ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING LEARNING

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING LEARNING

English is become the major international language of printed information. A great deal of the world’s scientific, commercial, economic, and technological knowledge are written and published in English. The new era and globalization today demand many people to master English as an international language. By mastering English well, they could absorb and expand the knowledge, technology and culture. They also could communicate with other people from the other country. The Indonesian government has chosen English as the first foreign language which is taught in Indonesia’s schools.

There are three functions of the teaching of foreign language in Indonesia. The functions are as follow:

     1.      As a means of international communication

     2.      As an aid to develop the Indonesian language into modern one

   3.  As an instrument in utilizing modern science and technology for development The meaning of foreign language are different from the second language.

The difference is on the usage. If the language mentioned has communicative function in certain society or used in daily activities, for instances Bahasa Indonesia, in the Javanese society, the language is called second language. But if the language has no certain function in daily communication in the society, for instance English and Mandarin in Indonesia, the language is considered as the foreign language. Language learning means acquiring the ability to ask and answer questions, to make statements and to produce the normal authentic, forms used by native English speakersBased on the statement above, it is clear that the aim of learning language are to be able to use the language, to response any situation, to understand more, and to be able to read and write.

The main characteristics of foreign language learning are in amount and type of exposure to the language. The children will have very little experience of the language outside the classroom, and encounters with the language will be through several hours of learning in a school. In foreign language teaching, there is an onus on the teacher to provide exposure to the language and to provide opportunities for learning through classroom activities. There are three backgrounds to learning English as follow:

1.      Learning English as a First Language One of the implication for teachers of foreign language learning is in earliest stages they bring different ways to developed skill and learning abilities in their language. By the age of five, individual differences in language domains will be established. For example some children will find it easier to learn vocabulary than others, or children with more developed conversational skill may transfer these to the new language more easily than others. From the some language lessons, it is likely that different children will learn different things, depending partly on what they find easier to learn.

Taecher interchange the terms second and foreign in referring to English language teaching. Some of them warranted, particularly in relation to a curriculum or a lesson, because the difference between the two is significant, and this dichotomy has been over generalized in recent years.

Second language learning context are those in which the classroom target language is readily available out there. Teaching English in United States or Australia clearly fall in to the English second language category . Foreign language context are those in which students do not have ready-made contexts for communication beyond their classroom. They may be obtainable through language clubs, special media opportunities, books, or an occasional tourist, but effort must be made to create such opportunities. Teaching English in Japan or morocco or Thailand or Indonesia is almost always a context of English as a foreign language.

2.      Learning English as a Second Language

Children learn second language better than adults and this is often used to support the early introduction of foreign language teaching. Children can learn a second language effectively before puberty because their brains are still able to use the mechanism that assisted first language acquisition. The older learners will learn differently after these stages language. They may need to be helped to notice and pay attention to the silent cues of the new language.  English language learning held for example in English Department in many universities in Indonesia. All of the materials study about English. They have responsibility to speak English well because it is their program. So, English is become second language for them.

3.      Learning English as a Foreign Language

Every students carry out different language, it can be important conclusion that children became sensitive to the cues in their first language from early infancy at babies. They learn to pay attention to particular cues which carry out information for meaning. Later, when they try to understand a second language, they will transfer the first language strategies to understand second language. The combination of the children capabilities both first and second language can influence student’s achievement in foreign language. Teaching learning English foreign language had done in common place. Because, teaching learning English in English Department is not the example of teaching learning English as a foreign language but it is called teaching learning English as second language.

There are two kinds of language learners, they are as follow:

1.      Young learners

The definition of young learners is the students for elementary school which attain the age about 6 to 12. They were divided into two groups, younger group (6-8 year old) and older group (9-12 year old). According to the class, they called as lower classes, first, second, and third, and upper class, forth, fifth, sixth class. Meanwhile, Scott divides them into level one or first step (5-7 year old) and levels two (8-10 year old). Level two groups, usually called a beginner when they start to study English at those levels.

Sarah Phillips, on her book, stated that “young learners, means children from the first year of formal schooling (five or six year old) to eleven or twelve year of age”

The most important characteristics of young learner are their tendency to be active, some of them more active than others. Teacher should be concerned about children whose behavior is extremely passive or active. Another characteristic of children that is almost noticeable as their high level of activity, it is their tendency to be curious. You have undoubtedly noticed how alert children are to the many things in their environment and how quickly their attention shifts from one aspect to another.

2.       Adult learners

Younger children tend to be influenced by their feelings for their teacher. The main differences between the older and younger are that the older people can consider the importance of studying English, but often become less interested, embarrassed by having to learn a language or even hostile because they don not want to seem foolish in front of their friends.

Different with children, the seven to eight year people may be too young to feel any need for English; their attitude is mainly affected by whether they like the friends feel about English. Children are tends to be more enthusiastic then older. Social environment also influence the children interest in learning English.

The other characteristics between children and adult as language learners are; first, children have shorter attention than adult. Its mean children can not keep concentration and interest in learning material and activity for a long time. They will bore with monotonous learning. But, adults are more able to keep concentration and interest in learning material and activity.

Second, learning for children should be fun and natural.80 By this, they will be fun and will not afraid to study. It is easier for children to understand the lesson through non-formal teaching, playing and singing. But for adult can be easy to understand the lesson through formal teaching. They can analyze their new knowledge by their old knowledge. Thus they acquire English language consciously.

Third, the children acquire grammatical rule inductively and the adult acquire grammatical rule deductively. When learning grammatical rule, the children can understand it through example. If they are given the patterns of grammatical rule first they will be difficult to understand. Different from children, the adult can understand the pattern of grammatical rule before seeing some example. They can develop their abstract thinking ability.

Tweet