Characteristics of Young Learners

Characteristicsof Young Learners

1. Involuntary attention

• not pay attention to language system but to task, topic & situation

• form is acquired indirectly through peripheral learning

• language is a means for expressing meaning

2. Limited attention

• short attention & concentration span

• tend to focus on the end of words & add suffixes & postpositions before noticing the existence of & begin using prefixes & prepositions (e.g. goed, eated, whom with)

3. Holistic skills

• approach language holistically not analyzing it or breaking phrases into chunks but treating & learning it formulaically & integrated with other skills

• language production does not depend on explicit knowledge, but must be developed implicitly

4. Inability to observe regularities & causal relations

• are neither cognitively nor psychologically mature to make comparisons between the L1 & the TL

• require constant repetition to infer & generate grammar rules & to identify causal relations between various occurrences

5. Undeveloped problem-solving skills

• can’t yet diagnose problems & generate solutions based on the information available

6. Weak memory

• cannot control what they are taught

• the younger the learner, the patchier the storage & recall

• need recycling activities

7. Limited experience

• have limited life & learning experience

• do not bring in background knowledge

• they are in the process of learning their L1

8.  Here & now reasoning

• concrete reasoning concerned with physical here & now realia & observable situations in the immediate environment

• abstract reasoning is tied to biological growth & does not develop until between 11 - 14 years old abstract grammatical patterns are beyond children grasp

9. Undeveloped LL aptitude

• influence the rate of development where formal classroom learning is concerned

• 4 major components of LL aptitude:(1) phonetic coding ability: an ability to identify distinct sounds, and to form associations between them and representative symbols(2) grammatical sensitivity: the ability to recognize the grammatical functions of words (or other linguistic entities) in sentence structures(3) rote learning ability: a memorization technique based on repetition(4) inductive (language learning) ability: the ability to infer or induce the rules governing a set of language materials

10. Mechanical memory

• 2 kinds of memories:– mechanical memory (short-term memory)

predominant in children – logical memory (long-term memory)

develops very slowly between 11 - 14 years of age, is related to abstract thinking

• children under 12-13 can repeat & memorize long words & expressions, but are not able to analyze them because logical memory is not well developed yet

11. Lower-order functioning2 broad types of functioning:– lower-order functioning

• responsible for the understanding & production of speech

• involves basic syntactic processing & the motor operations employed in speaking & writing

• a function of early maturing– higher-order functioning

• involves semantic processing & verbal recognition

• dependent upon late developing neural circuitry

• available for use only in older learners

12. Undeveloped interactional skills

• young learners are prone to be less involved in sustaining a conversation

• progress less rapidly than older learners

13. Motivation

• rarely have clear motivation• be less able to:– assume responsibility for their

learning– use the metacognitive strategies

of focusing, arranging, planning, monitoring & evaluation

– rule out any serious attempt at large-scale comparative assessment of their progress

14. Literacy (& numeracy)

• children are far behind taking their first steps with the alphabet & numbers

• a whole new code must be taught alongside the introduction of literacy & numeracy

15. Ongoing categorization

• children still acquire L1

• establish the range of reference of the lexical items

• find out the boundaries of the relevant classes