native language, they are adding concepts as well as vocabulary items. Children have an amazing ability to adsorb language trough play and other activities which they find enjoyable. How good they are in a foreign language is not dependent on whether they have learnt the grammar rules or not. It’s a teacher, you should note the structures, functions and grammar items which you want to pupils to learn as well as those they already know. Teachers can model strategy use, teach sub-skills needed to make use of strategies, include classroom tasks for help young learners reflect on their learning process trough evaluating their achievement. The best time to introduce some sort of simple grammar is either when a pupil asks for an explanation, or when you think a pupil will benefit from learning some grammar.