Teaching Young Learners & Teens (Isabel)

TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS AND TEENS

INTRODUCTION

Generally English teaching has had  a growing interest in the teaching of young learners, teenagers make a large proportion of all learners of English.  the age of students  represents a major factor in teachers' decisions the most of the teacher think that they are a difficult group to teach, but they are considering how the  large group of people who study English. However for the teachers is an important decision about how and what to teach. Therefore we as a teacher are able to address the needs of each particular group of learners.

The Teacher must accept that the teenagers is a difficult group to teach while the young children show passion to learn the young teenagers sometimes lose interest, this phenomenon is recognized as a very important factor that affecting both teaching and learning at primary school Many English teachers would probably agree that it is hard to establish a good learning atmosphere in a teenager classroom. It is also widely decided that teenagers are less motivated than other groups of learners.

There is methodology advice on how to teach both young and teenage learners with regard to changes that they are undergoing. It intends to define possible reasons why young teenagers lose interest in language learning and how teachers can deal with this problem. 

Teenage Learners

According to the nature of teenagers.  This age group provides the description of their character. It discusses developmental stages in adolescence and some ways to understand the difficulties of teenagers, and we as a teacher must be prepared and understand both physical and psychological changes in teenagers 

Definition of teenage learners

According to G. Lewis most experts further divide this age range into three distinct subgroups:

·       young teenagers, aged   12-14

·       middle teenagers, aged  14-17

·       late teenagers, aged       17-19

Young teenagers represent a learner group with special characteristics G. Lewis mentions that children enter adolescence between sixth and eighth school grade. These teenagers are undergoing physical and social changes, which are more prominent and evident than in middle and late teenagers. Moreover, early adolescence is the most difficult phase in the life of an individual (“Early Adolescents”). I agree with G lewis because Definition of teenage learners

According to G. Lewis most experts further divide this age range into three distinct subgroups:

•    young teenagers, aged   12-14

•    middle teenagers, aged  14-17

•    late teenagers, aged        17-19

Young teenagers represent a learner group with special characteristics (6). J. Lewis mentions that children enter adolescence between sixth and eighth school grade. These teenagers are undergoing physical and social changes, which are more prominent and evident than in middle and late teenagers. Moreover, early adolescence is the most difficult phase in the life of an individual . I agree with the author because teenager learners  are undergoing dramatic changes in every aspect of their live Furthermore, teenage relations to family, peers and school are discussed.

when I  had the opportunity to teach teenagers, at the first it was very stressful to me because they were very unquiet all the time, just they liked play, go out to the break and share something with their boyfriend or girlfriend but at the end I could controled their behaviour

Conclusion

In the most of the time the teenagers prefer leisure activities to studying. Further, they feel that the upper-primary curricula are more demanding and that they have too many homework tasks to do, which they sometimes do not manage because they either do not have enough time or they admit that they just do not want to. Teenagers are often not interested in homework, because they feel it has no sense and they do not realise that they would benefit from doing it. In my opinion, to help this situation, the teachers should assign homework reasonably and carefully explain how the tasks would contribute to the learners’ language development and knowledge.

Bibliography

Brumfit, Christopher. “Introduction: Teaching English to children.” Teaching English to Children. Eds. Brumfit, Christopher, Jayne Moon, and Ray Tongue. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1994. 4-8. Print.

Dörnyei, Zoltán. Questionnaires in Second Language Research. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003. Print.

       Lewis, Gordon. Teenagers. Oxford: OUP, 2007. Print.

Lind Stromberg, Seth. Language Activities for Teenagers. Cambridge: CUP, 2004. Print