LEARNING WORDS AND GRAMMAR Group 2 TBI B
LEARNING WORDS AND GRAMMAR Group 2 TBI B
LEARNING WORDS AND GRAMMAR Group 2 TBI B
Lecturer :
Nur Aini Syah, M.Hum.
Compiled by:
Heppy Nur Cahyanti (204180035)
Iis Rulianawati (204180036)
Khoirun Nisa’i Sholihah (204180043)
A. Background
EYL students are young learners who learn English. They are elementary
school age children who get English lessons as a local content subjects in their
school. Teaching English for Young Learners (EYL) is designed to introduce the
theory and practice teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) to young learners
(elementary school students).
In learning English they should know about words and grammar, therefore they
should learning words and grammar. Learning vocabulary/ words is very necessary
and an indispensable part of any language learning process. In the EFL context,
vocabulary not only supports the four language skills; listening, speaking, reading,
and writing, but also mediates between EFL students and content-area classes in
that the students often find that lack of vocabulary knowledge is an obstacle to
learning.
Same as vocabulary/ word, grammar also necessary and vital part of any
language learning process. But, it could be argued that grammar has no place in a
young learner classroom, it is too difficult for children or is not relevant to their
learning. In this paper we want to open up the idea of grammar and to explore
grammar from the learner perspective. By doing this, we hope to convince readers
that grammar does indeed have a place in children's foreign language learning, and
that skilful grammar teaching can be useful. Opening up what we mean by
grammar will remind us that it is something much more than the lists of labels and
rules found in grammar books, and that grammar is closely tied into meaning and
use of language, and is interconnected with vocabulary. Then we will see how some
1
2
current methods of helping learners develop their grammar can be adapted for
younger learners. Therefore in this paper we will talk about what is young learner?
What is learning words and how teacher teaching words and grammar to their
students as young learners.
B. Research Question
1. What is english for young learners?
2. What is learning words?
3. What is learning grammar?
C. Research Objective
1. To know about what is young learners
2. To know about what is learning words and how to teaching words to young
learners
3. To know about what is learning grammar and how to teaching grammar to
young learners.
3
CHAPTER II
DISCUSSION
1
Richard johnstone, Language Policy and English for Young Learners in Early Education, (711 Third
Avenue, New York: Routledge, 2019), 13.
2
Nadiah ma’mun, pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris Bagi Anak Sekolah Dasar Lewat Lagu dan Permainan,
(IAIN Walisongo Semarang, 2021), 97.
4
B. Learning Words
1. The Definition of Words (Vocabulary)
According to Hornby (1974: 959), vocabulary can be defined in three ways:
total number of words (with rules for combining them) which make up language,
range of words known to a person and containing a list of words with definition or
translation. Similarly, Nunan (2003: 130-132) defines vocabulary in three ways:
multi-word unit, word families and core meanings.
While, Gardener in Adger (2002) states that vocabulary is not only confined to
the meaning of words but also includes how vocabulary in a language is structured.
It means that it relates to how people use and store words and how they learn words
and the relationship between words, phrases, categories of words and phrases.
Then, Cummin in Herrel(2004) states that there are different types of
vocabulary. They are listening, speaking, reading, and writing vocabulary. Listening
vocabulary refers to all the words an individual can recognize when listening to
speech. Speaking vocabulary refers to all the words an individual can use in speech.
While, reading vocabulary refers to all of the words an individual can recognize
when reading a text. Then, writing vocabulary includes all the words an individual
can employ in writing.
Consequently, vocabulary is positively related to lexicon which refers to a
reference book containing an alphabetical list of words with information about them
and can also refer to the mental faculty or power of vocal communication. 3
2. Vocabulary Development in Children Language Learning
Vocabulary development is about learning words, but it is about much more
than that. Vocabulary development is also about learning more about those words,
and about learning formulaic phrases or chunks, finding words inside them, and
learning even more about those words. Even the idea of what counts as a ‘word’
3
HendraEka Putra, Effective strategies for teaching vocabulary to young learners (BatuSankar : Ta’dib,
Volume 14, No.2, 2011), 182.
