TEACHING SPEAKING TO YOUNG LEARNERS
What is Speaking?
Speaking, as it relates to young learners, is one way for them to play, in this case, playing with words and sounds. According to Cook (2000) in Linse (2005), there are many different ways that children play with words and language, beginning with the tickling rhymes that they hear as babies and continuing with other sorts of play which involve both the form and meaning of language. Play is vital and important aspect of child's development and language is part of that play.
Children also experiment with the language when they are with their parents, family, siblings, and friends. They experiment and play with the utterances that are made to form words and phrases, such as "bye bye" and integrate these words and structures into their real and imaginary play.
Children are good interpreters. They learn the power of their spoken words. They observe how a word can impact an adult's feeling and how they respond to that kind of words. They learn that, although they may be physically small and weak, their words can be used to provide joy, and also the opposite. A child learns that a simple utterance such as "I love you, Mommy" can delight a parent. They also learn that some words can cause hurt feelings and bruised egos, and they use it as a weapon. So, in my opinion, if their adults pay attention more to them when they speak bad words than when they speak a good one, they will use it as weapon to get attention.
Background to The Teaching of Speaking
Speaking is equally important in children's overall language development. It is the first output after the first input (Listening), long before they can write. Teachers who work with young learners recognize how important it is for children to develop strong speaking skills. Speaking is the way they communicate about what they feel or what they need, and also the way their adults, such as parents and teachers, to communicate what is good and what is bad. If a child tends to do something bad or has an aggressive behavior, such as bullying his or her friends, may be that because she or he cannot communicate well enough to tell what she or he feels or needs.
The Development of Speaking Skills
Young learners, since they are "young" and their speakin
g equipment has not yet developed perfectly, will probably have limitations in speaking. Young children learning English as a foreign language do not develop English – Language skills more readily than older learners. However, they have a clear advantage when it comes to pronunciation if they begin learning English as a foreign or second language at an early age (Birdsong, 1999). Nevertheless, there are some phonemes which children have difficulty with.
Sometimes the cause of difficulty can be as simple as baby teeth that have fallen out and are not yet replaced by adult teeth, or a child may have just received dental braces and may be slightly struggling with different phonemes because of this. So, teachers sometimes need to carefully look at children's mouths when they are having trouble pronouncing different sounds. Also, teachers need consider about Mean Length of Utterances (MLU) and overgeneralization of errors to avoid unrealistic expectations. The expectations for children learning English should not be greater or more demanding than the expectations for children learning to speak in English as their native language.
Mean Length of Utterances
MLU are the number of morphemes found in sample of a child's utterances. A morpheme is the smallest unit of a meaning in a word. There is some debate about what the MLU is for children of different ages. However, it is widely accepted that very young children produce MLUs which are shorter than older children. The expectations for speaking for children should be tailored to their development.
Overgeneralization of Errors
Children, once again, are very good in interpreting meanings and they can see the patterns that occur in a sentence. According to Brown (2000) in Linse (2005), children have a tendency to over-generalize grammar rules when they are learning English. Generalization is a vitally important aspect of human learning and involves inferring and deriving a rule, or law. For example: I seed a movie, I buyed an apple.
Overgeneralization can also occur when a learner takes rules from his or her first language and applies them to a second or foreign language. For example, an Indonesian – speaking child learning English might say, "Door green", or "The house big".
When teaching children to speak a second or foreign language, it is important to keep in mind the development of their skills in their native language. Time should be spent at home or at school helping children to develop skills in their native language because becoming proficient in any language requires attention to the process. ESL and EFL instructions should not be an expense of first language development.
Classroom Techniques and Activities
There are many techniques and activities the teachers can choose for their young learners. The choice should be based on the aims of the program coupled with the learners' stage of development. Brown (2001) stated 7 principles for designing speaking techniques:
Use techniques that cover the spectrum of learners needs, from language-based focus on accuracy to message-based focus on interaction, meaning, and fluency.
Provide intrinsically motivating techniques.
Encourage the use of authentic language in meaningful contexts.
Provide appropriate feedback and correction.
Capitalize on the natural link between speaking and listening.
Give students opportunities to initiate oral communication.
Encourage the development of speaking strategies.
Audio-lingual Method (ALM)
This method is based on the notion that one can learn language by developing habits based on the patterns of language (Celce – Murcia, 2001 in Linse, 2005). There are two important features of ALM which can easily be adapted for the young learner classroom: drill with choral response and dialogues. According to Prator and Celce – Murcia (1979) in Brown (2001), the characteristics of the ALM may be summed up in the following list:
New material is presented in dialogue form.
There is dependence on mimicry, memorization of set phrases, and over-learning.
Structures are sequenced by means of contrastive analysis and taught one at a time.
Structural patterns are taught using repetitive drills.
There is little or no grammatical explanation.
