Then Pn.Foziah told us to open chapter 1 which is ‘Working with Young Language Learners’. Since chapter 1 consists of six subtopics, all of us were divided into 6 groups and each group took one subtopic. My group was assigned to take the second subtopic entitled ‘Children’s creative use of limited language resources’. So, six of us divided ourselves into 2 small groups after reading that part. Three of us prepared for the power point presentation while the other three browsed for additional information as Pn.Foziah asked us to insert the URL as our referent if we quoting others information from the internet.
Based on this subtopic, I understand that children are very creative in using grammatical forms and concepts for example a four years old British child said ‘don’t unring’ the phone and ‘switch off the dark’ when he wanted the light put on.
These are the 6 components:
Children's ability to grasp meaning:
For young learner, they usually make sense of their learning if teacher teach concrete vocab items that include well-illustrated teaching aids. These meaningful learning experiences make children enable to grasp meaning easily.
Children's creative use of limited language resources:
Children's vocabulary is very limited. Therefore, young learner initially learn chunk of language@baby talk in an unanalyzed way. They are trying to use as creative as possible their limited language resources in order to make others get the meaning and as a way of communication with others.
Children's capacity for indirect learning:
Learning occurs in 2 ways-direct & indirect learning. Children often appear to learn in indirect experiences. They acquire certain knowledge and skills subconsciously. The best part of children learning is when they have some fun during TnL process. Creating a non-threatening atmosphere is very essential for them.
Children's instinct for play and fun:
The role of imagination: Children who actively use their imagination gain lots of benefits such as playing collaboratively and become a creative-thinking person.
The instinct for interaction and play. Children always want to interact and play. Hence, their instinct can be used in educated way to engage learning in them.
The discussion was completed by creating a slideshow for the given topic. we were asked to create a slideshow in order to explain the given topic. we need to present our finding and discussion. but, due to limited time and some 'interesting event' happened,we were unable to present our topic.
Despite the facts that we were not able to present our part, there are still lots of input into my knowledge on childrens' learning. This is very helpful in assisting me in my future teaching. As a future teacher, we must always remember that “Each and every student is different.” We must always make sure that the children are learning and engage actively in their preference way.
