Children Learning A Foreign Language

The members of group :

1. Elfinda Kusumawardani (181220028)
2. Faza Kautsara (181220031)
3. Lara Septia (1812220039)
4. Nur Hasanah (181220052)

SEKOLAH TINGGI KEGURUAN DAN ILMU PENDIDIKAN

PERSATUAN GURU REPUBLIK INDONESIA
(STKIP-PGRI) BANDAR LAMPUNG
TAHUN 2021-2022
 Preface

First of all, thanks to Allah SWT because of the help of Allah, writer finished
writing the paper entitled “Chidren Learning A Foreign Language” right in the
calculated time.

The purpose in writing this paper is to fulfill the assignment that given by Dr.
Akhmad Sutiyono, M.Pd as lecturer in Teaching English to Young Learners
subject.

In arranging this paper, the writer trully get lots challages and obstructions but
with help of many individuals, those obstructions could passed. Writer also
realized there are still many mistakes in process of writing this paper.

Because of that, the writer says thank you to all individuals who helps in the
process of writing this paper. Hopefully Allah replies all helps and bless you
all. The writer realized that this paper still imperfect in arrangment and the
content. Then the writer hope the criticism from the readers can help the
writer in perfecting the next paper. Last but not least Hopefully, this paper can
help the readers to gain more knowledge about Chidren Learning A Foreign
Language.

Bandar Lampung, Oktober 2021

 Table of Contents

Cover.....................................................................................................
Preface..................................................................................................
Table of Contents..................................................................................

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION...........................................................
1.1 Background of the paper...........................................................
1.2 Purpose of the paper.................................................................
1.3 Formulation of the problem......................................................

CHAPTER II DISCUSSION................................................................
2.1 Taking a learning-centred perspective......................................
2.2 Piaget.........................................................................................
2.3 Vygotsky...................................................................................
2.4 Bruner.......................................................................................
2.5 From learning to language learning..........................................
2.6 Advantages to starting young with foreign languages..............
2.7 The foreign language: describing the indivisible......................
2.8 Summary of key learning principles.........................................

CHAPTER III CONCLUSION.............................................................

3.1 Conclusion................................................................................
3.2 Suggestion.................................................................................
REFERENCES
 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of The Paper

English is the International language which is used in most population in
the world. Therefore, it is taught from the primary to university, in the
primary level the English teaching process is introduced to know the
language used in communication. Many experts believe that learning the
language before the age of ten years allow children to speak correct and fluent
as an indigenous person. Therefore, whatever the earlier children become
familiar with foreign language, he have better chance to speak proficiency.
Young children are uniquely suited to learning a foreign language.
Learning a foreign language at a young age is cognitively as easy as learning a
first language. Young children can acquire native-like fluency as easily as
they learned to walk. Where adults have to work through an established first-
language system, studying explicit grammar rules and practicing rote drills,
the young kids learn naturally, absorbing the sounds, structures, intonation
patterns and rules of a foreign language intuitively, as they did their mother
tongue. The young brain is inherently flexible, uniquely hard-wired to acquire
language naturally.
On the other hand language learning, except native language, can provide
develop a lifelong ability to more communicate with others. One of the
important advantages of mastering a foreign language is access to better job
opportunities and the person will find deeper understanding to their own
culture and other nations. Including the benefits of knowing a foreign
language in today's society, enhancing economic competitiveness in the
external surface, improving global communications and maintains and
manage political and security interests of a country.
1.2 Formulation of The Paper
The formulation of the paper as follows :
1. What is children’s difficulty in learning foreign language?
2. Are young learners better than older learners in acquiring the foreign
language?

1.3 Objective of The Paper

1. To know the difficulty of children in learning foreign language.
2. To know whether young learners better than older learners in acquiring the
foreign language.
 CHAPTER II
DISCUSSION

2.1 Talking a learning-centred perspecrtive

Children do not find it as easy to use language to talk about language; in
other words, they do not have the same access as older learners to meta-
language that teachers can use to explain about grammar or discourse. We
need to unpack the generalization to find out what lies underneath as
characteristic of children as language learners.
Although conventional language teaching terms like ‘grammar’ and
‘listening’ are used in connection with the young learner classroom,
understanding or what these mean to the children who are learning them may
need to differ from how they are understood in mainstream language teaching.
If a teacher’s concern is centered on the child, there is temptation to stay in
that first place or to follow the child. The time available in busy school
timetables for language teaching is too short to waste on activities that are fun
but do not maximize learning.
We need therefore to draw on work from beyond language classroom: in
child development in learning theory, in first language development, and in
the development of a second language in bilingual contexts.
Implications for teaching young learners are taken from each of these and
used to establish guiding principles and a theoretical framework to be
developed in the rest of book.
2.2 Piaget
2.2.1 The child as active learner
Piaget’s concern was with how young children function in the
world that surrounds them, and how this influences their mental
development. For example, a very young child might encounter the
problem of how to get food from her bowl into her mouth. In solving
the problem, with a spoon or with fingers, the child learns the muscle
control and direction-finding needed to feed herself. The knowledge
that results from such action is not imitated or in-born, but is actively
constructed by the child.
Accommodation is an important idea that has been taken into
second language learning under the label ‘restructuring’, used to refer
to the re-organization of mental representation of a language
(McLaughlin 1992). We will encounter it again when we consider the
development of grammar. At each stage, the child is capable of some
types of thinking but still incapable of others. An important dimension
of children’s lives that that Piaget neglects is the social; it is the child
on his or her own in the world that concerns him, rather than the child
in communication with adults and other children.
2.2.2 Implication of Piagetian Theory for language learning
The child as sense-maker
We can take from piaget the very important idea of the child as
an active learner and thinker, constructing his or her own knowledge
from working with objects or ideas. Children also seek out intention
and purposes in what they see other people doing, bringing their
knowledge and experience to their attempts to make sense of other
people’s action and language.
We can think of the classroom and classroom activities as
creating and offering opportunities to learners for learning. Activities
 as offering affordances or opportunities for use and interaction that
depend on who is involved (Gibson 1979): For example, to a human
being, a tree ‘affords’ shelter from the rain or firewood, to a bird, the
same tree ‘affords’ a nest site or buds to eat.