5
b) Vocabulary development is not just learning more words but is also importantly
about expanding and deepening word knowledge. Chil dren need to meet words
again and again, in new contexts that help increase what they know about
words. Teaching needs to include the recycling of words.
c) Words and word knowledge can be seen as being linked in networks of
meaning. Meeting a word will activate the network and thus provide support for
understanding and for learning.
d) Basic level words are likely to be more appropriate for younger children, or
when learning vocabulary for new concepts. Older learners can benefit from
building up superordinate and subordinate vocabulary linked to basic level
words they already know.
e) Children change in how they can learn words. Whereas the very young learners
will learn words as collections, older children are much more able to make
connections between the words they learn and to use the paradigmatic
organisation of words and concepts as a help in vocabulary learning.5
3. Principles of Teaching Vocabulary to Young Learners
Teaching English vocabulary to young learners can be started by introducing
vocabulary to them. Teaching vocabulary to young learners should be interesting
and fun in order to interest them to learn and improve their motivation in learning
English, especially in mastering English vocabulary. According to Nunan (2003:
135141), there is a set of guiding principles that can be applied in a variety of
teaching and learning situations. They are focusing on the most useful vocabulary,
focusing on the vocabulary in the most appropriate way, giving attention to the high
frequency words across the four strands of a course, and encouraging learners to
reflect on and taking responsibility for learning. Focusing on the most useful
vocabulary means that some words can be used in a wide variety of circumstances.
5
Lynne Cameron., 81.
7
For example, the word help can be used to ask for help, to describe how people
work with others, to describe how knowledge, tools, and to indicate material that
can make people’s work easier and so on. Focusing on the vocabulary in the most
appropriate way means the first principle looks at what words to teach and learn.
This principle looks at how they should be taught and learned.
Therefore, the teachers need to clearly differentiate the way they treat high
frequency words from low frequency words clearly. While, giving attention to the
high frequency words across the four strands of a course, high frequency vocabulary
should get deliberate attention through teaching and study and should be met and
used in communicating messages in listening, speaking, reading and writing.
Then, encouraging learners to reflect on and take responsibility for learning
refers to the learners need to realize that they have to be responsible for their own
learning. Taking this responsibility requires knowledge of what to learn and the
range of options for learning vocabulary, skill in choosing the best options, and the
ability to monitor and evaluate progress with those options.
In addition, Schmitt in Ikah (2006: 13-14) states some key principles of
teaching vocabulary. They are building a large sight of vocabulary, integrating the
new words with previous words, providing a number of encounters with a word,
promoting deep level of processing, facilitating imagination, making new word
‘real’ by connecting them to the students’ word in some way, using various
strategies, and encouraging independent learning strategies. Based on the theories,
teacher should master those principles before applying teaching in the classroom.
And, s/he has to use them based the students’ need to the vocabulary in order to
help them to communicate in real life communication both spoken and written
form.6
4. Children Vocabulary Learning Strategies
6
Hendra Eka Putra., 184-185.
8
Last, Nunan (2003: 141) states that there are four principle strategies that
can be employed in teaching vocabulary. They are meaning focused input activities,
deliberate learning activities, meaning focused on output activities, and fluency
activities. Deliberate learning activities involve learning to use vocabulary learning
strategies of word cards, guessing meaning from context, using word parts and
dictionary use. A professional teacher may select one of them for their teaching
target to promote the learners’ successful in learning.7
C. Learning Grammar
1. What is Grammar
According to Longman Dictionary of contemporary English grammar is: “The
rules by which words change their forms and are combined into sentences, or the
study or use of these rules.” (Longman Dictionary of contemporary English, 2001,
p. 619). For many teachers, grammar is the backbone of all language learning.
