THE CHARACTERISTIC OF YOUNG LEARNER

While there are commonalities across learners of all ages, young children differ from older children in many ways. Studies of young children show how learning changes across development. However, we now know that even very young children have a predisposition to learn in certain domains, and that young children are actively engaged in making sense of their world. Young children appear to be predisposed to acquire information.

These biases toward certain types of learning should pave the way for competence in early schooling. Children lack knowledge and experience, but not reasoning ability. Indeed, although young children are inexperienced, they reason with the knowledge they have. Precocious knowledge may jump-start the learning process, but because of limited experience and underdeveloped systems of logical thinking, children’s knowledge contains misconceptions. Misinformation can impede school learning, so teachers need to be aware of the ways in which children’s background knowledge influences their understanding. Such awareness should help teachers anticipate children’s confusion and recognize why children have difficulties grasping new ideas. Strategies for learning are important.

When children are required to learn about unfamiliar knowledge domains, they need to develop intentional learning strategies. Children need to understand what it means to learn, who they are as learners, and how to go about planning, monitoring and revising, to reflect upon their learning and that of others, and to learn how to determine if they understand. These metacognitive skills provide strategic competencies for learning.

The children have their own characteristics, which are different from adults. The characteristics cover their ways of thinking, their attitude, their aptitude, et cetera. They also prevail to the children’s ways of learning language. This, of course, influences the ways of teaching them. To give the best quality of teaching English to the children, the teachers should know and understand them.