2.3 Vygotsky
2.3.1 The child social
Vygotsky’s theory is currently most noted for his central focus
on the social and modern developments are often labelled
‘sociocultural theory’, he did not neglect the individual or individual
cognitive development. Language provides the child with a new tool,
opens up new opportunities for doing things and for organising
information through the use of words as symbols. Young children can
often be heard talking to themselves and organizing themselves as they
carry out tasks or play, in what is called private speech. As children
get older, they speak less and less aloud, and differentiate between
social speech for others and ‘inner speech’, which continues to play an
important role in regulating and controlling behavior (Wertsch: 1985).

Vygotsky (1962) distinguishes the outward talk and what is

happening in child’s mind. The infant begins with using single words,
but these words convey whole messages. Vygotsky’s theory is the
central observation that development and learning take place in a
social context in a world full of other people, who interact with the
child from birth onwards. With the help of adults, children can do and
understand much more than they can on their own. Learning to do
things and learning to think are both helped by interacting with an
adult.
 2.3.2 Implication of Vygotskyan theory for language learning.

a. Words and meanings

The word is a recognizable linguistic unit for children in their first
language and so they will notice words in the new language. The
adults teach children words in the new language by showing them
objects that they can see and touch, and that have single word
labels in the first language.

b. The zone of proximal development

Many of Vygotsky’s ideas will help in constructing a theoretical

framework for teaching foreign languages to children. In deciding
what a teacher can do to support learning, we can use the idea that
the adult tries to mediate what next it is the child can learn.

2.4 Bruner
2.4.1 Scaffolding and routines
Good scaffolding was tuned to the needs of the child and
adjusted as the child became more competent. Wood (1998) suggests
that teachers can scaffold children’s learning in various ways:
 Each of these teaching strategies can be applied to language teaching.
In directing attention and in remembering the whole task and goals on
behalf of the learner, the teacher is doing what children are not yet able
to do for themselves.

Bruner has provided a further useful idea for language teaching

in his notions of formats and routines. These are features of events that
allow scaffolding to take place and combine the security of the familiar
with the excitement of the new. Bruner’s most useful example of a
routine is of parents reading stories to their children from babyhood
onwards. As the child gets older, the type of book changes and the
roles of adult and child change, but the basic format remains.

2.4.2 Routines in the language classroom

As a routine, this would always take basically the same form: for
example, the teacher talking to the whole class, organizing distribution,
perhaps using children as monitors; the scissors might be kept in a box,
the paper in a cupboard. Routines can provide opportunities for
meaningful language development; they allow the child to actively
make sense of new language from familiar experience and provide a
space of language growth. Routines will open up many possibilities for
developing language skills.

