Zuhrufi Latifah/1707155

Teaching English to Young Learners

Children Learn from Whole to Parts

Many people do not realize that actually children learn from whole to parts. Most of
them start teaching children from the smallest things to the big ones. While in fact, the
process that children go through in learning is otherwise.
Musthafa (2010) explains that children’s experiences help them to build up a
knowledge about something in such a whole using ‘scripts’. The ‘wholeness’ of the script
they hold would later be revised into parts whenever they got new information about their
existing knowledge about the script. Take for example when children find out about fish.
They make their mental note that fish is one creature that lives in water. They then might call
all the creatures they see in water as fish. However, later on, when their caretaker explains a
creature, take one as tadpoles, they will adjust their earlier information in their mental notes.
They will realize that not all creatures living in water are called fish, there are some else.
They would be able to have a script that creatures living in water are not all fish, there are
others with their own different name.
Allen & Kelly (2015) also indicate similar thing about this. It is explained that when
children learn a language they learn from general to specific; a similar concept with what
Musthafa explains. This ‘whole’ concept introduced is linked through the children’s
cognition on knowledge. The term used mostly in the book is ‘generic language’. Basically
children differentiate the use of generalization in sentence through different meaning. An
example from the book will be presented here. If a sentence of “this snake has holes in its
teeth” is given to children, they will make meaning that this particular snake has holes
because it does not brush its teeth or other reason that might make sense to them. In contrast,
if children are given this generic sentence “snakes have holes in their teeth” they will make
meaning that the information is snakes’ characteristics and they further might have their own
scientific information about it. It means that the power of generalization does affect the
children’s mental note in processing information and making meaning about it differently. In
line with Musthafa’s previous discussion, it can also be understood that the generalization
relates to the ‘whole’ concept the children make. From the ‘whole’ they make their own
scripts to ‘parts’; and from generic sentence they make meaning differently from the
specified one.
References
Allen, L. & Kelly, B. B. (2015). Transforming the Workface for Children Birth Through Age
8: A Unifying Foundation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Musthafa, B. (2010). Teaching English to Young Learners in Indonesia: Essential
Requirements. Educationist 2, 120-125.