Developing Young Learner Discourse Ability: Two
Crucial Aspects
Luciana
Developing
young learner discourse ability is a challenging task. Teachers' penchant for
involving them in a plethora of varied activities is not itself a warranty; it
can be merely an elusive learning. Teachers need to have their teaching deeply
rooted in an understanding of how the designed tasks can nurture learning in
line with harmonious development of young learners. At this point, this study
argues for two crucial ingredients to promote such learning: 1) young learner
social and affective drives and 2) a balance between task demand and task
support. This means the tasks should trigger the very person of young learners
to communicate beyond the formal classroom pressure to accomplish the tasks.
This desirable learning can be achieved if task demand and support are
proportionally set. To illuminate the two propositions, this study analyses and
discusses a task in action.
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Luciana. (2004, February). Developing young
learner discourse ability: Two crucial aspects. Paper
presented at the national conference on Teaching English to Young Learners: Why
and How,
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