TEFL (Teaching English as Foreign Language)

Describing Learners

Group 1 :

Isna Hartatik 1518351069

Putu Pandu Wilantara 1518351070
Lionie Permata Dewi 1518351071
Ni L. Ayu Trisna Permatasari 1518351072
Ni Komang Sintia Dewi 1518351080

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF ARTS

UDAYANA UNIVERSITY

2018
 DESCRIBING LEARNERS

A. Age

The age of our students is major factor in our decisions about how and what to teach.
There are a number of commonly held beliefs about age. Some people say that children
learn languages faster than adults do. They talk of children who appear to pick up new
languages effortlessly. , according to Steve Pinker , acquisition … is guaranteed for
children up to the age of six, is steadily compromised from then until shortly after puberty,
and is rare thereafter ( Pinker 1994 : 293 ), and that this applies not only to the acquisition
of the first language, but also to second or foreign languages.
Another belief is that adolescents are unmotivated, surly, and uncooperative and that
therefore they make poor language learners. And there are those who seem to think
that adults have so many barriers to learning (both because of the slowing effects of ageing
and because of their past experience), that they only rarely have any success. Much also
depends upon individual learner differences and motivation.

A1. Young Children

Young children is children those up to the ages of nine or ten. They learn differently
from older children, adolescents, and adults in the following ways:

 They respond the meaning although they do not understand individual words.
 They often learn indirectly rather than directly.
 Their understanding comes not just from explanation but also from what they see or
hear.
 They display an enthusiasm for learning and a curiosity about world around them.
 They need individual attention and approval from the teacher.
 They are keen and more attracted to talk about themselves, and respond well learning
that uses themselves as a main topic in the class.
 They have a limited attention, and easily get bored.

Based on these characteristics it can be conclude that good teachers at this level need to
provide learning experiences which encourages their students to get information from a
 variety of sources. They need to work and interact with their students in individually and
group to developing good relationships. They have to plan a range of activities for given
time period, so they do not feel bored.

The classroom or place for young children should look like interesting, bright, and
colorful, with windows so the students can see enough of, and enough room for different
activities. Then children love discovering things, and they respond well to being asked to
use their imagination.

A2. Adolescents

The methodologist Penny Ur suggests, teenage students are in fact overall the best
language learners (Ur 1996: 286) this suggests that this is only part of the picture. When
Herbert Puchta and Michael Schratz started to design material for teenagers in Austria they,
like many before them, wondered why teenagers seemed to be less lively and humorous
than adults, and also why they so much less motivated (Puchta and Schratz 1993: 1)? This
is because of the search for individual identity, this often occurs especially in the west.
Identity has to be forged among classmates and friends; peer approval may be considerably
more important for the student than the attention of the teacher which, for younger
children, is so crucial.

Apart from the need for self-esteem and the peer approval they may provoke from
being disruptive, and another factors also because of the boredom. Adolescents can cause
discipline problem. So, our job, therefore, must be to provoke student engagement with
material which is relevant and involving. At the same time we need to do what we can to
bolster our students’ self-esteem, and be conscious, always, of their need for identity.

To solve this problem, we are able to discuss abstract issues with them. Indeed part of
our job is to provoke intellectual activity by helping them to be aware of contrasting ideas
and concepts which they can resolve for themselves - though still with our guidance.

A3. Adult Learners

Adult language learners are notable for a number of special characteristic:

1. They can engage with abstract thought.

2. They have a whole range of life experiences to draw on.

3. They have expectations about the learning process, and may already have their own set
patterns of learning.

4. Adults tend, on the whole, to be more disciplined than some teenagers, and crucially,
they are often prepared to struggle on despite boredom.

5. Unlike young children and teenagers, they often have a clear understanding of why they
are learning and what they want to get out of it.

However, adults are never entirely problem-free learners, and have a number of
characteristics which can sometimes make learning and teaching problematic:

1. They can be critical of teaching methods.

2. They may have experienced failure or criticism at school which makes them anxious and
under-confident about learning a language.

3. Many older adults worry that their intellectual powers may be diminishing with age-they
are concerned to keep their creative powers alive, to maintain a sense of generativity
(William and Burden 1997:32).