Teaching Vocabulary and Grammar

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So, I want to share and tell you about  Teaching Vocabulary and Grammar to Young Learners. In this article, I'll share how to teach vocabulary and grammar to YL's because I know to teach young learners is very hard for the teacher. Hopefully, my article can help us as a teacher in the future.

Teaching English as a foreign language has been extended to reach at a very young level regarding the needs of developing human resources. This means that English is taught from the early age, with the expectation that students will get more exposure and acquire the language skills for the better results. However, teaching English to young learners need extra effort because it is more than just passing information. Teaching English to young learners is guiding, nurturing, and facilitating young learners for their activities in learning and understanding knowledge, skills and information of English. (Lyne Cameron: 2001) Teachers need to understand how to make the classroom as a place of learning and not just a classroom for the students to learn during the teaching learning process. Teacher should make various activities and attractive materials. Moreover, when teaching young learners, teachers constantly need to improve students’ participation in the classroom, arouse the student’s curiosity, improve the pattern of thinking and focus the students attention on the problem faced by them. Therefore, the students will enjoy the teaching learning process and achieve maximum result. 

VOCABULARY

Vocabulary can be defined as the total number of words in a language; it is used and understood by certain person, making up a particular language such as in science, technology, literature and so forth. It is also the collection of words a person knows and uses in speaking or writing. Vocabulary cannot be ignored. It is worth nothing to master the grammar or rules if the speakers do not have enough vocabularies to express his ideas. Words may have board of meaning and they also have different form for the same meaning. According to The Division of Students Affairs at Virginia Tech (2003:1); learning vocabulary is an ongoing process. It continues throughout of live. 

In teaching English vocabulary, the language material to be given is words. Words are symbols for ideas. These ideas formulate knowledge and knowledge is gained largely through the words. Teaching vocabulary for children is considered difficult. According to Cameron (2001), teaching vocabulary to young learners really needs an extra efforts and strategies. Although there are many kinds of technique that can be used to teach the children, but the teacher also should consider and be aware of various things and problems that may be faced in teaching vocabulary to the students. The teacher is better to use an appropriate technique in teaching vocabulary to the students, such as the use of teaching aid or media for teaching. 

In teaching vocabulary to young learners, teacher must use interesting media that is appropriate with material and students’ need. Arsyad (2002: 15) adds that media have function as an aids in teaching learning process that can influence the atmosphere and situation in the class. Teacher needs to make the atmosphere the class more enjoyable and interesting. Hotma (2000:14) stated that “the reason why we need teaching aids in a teaching learning process is very obvious because there a lot of advantages can be gained from them. The advantages of teaching aids are engaging the students’ motivation and building a good interaction”. An interesting media can capture the students’ interest and attention. It also will activate the class. They will be more effective because they do not only listen to the teacher explanation but also they could watch observe and enjoy the teaching aids, which are being used. In this case the students understand the lesson clearly and easily, this further more will motivate them to study harder. What the students have learned earlier before are reviewed in the teaching aids through a more interesting way. This activity trains the memory of the students to retain the earlier learning. 

The students are encouraged in their learning process due to the teaching aids which will chase the boredom away. The old media of teaching that make the student feel bored replaced by the interesting teaching aids. So a relaxing atmosphere of classroom creates the situation to stimulate the students to improve  their study. Proper media can save a lot of time in teaching learning process because the teacher does not have to set up a situation or condition related to the object or material any longer. It is already within the teaching aids. 

Teaching aids are helpful tools for teaching in a classroom or with individual learners. A teaching aids is a tool used by teacher, facilitator to help learners improve their skill, illustrate or reinforce a skill, fact or ides and, fears or boredom, since many teaching aids are like a games. Games, movie, picture are among the media which are used in teaching learning process, in conducting the research, the researcher would like to use games, that have been chosen approximately to the target learner grade. A better interaction between teacher and students can be achieved. The communication between them is more effective therefore the teaching learning process can be attractive and light up. The use of games during the lesson can motivate the students to work more on the vocabulary item.

GRAMMAR

Simply sitting kids down and explaining rules is not an option because they possess certain characteristics that make their learning different from that of adults. In an ESL classroom, kids are in a setting in which they are surrounded by language. They have time to sort out the language that they hear and understand. When they are ready, they begin to use it to express themselves. Adults, on the other hand, usually focus more on learning vocabulary and grammar rules and they make an effort to apply those rules later. Here we see a clear difference between acquiring language and learning it.

4 Methods to Teach Grammar to Young Learners

1.) It Needs to Be Clear

Children aren't good at understanding abstract concepts and grammar rules, specially young learners.  That's why we need clear contexts that help them connect and associate with the language. One way to achieve this is through theme based instruction. It is important because in early language learning it provides an ideal environment for constructing meaning. In theme based teaching, the curriculum is organized around a theme. Then, within a thematic framework, all the language concepts are interrelated and presented as a whole. Teachers also need to adapt the language to the developmental level of the students and choose the activities to suit a variety of learning styles and multiple intelligences. The advantage is that by working around a theme students have many opportunities to find patterns and connections, experience attractive activities with varied content. All this facilitates interaction with other kids their age.

2.) It Needs to Be Motivating and Interesting

While learning in general, students need to feel as if the are progressing but there also needs to be some challenge. If it's too difficult they will be disheartened and if it's too easy they will loose interest. Using games to teach grammar is an incredible option because they give kids an opportunity to interact with others in a natural way. This is important since the construction of meaning also has a social dimension, especially in a language classroom. Games, role-plays and group activities motivate students and enhance learning too. The social dimension of games and classroom rituals is another way in which the brain can attach meaning. The brain searches for meaning through patterning. It looks for patterns as it organizes information. Since young learners i search for meaning in the activities we provide for them, we must be sure to create meaningful experiences from which they construct their own patterns of understanding. Once the students have learned a concept, they can practice it in partners and small groups. The social relationships of partner and small group activities add to the richness of the learning experiences.

Here are some examples of simple activities that you can do with your young learners:

As your lesson starts have the whole class greet you in the target language. After that the students can also greet one another in a very short, motivating activity.

Have your students practice classroom dialogs with partners. You can also ask they “read”to each other a memorized story that they have read in class or written.

Students can do a weather or traffic report. Give your kids some information about the weather or traffic that day. Simple words or sentences on the board are enough. Students then take turns telling their partners about the weather or traffic outside.

3.) It Needs to Be Simple

Children have a limited amount of language at their disposal and this makes analyzing language difficult for them. Also the vocabulary needs to be simple and familiar so they can focus on the grammar they are learning. According to language acquisition, the language should be as simple and natural as possible. For instance, if the past tense is being taught, it shouldn't be postponed until students are able to analyze it. What is essential is whether the input is comprehended or not. The grammatical details of a message generally don't affect the comprehensibility. On the other hand, the context surrounding the verbal message and the vocabulary used to communicate it, affect comprehension much more,especially in the early stages of language acquisition. Making content meaningful and interesting for them may well be the most significant factors of all.

4.) Review and Revise

Children need many opportunities to review and revise the language. This is to help them retain what they have learned and to feel confident. There are many activities that can be used to practice as well as review grammar. Reviewing doesn't have to be boring at all. Don't use the same activities you used to learn or practice. Make sure to use activities that are a bit different from others you used before and choose ones you are certain they will enjoy.

What we teach can certainly motivate our students to learn and also how well they retain. We need to be very aware that it's not only what we teach but also how.

references

https://media.neliti.com/media/publications/215819-teaching-vocabulary-to-young-learner-thr.pdf

https://busyteacher.org/23394-young-learners-grammar.html