TEACHING ENGLISH AT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

TEACHING ENGLISH AT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Introduction

Teaching English as foreign language is by now a curricular subject in the elementary school in Indonesia. It was generally taught, starting from the third class.  Based on curriculum 1994, English can be taught at elementary school. It is not obligation but it is flexible concerning with the school ability.  Yet, the government doesn’t prepare the English teacher and give the responsible to each school.

As we know, there are getting many elementary schools conducting teaching English. The condition must be paid attention because there many problems in it implementation as Alwasilah said in his book (Alwasilah, 2000) as follow:

1. The teachers graduated from IKIP are not prepared to teach at elementary school so their professional is questionable. They are not educated children psychology, learning theory for children.
2. Teacher is an adult person and tends to use adult frame to teach children. But, as we know that children is very different with the adult in learning language.
3. There is not exactly regulation. So many elementary schools hire the English teacher that has not good qualification.

Teaching English at elementary school should be prepared as good as possible because once there many mistakes it will make the children face difficulties in studying English in next stage.

A.    Who Children are and How They Learn a Foreign language.

            In the real context of early childhood education, especially the teaching of English in kindergarten and elementary school, there has been a persistent misconception about how children learn language including a foreign language.

According to Scott and Ytreberg (1990), the characteristics of the young language leaner are:

·      They know the world is governed by rules. They may not always understand the rules, but they know that they are there to be obeyed, and the rules help to nurture a feeling of security.

·      They understand situations more quickly than they understand the language.

·      They use language skills long before they are aware of them.

·      They own understanding comes through hands and eyes and ears. The physical word is dominant at all times.

·      They are very logical – what you say first happen first. ‘Before you turn off the light, put your book a way’ can mean 1 turn off the light and then 2 put your book away.

·      They have very short attention and concentration span.

·      They sometimes have difficulty in knowing what fact is and what fiction is.

·      Young children are often happy playing and working alone but in the company of others.

·      The adult’s world and the child’s world are not the same. Children don’t always understand what adults are talking about and vise versa. The difference is that the adults usually find out by asking questions, but children don’t always ask.

There is some children’s uniqueness in learning, as follow:

v Learn easily from what they see and hear

v Children tend to have short span of attention

v Exploratory

v Age of play

v Learning through  real object

v Hand on activities / experience

v Memory easy

v Unique in their composition skill

In line with how children learn a foreign language, Mustafa (2003) stated some characteristics:

1. Children learn naturally

Children are always active in exploring their environment and accumulating knowledge and experiences. In exploring, children construct their understanding of how thing work, including the language they use for communication.

2. Children know a lot before schooling

Before schooling, children have participated in literate activities in social context. They have faced and understood about literary artifacts in their environment such as traffic sign, traffic light and the brand name of their favorite toys and food.

3. All children can learn

Every child has much different intelligence with different level of sophistication.  They can learn anything in their own pace provided that they have exposure to, engagement in, and support for things they learn from their culture. For example, some children can very quickly acquire new words, while the other excel in motor skill such as constructing block; still others can pick up new songs fast and very wonderfully.

4. Children learn best when learning is kept whole, meaningful, interesting and functional.

Children tend to learn things holistically. This tendency is reflected very well in children’s play such as playing “school teacher and students”, a doctor and patients”.  For children, things are easy to learn when they are in their contextual totality. In addition, children will find things meaningful, interesting, and functional when they can relate these things with their need and personal experiences.

5. Children learn best when they make their own choices.

When the children learn relating their needs the learning becomes meaningful for them because it based on children’s knowledge and their interest. Children must be given different formats of learning so that they can choose based on what they think are important and useful.

6. Children learn best as a community of learners in a non competitive environment.

Children tend to do things and relate to others in cooperative way. Non-competitive environment is good for children because this collaborative  work will not only result in a better quality product, but it will also promote a sense of belonging to social group they are in and help develop in children a sense of social responsibility as part of the group.

7. Children learn best by talking and doing in social context.

Based on the functional use of language, in the context of classroom, teaching English as foreign language should be treated as tool for communication and the children should be encouraged to use the language for many different social purposes bay talking and doing thing in social context using English.

B.    Essential Principles of Good Learning Material for Children           

In determining the material for young learner, it should consider the

characteristic of children in learning as discussing above. The good material for children should follow the principles below:

1.      Relevant to their experience and knowledge

The children will be more interested if the material presented is have known by them. And if the children have background knowledge of the material, it will make them easy to understand.

2.      Accessible

The English material should be reached and explored by student easily.  Children generally think now and here so the teacher should give the expressions that can be memorize easily.

3.      Functional

The language taught to students must relate and can be use in everyday life. So what student learns can be used to communicate with others in real activity.

4.      No grammatical mistake

The material presented must be right grammatically because once children memorize it, it will be difficult to correct. Children have good memorize and they will remember and use what they have leant right or wrong.

5.      Exploitability

The good material must be able to be developed and explored.  The material should contain words and expression that can be explored and can be widened. So the student can learn deeply and widely about a material.

6.      Physical contact

The material should contain the words that can be shown the object of the word. In this occasion, a teacher can use the original object or realia or side words. By touching the material or see the object, student can memorize long.