'Structure', as it is often called, is perceived as the core thread of the language
syllabus and, indeed, the majority of school curricula and the majority of course
books are designed according to grammatical criteria.
Grammar is taught to help learners to form sentences that could convey their
message clearly. Therefore, grammar is taught since early school age to enable
young learners to express themselves clearly too. However, teaching grammar to
young EFL learners can be challenging. Children are physically active, imaginative,
easily distracted and have short attention span (Shin and Crandall, 2014).
Explaining grammar rules elaborately to young learners and giving written practices
that engages no imagination might bore them. In addition, the practices that are
involved usually stay in the classroom without the learners actually practicing or
using it again outside the classroom.8 For many teachers, grammar is the backbone
7
Ibid., 185.
8
Annisaa Paradisa, Teaching English Grammar to Young Learners through Nursery Rhymes
Applications, (Jakarta: Universitas Indonesia, 2015), 35.
10
Teacher’s lesson plans should include tasks which use grammar to achieve a
goal. For example, teacher can ask children to describe a picture, which will involve
using present progressive, e.g. “The man is walking with his dog”. He can ask the
children to guess what object is in a bag, which will require them to formulate
questions. Activities which embed grammar and teach grammar indirectly motivate
children much more than drills or explanations.
Teacher should make sure all new grammar is taught before the activity. The
focus of this, however, should be that the children understand the meaning of the
grammar. Teacher can use Indonesia to make sure they understand. Keep in mind
that children may learn easily but forget quickly. Recycle new grammar frequently
to help them remember.9
3. Stages in Teaching Grammar to EYL
Grammar teaching includes four stages that children should go through
before being able to use a new grammar item (Scrivener, 2003) They need to:
a. Notice the grammar item in presentation
Presentation should be:
1) Clear-there should not be any difficulties in understanding, children should
understand the text
2) Efficient-there should be a maximum of new grammar, children should be
forced to use new language
3) Enjoyable and interesting-children should be motivated on the highest level
and be interested in the activity. Doing things that they find enjoyable and
are interested in them is the best motivation to learn.
4) Appropriate-it has to be proper for language that is presented
5) Productive-children should be allowed to make own sentences and questions
using the grammar that they have learnt (Harmer, 1987).
9
Annisaa Paradisa., 46.
13
10
Annisaa Paradisa., 66-68.
14
1994), which sets out and explains a description of the language on paper, it is
doubtful that learners younger than about ten years of age could benefit from
formal pedagogic grammars because of their cognitive demands.
c. Internal grammars
Every learner’s internal grammar is different from every other s because
each has a unique learning experience. Internal grammar is sometimes referred
to as” inter language” or as “linguistic competence”
I want to emphasize the distinction between external theoretical or
pedagogic grammars and internal grammars because it helps us understand why
a learner may have been taught a piece of grammar on the syllabus, but may not
be able to use that grammatical form in talking or writing. It is essentially yet
another way of pointing out the difference between teaching and learning, so
that learning can be made central to teaching.12
5. Development of internal grammar
A view of language learning as emerging from language use, in which repeated,
meaningful encounters with forms of the language produce dynamic and evolving
language resources. As the book proceeds, so we are making that general picture
more specific, and in this section, we trace a more explicit view of the development
of the language resource that is an “internal grammar”, before considering it in the
wider context of classroom language teaching and learning.
a. From words to grammar
There is evidence from adult second language learning and from school
based foreign language learning that, in the beginning stages, learners seem to
use words or chunks strung together to get their meanings across, with little
attention paid to grammar that would fit the words or chunks together in
12
Lynne Cameron., 99-100.
16
conventional patterns (Klein and Perdue 1992; Mitchell and Martin 1997;
Weinert 1994).