2.5 from learning the language learning

2.5.1 first, second, and foreign language
the central characteristics of foreign language learning lie in the
amount and type of exposure to the language. There will be very little
experience of the language outside di classroom, encounters with the
language will be though several hours teaching In a school week. in
the case of a global language like English however even very young
 children will encounter The language in use video, tv, computer, and
film. I'm 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.
2.5.2 learning the first language
Formal literacy skills are still in the early stage of development at five
and six years. Even though the beginning of literacy can be trased back
experience in fancy, such as listening to stories. Some structure in
spoken language are acquire late because of their connection with the
written language. Discours skills in the first language continue to
develop throughout the early school years, at 7 years. Children still
acquiring the skill need for extend discourse
2.5.3 learning a second language
a. Age second language learning
It has been hypothesised that children learn a second language
better than adults, and this often used to support the early
introduction of foreign language teaching. The critical period
hypothesised is the name given to the idea that young learners can
learn second language. Particularly effectively before puberty
because their brain are stillabbel to use the mechanisms that
assisted first language acquisition.
b. The influence of the first language on the second language.
All level of the first language can provide cues, include lexis,
morphology, and phonology. As baby, they learn to pay attention
to particular cues with hold usefully information for meaning.
c. Age and first language
Young children (7-8) seem to pay more attention to sound and
prosody. Whereas older the competition model of understanding a
second language, and empirical finding that support the view that
 first language experience influences second language use, reminds
us that in learning a foreign case in the part, are tiny aspect of
grammar or phonology that are crucial in the reaching a 'whole'
interpretation.
d. influence of teaching on second language learning
The range of language experience that children get in their
language develop; for example, if lessons provide opportunities to
participate in question and answer type talk then they will be good
at that but not necessarily at other, more extended, types of talk.
2.6 advantage to starting young with foreign language
Many advantages are claimed for starting to learn a foreign Language in the
primary years more evidence is need to judge how far claims turn into reality.
Learning a second language through immersion differs from times a week.
However, it is unlikely that the difference in quantity of language learning,
experience will affect the balance of benefits, in foreign language productive
skills, and grammatical knowledge, which is linked not just to language
develop but to cognitive development, is likely to develop more slowly for
younger children.
2.7 The foreign language : describing the indivisible
Language is divided into ‘the Four Skills’ namely Listening, Speaking,
Reading and writing, and then to add Grammar, Vocabulary and Phonology to
them. This division is not as logical as it may seem and has been challenged
(Widdownson 1998). Some syllabuses also deal in Topics, Functions and
Notions, describing language in terms of how it is used in communication
rather than seeing it as a inguistics system or a set of skills.
The first cut into the holism of language learning separates literacy skills
from the rest, on the basis that learning to read and write in a foreign language
presents distinct learning tasks that require teaching. Having separated out
literacy skills development from of the totality of the foreign language, what
then remains is much wider than speaking and listening as perceived in
secondary or adult language teaching. For young learners, spoken language is
the medium through which the new language is encountered, understood,
practised and learnt. Rather than oral skills being simply one aspect of
learning language, the spoken form in young learner classroom acst as the
prime source and site of language learning.
Interaction will be labelled as Discourse skills. It will bw further divided
to reflect the distinction between conversational exchanges and longer
stretches of talk taht Snow’s work in first language development has
identified, instead of thinking about the children as ‘doing Listening and
Speaking’, we will think about how they learn to interact in the foreign
language. Classroom activities can also be seen and analysed as discourse in
theri own right. Grammar wil be seen as emerging from the space between
words and discourse in children’s language learning, and as being important
in constructing and interpreting meaning accurately.
The organisational scheme for language is summarised in figure 1.1. the
carving up of language learning in this way seems to reflect reasonably well
the real experience of young learners, and the structure of some, at least, of
the course books written for them.
 This division is, though, and can only ever be , an artificial breaking up of
what grows through an ‘organic’ process in a child’s mind. This is one
reason why it is not always possible to predict what will be learnt fromwhat
is taught, and why attending to the opportunities offered by activities will be
important.

2.8 Summary of key learning principles

1. children actively try to construct meaning
Children actively try to ‘make sense’, to find and construct a meaning and
purpose for what adults say to them and ask them to do. They can only
make sense in terms of their world knowledge, which is limited and
partial. Teahers thus need to examine classroom activities from child’s
point of view in order to assess whether the pupils will understand what to
do or will be able to make sense of new language,
2. children need space for language growth
In both language and cognitive development, the ZPD or immediate
potential of the child is one of central importance for effective learning.
 Routines and scaffolding are two types of language-using strategies that
seem to be especially helpful in making space for children’s growth.
3. language inuse carries cues to meaning that may be noticed.
Children need skilled help in noticing and attending to aspect of the
foreign language that carry meaning. Since they cannot benefit much from
formal grammar, other ways of doing this have to be found.
4. development can be seen as internalising from social interaction
Language can grow as the child takes over control of language used
initially with other children and adults.
5. children’s foreign language learning depends on what they experience
There are important links between what and how children are taught and
what they learn. Within the ZPD, the broader and richer the language
experience that is provided for children, the more they are likely to learn.
Foreign language lessons often provide all or most of a child’s experience
of the language in use; if we want children to develop certain language
skills, we need to ensure they have experiences in lessons that will build
those skills.
The activities that happen in classroom create a kind of ‘environment’ for
learning and, such as, offer different kind of opportunities for language
learning. Part of teaching skill is to identify the particular opportunities of
a task or activity, and then to develop them into learning experiences for
the children.
 CHAPTER III
CONCLUSION
3.1 conclusion
The chapter concludes with a summary of the principles that have emerged as
most important in thinking about young children learning a foreign language.
In learning foreign language, children actively try to construct meaning. It
means that they try to find and construct a meaning and purpose for what
adults say to them and ask them to do. In addition, children need space for
language growth.
There are two types of language-using strategies that seem to be especially
helpful in making space for children’s growth namely Routines and
Scaffolding. Children need skilled help in noticing and attending to aspect of
the foreign language that carry meaning. Since they cannot benefit much from
formal grammar, other ways of doing this have to be found. Language can
grow as the child takes over control of language used initially with other
children and adults.
3.2 Suggestion
As the adults hold an important role in children language acquisition, the
writers suggest to adults in order to guide the children’s language growth. So
that, the skill of them can improve well.
 REFERENCE
Cameron, Lynne. (2001). Teaching Language to Young Learners.