7.      Use imagination; choose the appropriate material which the student can use their  imagination

8.      Use of space; use and explore the classroom as deep as possible by providing the learning sources.

9.      Not too long; choose the material that relatively short and suitable for student’s capability.

10.  Less destructor, avoid the illustration too much because it can  turn around to wrong direction from the  focus.

C.    Essential Principle of How to Facilitate Children Learning a Foreign Language.

The way children learn a foreign language  and  how  the way to teach it

obviously depends on their developmental stage.  Therefore teacher should organize class well and always maintain and make the English class an enjoyable, stimulating experience for the children. Philips gave some points to bear in mind (Phillips’ 2005):

-          The activities should be simple enough for the children to understand what is expected of them

-          The task should be within their abilities, it need to be achievable but at the  same time sufficiently stimulating for them to feel satisfied with their work.

-          The activities should be largely orally based-indeed, with very young children listening activities will take up a large proportion of class time.

-          Written activities should be used sparingly with younger children.

Bellow are some activities that teacher should do in classroom to facilitate children learning foreign language (Mustafa, tanpa tahun):

1.      Use English to Provide Exposure to the language

Teacher should use English as many as possible in teaching learning process or out of teaching if necessary. It is hoped that children can exposure and engage the language use as a mean of  communication. Teacher as a model of English speaker must demonstrate their capability in using the language the children learn. Let alone, In Indonesia, English is as foreign language so the main resource for  students  to learn English is their teacher.

2.      Provide print—rich Environment in English

We should provide abundant material in our class  to support their literacy development.  When children ready access to writing tools with which to express themselves in symbolic ways, they are motivated to learn and use literacy. Book, paper, writing tool and functional signs should be visible everywhere in the classroom so that the children can see and use literacy for multiple purposes.

3.      Use activity-based teaching –learning (e.g., TPR, games, projects)

In teaching learning process, teacher must can motivated  or  raise all children ‘s capability. The student should  be actives beside listening, they are expected to be active in physical.

4.      Use various techniques for short periods of time

Because the children generally have short span of attention, teachers should use a variety of technique in teaching learning process. It is expected that student don’t be boring in short time and to raise the student’s attention. Teacher should be able to create the class in happy situation. It is common sense that if an activity is enjoyable, it will be memorable, the language involved will stick and the children have a sense of achievement which will develop motivation for further learning ( Phillips, 2005)

5.      Focus in functional English for vocabulary development and immediate fulfillment of communicative needs.

Teacher must be able to increase the student vocabulary.  Vocabulary is best learned when the meaning of the words is illustrated, for example by a picture, an action, or real object. The children should  meet and use the words in relevant context in order to fix them in their minds. This help establish their relationship  to other words, so that a vocabulary network is built up.

6.      Reiterate often to ensure the acquisition of English.

To make the language learned memorable, the teacher should always repeat the same sentence pattern and routines or often paraphrase what he has said. The more often  students listen to the expression, the more memorable what the children listen.

7.      Provide useful, acquisition-promoting routines.

The teacher should make the environment that support to use the language in daily life.

D.    Lesson Plan and Instructional Procedure

1.      Subject                                    : English

Grade  / Term              : IV / 2

Time allocation            : 2 x 70 minutes

2.      Topic

Procedure text / how to make milk tea?

3.      Goal and Objectives

Goal

-          Fluently and accurately spoken and written communication by using appropriate variety language component in interactional and / or short monolog in narrative and procedure text type

Objective

-          To respond  utterances in procedure text

-          To produce short procedure text

-          To perform a monolog of procedure text orally

4.      Description

a.       Part one : The children observe  a picture   and understand what in the picture are then make a cup of milk tea as the procedure.

b.      Part two    : The children make a procedure text  in pair or group.

5.      Material          

Copies of worksheet or text on card, ingredient and utensil for recipes, aprons, cloths for cleaning up.

6.      Teaching steps

Part one

a.      Anticipatory

The teacher stimulates the students by asking some questions related to the topic.

-          Dou you like to drink a cup of tea?

-          What does it taste?

-          When do you usually drink tea?

-          Do you make it by yourself?

-          Who makes it?

-          Do you know the ingredient to make a cup of tea?

-          Please mention the entire ingredient!

-          What tools do we need to make tea?

b.      Presentation

1. Teacher show the students picture of making milk tea, then she ask her students some questions related to the pictures.
2. I’ll show you some picture, mention some activities based on the pictures, (students put the word below the picture).

Ø   First; switch on the kettle to boil the water

Ø   Second; put the teabag in a cup

Ø   Third;  pour boiling water into the cup

Ø   Forth; pour the milk into the cup

Ø   Fifth; add sugar and stir

Ø   Sixth; drink tea

3. Student identify the verb in the text

Part two

c.       Guided practice

Ø   In group of four students constructs their own text which is similar with the procedure text, for example how to make a cup of milk or coffee.

Ø   Teacher reminds the students about ingredients and tools that they need to produce it. Then student write them on their exercise book. Teacher encourage the students to draw the picture step by steps, they may imitate the picture that have been shown.

d.      Independent practice

In this steps the teacher asks the student to make procedure text then   one or two students tell their procedure text they have made in front of the class orally.

e.       Closure

In this step, the teacher reviews what students have done in this lesson reinforced the major points to be leaned. Then teacher clarifies the lesson and tie them together into coherent whole.

Reference :

1. Musthafa, Bachrudin, (2003),  EFL for young Learner, Bandung : Departement of English Indonesia University of Education.
2. Musthafa, Bachrudin, Handout of EYL course.
3. Phillips, Sarah and Maley, Alan, (2005), Young Leaner, London : Oxford University Press
4. Scott, Wendy,A and Ytreberg Lisbeth H., (1990), Teaching English To Children, London: Longman.