Name

: Iman Hilmansyah
Student ID : 1402203
Subject
: English for Young Learners
There are so many perspectives when people discussed about who are children,
how do children learn, and how do children learn language. Here, based on the
discussion in EYL class last week on 15 th September 2014 and compare it to some
TEYL books, Children can be concluded as social creature with their own ways of
doing things, human being that still love to play, have great imagination, and also
have they own way of resolving something. Those characteristics of children lead us
to know how they learn in general and how they learn language especially English in
more specific.
Generally, both of adults and children have they own characteristics in learning. For
example Pinter (2006, p.18) explains that adult learners can analyze language in an
abstract way but the children cannot and they have no interest to learn the
language features and the language itself except they are having fun and if they
understand the messages from meaningful context. The example proves that there
is significance different between adult and children in terms of their characteristic of
learning. Adult learners have an ability to think logically about the material that
they learn but children seem to accept every input from the environment (not only
their teacher or parents but also their friends) if they have the interest to it.
Based on the characteristics of children that was mentioned before, children have
unique ways in learning because they seem to have they own world that different
enough from adults. There are some childrens characteristics when they are
learning (English language) such as; children learn while playing, learn from
observing, and they learn language from the friends they keep. Moreover, Pinter
(2006, p.13) agrees that there are types of intelligences of children which are
divided into linguistic, logic mathematical, musical, spatial, kinesthetic,
interpersonal, intrapersonal, and natural. The types of intelligences lead to
perception that children have unique ways in learning because every single child
enjoys different activities while learning depend on the types of intelligences.
The uniqueness of children in learning language forces every teacher to create
effective strategies in the process of teaching English to young learners. The
appropriate ways in teaching young learners can help both of learners and teacher
in teaching and learning language.
There are two perspectives when teachers face young learners, those perspectives
include deficit perspective and socio cultural perspective. Deficit perspective based
on Answer (today online, 2014, September 22) is a believe that the lower
achievement in school is based on the problem with the students rather than
considering the role of the school itself, instructional practices, organizational
structures, etc. this believe could be a problem, because in teaching and learning
process especially teaching and learning for specific audience in this field young

learners, role of the school, instructional practices, organizational structures are the
most important things to the success of teaching and learning process.
The explanation before proves that young learners cannot fully be blame if they are
not able to achieve several abilities, knowledge, or skills in language learning.
Teacher must understand the situation beyond the problems. As we know that
children are unique creature, teacher should understand children characteristics and
types of intelligences before they teach. They also have to create appropriate
strategies based on the children characteristics and types of intelligences. These
believe is the foundation of socio cultural perspective. Cherry (2014) believes that
the socio cultural perspective is a theory that looks at the important contributions
that society makes to individual development and it stresses the interaction
between developing people and the culture in which they live. In line with that,
Vygotsky in Mooney (2000, p.82-85) believes that parents, caregivers, peers and
the culture at large were responsible for the development of higher order functions.
Those statements prove that every aspects around the children influence children
psychological aspects. Here, teacher must be able to utilize children psychological
aspects that were influenced by their environment.
In the end, it can be concluded that children are unique creatures that have their
own strengths and weaknesses. Because of that, teacher should have strategies to
deal with that. One of the effective strategies is socio cultural perspective which is
mean that teacher should look from children perspectives before they arrange the
strategies in teaching language.
References
Cherry, K. What is Socio Cultural Theory?. (2014, September, 22). Today online.
Retrieved September 22, 2014, from:
http://psychology.about.com/od/developmentecourse/f/sociocultural-theory.htm.
September 22, 2014
Answer. (2014, September, 22). Today online. Retrieved September 22, 2014, from:
http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_deficit_theory_in_education. September 22,
2014
Pinter, A. (2006). Teaching Young Language Learners. China: Oxford University
Press.
Mooney, C.G. (2000). Theories of Childhood. USA: Redleaf Press.