Cognitive psychology suggests that our brains/minds i minds work always
with a limited amount of attentional capacity (or mental attention) that is
available to concentrate on getting a task achieved. When that task is
communicating an idea or message through the foreign language, then it seems
that finding the right words takes up attention early on, but that, once those
words or chunks are well known, using them takes up less capacity, and
attention is freed for grammar. This will be a repeating process of moving from
lexis to grammar, as language resources get gradually more extensive. As a
counterbalance to that, social factors will influence the actual need for grammar
to communicate. If you can get your message through without grammar, as
when a very small knowledge of a language makes it possible to buy food in a
foreign shop by naming the item and amount, then there may be little impulse to
drive grammar learning. It seems increasingly likely that paying attention to
grammatical features of a language is not something that happens automatically
in communicating, and that therefore some artificial methods of pushing
attention are needed, i.e. teaching.13
b. Learning through hypothesis testing
Hypothesis testing is the rather grand name given to mental processes that
are evidenced from a very early age: for example, as a baby drops her spoon,
watches someone pick it up for her, and then drops it again so that it will be
picked up again. The baby appears to have constructed a hypothesis “If i drop
my spoon, it will be picked up for me”, and to be testing it through repeated
trials. Of course, eventually the child learns that the hypothesis was right, but
13
Lynne Cameron., 101-102.
17
only for a limited number of drops, after which adult fatigue sets in, and the
spoon probably disappears!
It is suggested that something similar happens when children learn the
grammar of their first language, once they move past holistic use of language
chunks. Children do not just produce random word orderings and forms, but
they somehow work out how to use the language and then try out their
hypotheses in saying things, amending them when they hear alternative
versions. It is as if the child has worked out a grammar rule and is testing it out.
c. Influence of the first language
It will be apparent that constructing hypotheses about the foreign language
is much more difficult than for the first language, simply because the learner has
relatively little amounts of data to work on. When you have only encountered
500 words and maybe 50 phrases, it is quite hard to work out grammatical rules,
and hypotheses are likely to be over-generalized and incomplete. So children
learning French may assume that je suis: ( I am) can be translated as the
pronoun I and use it together with other verbs: "je suis appelle.14
14
Lynne Cameron., 102-104.
15
Lynne Cameron., 111.
18
16
Lynne Cameron., 112-113.
19
17
Lynne Cameron., 114.
20
18
Lynne Cameron., 116-118.
22
Through this talk, a student may learn from another about some aspect of
grammar.19
e. Introducing metalanguage
1) Explicit teacher talk
Here is a teacher doing some metalinguistic work with 11 year-old
pupils on plural forms in English. Notice how he uses the repetition contrast
pattern, and how he formulates the rule at the end.
We can see that it is both useful and quite possible to talk about
language without using technical terms. However, since these children seem
to have the concept of plural and singular, the technical terms might be
usefully introduced to them. This will also depend on whether they have
learnt metalanguage terms in their hrs: language lessons.
2) Cloze activities for word class
A new rhyme, song or poem could give a discourse context to focus on
word classes through a simple cloze activity. The song, say, is mitten out
with gaps; in one version, all the nouns are omitted, in another, all the verbs,
and in a third, all the pronouns.This kind of activity focuses attention on
word classes and how they contribute to discourse, without going into any
heavy grammar. It is more challenging with a less predictable content20.
CHAPTER III
CONCLUSION
1. Conclusion
19
Lynne Cameron., 118-120.
20
Lynne Cameron., 20-121.
23
REFERENCE
Eka Putra, Hendra. 2011. Effective strategies for teaching vocabulary to young learners.
Volume 14. BatuSankar : Ta’dib.
Johnstone, Richard. 2019. Language Policy and English for Young Learners in Early
Education. 711 Third Avenue, New York: Routledge.
Ma’mun , Nadiah. 2021. pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris Bagi Anak Sekolah Dasar Lewat
Lagu dan Permainan. IAIN Walisongo Semarang.
Paradisa, Annisaa. 2015. Teaching English Grammar to Young Learners through Nursery
Rhymes Applications. Jakarta: Universitas Indonesia.