Theories of children
In defining who children are, we just cannot stick into one particular definition. Some experts have different proposal on defining children. Some define children using age as the limit to categorize that a human being is a child. Some other employ specific characteristics that are only owned by children. Furthermore, some countries and organizations have their own definition and that is different from one another as it is influenced by culture, biological, or educational definitions.
Pinter (2011) defines that children can be grouped into three age categories: 1) preschool, for those who are in the age of 3 to 5 and have both no formal learning experiences and no literacy skills; 2) primary school years are the children who age 6-12 and usually they are in primary/elementary schooling (this particular group is often divided into lower primary and upper primary years); and 3) early adolescence as those whose age are 13 and above.
In addition, Pinter (2015) also divided the young learners into two big, general group which are younger learners and older learners. This separate definition, however, does not refer to specific age range but on some characteristics possessed by the learners. Nevertheless, the description of those two dichotomy does not necessarily be the point to always refer to because it needs teachers’ responsibility and sensitivity to group children to those two continuum. Teachers have to know in which level their children are based on the direct evaluation that they do to the learners for different learners might have different characteristics.
In learning, children experience some steps in order to make them be able to comprehend easily and effectively. Many experts have their own theory on how children learn: the stages, the process, the type of knowledge they learn, etc. Although some steps are familiar with one another, but the term proposed is different.
Children’s development
Piaget (1896-1980) was the one who proposed the ‘stage theory’. He believed that children experienced some stages in their development in terms of critical thinking and physical appearance. He studied his own children and thought that the development phase his children experienced was also similar to other children. Piaget introduced the terms of organisation, adaptation, assimilation, and accommodation to explain children’s stage when interacting with the environment.
As children encounter new things in the environment, they will make some kind of mental note or schemes. These schemes were developed from time to time as they get new information. This process is called organisation; the children organise their information as what they see and feel. In the process of organisation, children also compare and adjust the information they store previously in their mental note or scheme with the real information they get in the environment. This process is then called as adaptation. Adaptation itself can be divided into two more parts which are assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is a process in which children get new information and interpret it with the existing schemes they already have. Accommodation is the process when children modify the previous schemes for they get new information about it that does not match with the previous ones.
In terms of the development stages, Piaget divides them into four stages. The first stage is sensori-motor which occurs in the first two years. Children can only do basic things in this stage such as making a repetition and imitation, but they are also very active in this years. They use their senses in maximum effort therefore it is called sensori-motor. When children are 2 to 7 years old, they are in pre-operational stage. They tend to be egocentric and their concentration attends only to one aspect of task. The third stage is concrete operational stage. They can already make interpersonal and transactional modes of learning. They use their analogy and logical fashion in a good way. They also are able to develop hierarchical classification. In this stage, children are accustomed to deal with more than one aspect of a task and their egocentrism decreases.
Slightly different from Piaget, Vygotsky (1896-1934) emphasizes more on the social activity as the basis on how children develop. He says that social process plays a big role in children’s development. Vygotsky was famous for his concept of zone of proximal development (ZPD). ZPD refers to the way children’s develop and learn in which they are able to solve particular problem and potential ability as long as there is assistance from someone else or caretakers. It is said that the concept of ZPD became the basis for Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976 in Pinter, 2011) for the concept of scaffolding. Scaffolding itself means as assistance that the experts give to young learners as they encounter problems in solving a task. The job of the experts in scaffolding is not merely giving guidance and support but they might also intervene to simplify the task if necessary.
Principles of children’s learning
There are many kinds of theories proposed to explain how children learn. It does not necessarily relate to only the concept but might also be the process, the materials that need to be given, the way we should present to the children, and others.
According to Bruner (1966), children learn by using three main modes. The first mode is enactive. Enactive, which we can clearly see from the root of the word, means that children learn by being active; by giving them access to directly get in touch with the things. This mode proposes the theory that by allowing them to be active, children will be able to keep their information in their mind and strengthen it as they not only perceive it, but they also experience it. The second mode is iconic. This is the process when children make mental notes in their mind so that they understand what they learn. The next one in symbolic. Children are able to recall the information that they store in their mental notes is the point of this mode.
Approximately a decade later, Piaget (1975) introduces three types of knowledge that children construct when they are learning. Firstly, children are exposed to the physical knowledge in which the children get in contact with real things physically. They use their senses in this kind of processing knowledge. The second type of knowledge is logico-mathematical knowledge. This kind of knowledge is built by the children through their experience with things by comparing and contrasting one thing to another. Comparing process occurs in their mind. Only after are they able to compare things, they will move on to the next step which is contrasting. The other type of knowledge is social knowledge. This knowledge is acquired when children interact with other people as other people provide new information for them. From this interaction then the children learn abstract things such as norms, words, terms, etc.
From what Bruner and Piaget proposed, we can at least sum up three main points. The sequence of learning that children experience should come in order: from concrete things to abstract. This means that we give the children a concept using concrete things as the basis first. Only later on when they are already able to define the concrete things, we introduce the abstract ones. Giving them understanding about abstract thing usually occurs indirectly from conversation or other social interaction with older people. Secondly, the learning materials given should be related directly to children’s daily life. It eases the children because they can directly connect their current knowledge with what they experience, thus make the memory lasts stronger. Finally, as we teach them, we also need to focus on instruction. In other words, the task or activity we give should be socially useful.
Meanwhile, Musthafa (2010) lists five main points on how children learn. The first is that children learn from direct experiences. In giving children material to learn, the caretakers should provide a topic that is related to children’s very daily life. It makes the children easier to comprehend the concept as they experience it themselves in their life. Secondly, children learn from hands-on physical experiences. This concept requires the children get direct access to use their senses when they learn. It is then the teacher’s task and challenges in preparing an activity that will open up wide chances to the children to use their senses in learning. In addition, the children should also be given materials that is related to here-and-now context of situation. It means that the activity or material the students learn should directly connect with what happen in their surrounding as an experiment; it is not something that can only be imagined or far away so that the teachers only use visual media and the children are not familiar with it. The next one is that children learn from whole to parts by making scripts. The caretakers’ job is that giving the children a general, broad information in advance about something and then only later will they learn the subparts of it. It is also similar in teaching language. As children learn from the whole chunk, it is important to give them example in a full sentence rather than from words or phrase only. Lastly, children’s span of attention is limited so that the kind of activities designed must be divided into different parts to anticipate their failure in focusing and boredom.
Another thing that is also essential and interesting is that we should immerse the learning activity through playing. Learning by playing promotes relaxed situation. As the situation is not tough or stressful, the children can easily digest the information and knowledge to their mind. Related to the materials that we present to the children, Krashen (1982, 1985) says that the instructional level should be i+1 in order to give them material that is slightly above their current knowledge, so they can expand and explore their mental notes. This concept also leads to independent learning to promote fluency. Giving them material that children do not understand only get them frustration, therefore we have to choose the materials carefully.
In more detail, teaching children productive skill does not as simple as teaching the receptive ones. In order to teach them this, we need to ask the children to observe the teacher. Teacher does a demonstration to give the students example then asks the children to follow in guided participation. Through doing this, they will eventually be able to be independent in learning things. Of course this steps require many processes thus we need to allocate long time to do this activity.
References
McLeod, S. (2008). Bruner. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org
Musthafa, B. (2010). Teaching English to young learners in Indonesia: Essential Requirements. Educationist, 4(2).
Pinter, A. (2015). Teaching Young Language Learners. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pinter, A. (2011). Children Learning Second Languages. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.