Vocabulary is strictly limited and learned in context.
Great importance is attached to pronunciation.
Very little use of the mother tongue by teachers is permitted.
Successful responses are immediately reinforced.
There is a great effort to get students to produce error-free utterances.
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)
It is an approach from spirited 1970s and a philosophical orientation that connects classroom-based language learning with the language that learners need in order to communicate outside the classroom (Nunan, 2003). The primary goal of this language teaching is enabling students to use the language to communicate. Communication involves using language functions as well as grammar structures, so it is necessary to connect classroom learning to the real life child – focused situations where children use language.
CLT with children is slightly different than CLT with adults in part because children often enjoy playing the role of an adult or grown-up. In CLT, the focus is on getting the message across and helping children acquire fluency. In some cases, the language will need to be adjusted to meet the language level of the young learners. In other cases, the communicative task will require language that the children have not yet learned.
Other Techniques and Activities
There are many other techniques and activities that teachers can use for their speaking classroom. We live in, what Professor Kumaravadivelu describes as, post method era, where there is no such a thing as the best method. It is the teachers' decision to determine which kind of method that suits their students most. The teachers can take a little bit of ALM and combine it with a little bit of CLT and create a new method, such as describe below.
Games
Play is a purposeful activity and games are a part of playing. Games are a very appropriate teaching technique in the young learner classroom. There are many kinds of games the teachers can create. The examples are Memory games, This and That, Role play, Guess games, etc.
Talking and Writing Box
Teachers can experiment with this kind of method. They can put the pictures or topics in the box and the students can choose one that is interesting to them, or teachers can do it like the example below:
What do think the boy is doing?He is singingHe is dancingHe is cryingWhat is your suggestion?
What do think the boy is doing?
He is singing
He is dancing
He is crying
What is your suggestion?
The teachers can show a funny picture, the funnier the better, and give students some multiple choices relating to the language focus and also give them choice to give their own opinion.
Tongue Twisters
This method can be used to teach pronunciation in a fun way. Children may have trouble pronouncing certain English language sounds. For example, children who speak some Asian language may have difficulty pronouncing the English – language /r/ and /l/ because of the way that they occur or their absences in their native languages. Sometimes, the difficulty also occurs because children often do not know how to form their lips and mouth in such a way as to correctly articulate the sounds.
Children adore tongue twisters because they perceive saying the sounds as a game or challenge. Tongue twisters generally have the same phoneme repeated over and over again, which is quite hard. The examples of tongue twisters are:
Sally sells seashells at the seashore.If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where's the peck of pickled peppers that Peter Piper picked?
Sally sells seashells at the seashore.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where's the peck of pickled peppers that Peter Piper picked?
Error Correction
Teachers of young learners must spend time correcting not only behavior but also errors. But if teachers correct every single error that children make, it would be utterly exhausted. It is not necessary for teachers to respond to all errors but it is better to decide which kind of error that is important to be focused on. Teachers also need to consider the way they respond to errors because embarrassment and shame are two of the things that can be potentially damaging to young learners. The example of how to do error correction is:
T : What does she do at 6.00?S : She do her math homework at 6.00.T : She does her math homework at 6.00. Yes, she does her math homework at 6.
T : What does she do at 6.00?
S : She do her math homework at 6.00.
T : She does her math homework at 6.00. Yes, she does her math homework at 6.
Managing Speaking Activities
Managing learning activities is, sometimes, problematic. According to Ellis (1997) in Linse (2005), when looking at language teaching, it is important to consider the technical knowledge of how people learn language with the practical, implicit, and intuitive knowledge that is gained through actual experience. So, it is important to understand the basic theory, but it is more important to do it and have a bunch of experiences. It is crucial for teachers to have well planed lessons in order to maintain a certain level of control in your classroom.
During the speaking activities, the noise level alone can quickly escalate and disturb other classes. It is not effective, even contra – productive, for teachers to shout, "ALL RIGHT EVERYONE, BE QUIET!", when they themselves are contributing to the noise level. Instead, teachers need to find their unique way to develop a visual cue to get children to be quiet and listen for the teachers' instructions.
Conclusion
Speaking, as it relates to children, is playing with words and utterances.
Speaking is equally important in children's overall language development, but they still have limitation in MLU and pronunciation.
Every method has its own strengths and weaknesses. It is up to the teachers to choose the most suitable one to be applied in their classroom.
It is a must to spend time correcting not only behavior but also our students' error. But we need to select which one is more important.
Speaking activities could lead to high noisy level, so teachers must have their unique way to manage their classroom.
REFERENCES
Main Source:
LINSE, CAROLINE. T. 2005. PRACTICAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING: YOUNG LEARNERS. McGRAW HILL, NEW YORK.
Addition:
Brown, H.D, 2001. Teaching By Principals. Pearson Education, New York.
Internet.
