Age

Proficiency level
Educational
background
People of different ages have different
needs, competences and cognitive skills
(Harmer, 2005).
Children can profit from a focus
on form if attention to form is
offered through structured input
and incidental, indirect error
treatment
Proficiency level of the young learners
is at the beginning
If we force too much grammar
focus on beginning level learners,
we run the risk of blocking their
acquisition of fluency skills.
Explicit grammar teaching is more effective
at the intermediate to advanced levels than
beginning levels (Brown, 2007).
Grammatical focus is helpful as an
occasional zoom lens with which we
zero in some aspect of language but not
helpful if it become the major focus of
class work (Brown, 2007)
This is because incidental focus on form is
valuable as it treats errors that occur while
learners are engaged in meaningful
communication.
There is no formal educational background
for young learners or children.
Young learners or children who have no
formal educational background may find
it difficult to grasp the complexity of
grammatical terms and explanations.
Young learners learn differently from
older children, adolescents and adults
among others in the following ways;
They respond to meaning even if they do not
understand individual words.
They often learn indirectly rather than directly
taking every information around them rather
than focusing on the precise topic being
taught
Their understanding comes from explanation
as well as from what they see and hear and
interact with.
They find abstract concepts such as grammar
rules difficult to grasp
They have a limited attention span; unless
activities are extremely engaging, they can
get easily bored, losing interest after ten
minutes or so.