Characteristic of Young Learner
June 22, 2012
When you are a teacher, you should know the characteristic of children, or the characteristic of young learner that you taught. Young learners mean children from the first year of formal schooling (5 or 6
year old) to eleven or twelve year age. Young learners have own special
characteristics that differentiate them from adult learners. There should be
known and understood by the teacher to give contribution to improve their
quality of teaching and learning process. In relation to this, Halliwel (1992:
3-5) clarifies the characteristics of children;
1. Children are already very good in
interpreting meaning without necessarily understanding the individual word.
2. Children already have great skill in
using limited language creativity.
3. Children frequently
learn indirectly rather than directly.
4. Children
take good pleasure in finding and creating fun in what they do.
5. Children
have a ready imagination, children words are full of imagination and fantasy,
and it is more than simply matter of enjoyment.
The characteristic of young learners mentioned by Clark (1990: 6-8):
a. Children
are developing conceptually: they develop their way of thinking from the
concrete to the abstract thing.
b. Children
have no real linguistics, different from the adult learners that already have
certain purpose in learning language, for instances, to have a better job,
children rarely have such needs in learning a foreign language. They learn
subject what school provide for them.
c. Children
are still developing; they are developing common skill such as turn talking and
the use of body language.
d. Young
children very egocentric, they tend to resolve around themselves.
e. Children
get bored easily. Children have no choice to attend school. The lack of the
choice means that class activities need to be fun interesting and exciting as
possible by setting up the interesting activities.
