Several Considerations in Teaching English to Children in Indonesian Society

 

 

Emilia Ninik Aydawati

 

Based on critical age theory, teaching English should be started during the critical age, which is called as a golden age. People believe that at this age children can acquire the language better than when they start learning it at the later age (after puberty). Indonesian   government has also realized the importance of giving English to young aged children and they have already considered that English should be given at the elementary level. However, teaching English to children will be different based on the context. Teaching English in a society where English is a second language will be different from teaching English where it is as a foreign language like in Indonesia. Indonesia is a multi cultural country that gives impacts such as various dialects, culture and needs. Due to this fact, any educational institutions should take some considerations before deciding to provide English lesson to elementary school children. They should consider whether they have made good preparation such as good models (teachers), teaching materials and methods.

A good model is very important to give correct input to the children who come from the multilingual society with different dialects. The teacher (model) should also know how to transfer their knowledge not only on the language itself but also on the culture of the language. Another important thing to consider is material. Not all materials which are available in the market are applicable to Indonesian context because most of the materials are designed for ESL context. The last consideration is teaching method. Even though there are a good model and applicable materials for teaching English in Indonesia, without appropriate teaching method they will be useless. This article highlights all these significant points based on related theories. Without good preparation mentioned above teaching English will not give any contribution to the children to acquire English.

 

 

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Aydawwati, E. N. (2005, December). Several considerations in teaching English to children in Indonesian society . Paper  presented at the 53rd TEFLIN International conference, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

 

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