The Development Stages Of Young Learners

What is the Young Learner?

Young learner, it's a term that generally refers to children in the pre-school (First time of formal school), we called it "Kindergarten" with the age range is 5-7 years. But, sometimes in Indonesia, have pre-school for children that the age range is under 5 years old, it's somewhere between 2-4 years. The young learner, mostly they have limited knowledge, but they enjoy fantasy. Their also more concerned about themselves, but with a lower level of self-awareness.

Developmental stages of learners

Infancy (First 12 Months of Life), they communicated with crying to show they needed. Second is, toddlers (1–3 Years of Age/Pre-primary school), have short attention spans, are easily distracted, egocentric in their thinking, aren’t amenable to the correction of their ideas and also, they believe their perceptions to be a reality. The third is, early childhood (4–5 Years of Age/Kindergarten), during this period, they learning through interactions with others and mimicking or modeling the behaviors of playmates and adults. Next, middle and late Childhood (6–11 Years of Age/ Elementary School), in this age children, approach learning with the excitement of what is to come and open-minded for the new and varied ideas, because of their natural curiosity and their desire to understand more about anything that they can see, feel, taste, or hear. According to Santtrock (2013,), This stage is a period of great change for them when attitudes, values, and perceptions of themselves, their society, and the world are shaped and expanded. Last, adolescence (12–17 Years of Age/ High School), Children in this age group try to find themselves in a struggle to establish their own identity and determine themselves.

Challenges in Teaching Young Learner

1.  Managing Classes
2.  Delivering Materials
3. Giving Instruction

How to overcome?

• Give challenges and rewards. As a teacher, we can give them the challenge to get the best point for the activities that they have done

E.g. Okay student, please be quiet we are going to go home now!  So, if you want to go home early, you have to sit neatly.

Early Introduction Foreign Language, Yes or Not?

Young learners with the age range are 0-5 years (Golden Age), they absorb knowledge or information like a sponge, which makes them learn quickly.  So, the early introduction of learning a foreign language actually can give more advantages for young learners, because they can learn a language faster. After all, they have the enthusiasm to explore their imagination and learn about new things. And next, early introduction to learning a foreign language, also helps the children easier to learn about the next step to learning the language (BICS and CALP).

But, besides that early introduction of a foreign language, can make them confuse about their mother tongue, and make the child have a delay in the development of their first language. But I think this problem can be overcome if we as parents/teachers know how to teach with the right (proportional) composition.

E.g. Implementation of mix-up classes. So, they can learn a foreign language, which can help by the first language as a component to explain.

For the conclusion of teaching language to young learners, it will be challenging for parents/teachers, but if we know the right method, approach, ways, or technique on how to teach them, the challenges can be overcome.

Pic. Resources: 

https://www.unicef.org/png/what-we-do/education

https://panhandlehealthdistrict.org/parents-as-teachers/

https://www.canva.com/templates/