ESSAY: CHARACTERICTICS OF YOUNG LEARNERS

Many have agreed that English is such an important subject since it is used to communicate globally. It has been taught in every level of learners, even in primary level. People believe that teaching English in the early age has many advantages because young learners still have flexible minds and malleable tongues which help them learn English words easily. However, young learners are of course different with the adult ones in which the teacher should pay attention to their characteristics in order to make a better teaching and learning process.

Before we discuss about the characteristics, it is better to know the definition of young learners first. There are many definitions as stated by some experts. According to Purwaningsih, young learners are learners in elementary school aging nine to ten years old who are learning English as foreign language. While Etty Maryati Hoesein stated that young learners are the students of elementary school who are at grade four up to grade six. Their ages range from ten to twelve years of age. They have learned English for about one up to four years. From those definitions, we can conclude that young learners are children in the first six years of formal education, from the age six to twelve. It is because the lower limit of six roughly corresponds to the start of formal schooling in many countries, while the upper age of twelve approximates to a time when many children have begun to experience significant cognitive and emotional changes.

Children are very special in which they have their own characteristics that differ them from adult. They may lack on experience, but they have great reasoning ability. Whenever they find new things, they will make a reason based on their background knowledge they have. Because they are inexperience, sometimes it will lead them on misconceptions. That is why the teacher should be aware to anticipate childrens’ confusion and recognize why children have difficulties grasping new ideas.

Teacher should conduct teaching and learning activities based on young learners’ characteristics. These characterictics influence their ways of thinking, their aptitude, their attitude, etc. There are so many experts who give a list of yong learners’ characterictics, hence I will write some of them below.

According to Clark (1990: 6-8), here are five characteristics of young learners:

1.      Children are developing conceptually: they develop their way of thinking from concrete to the  abstract thing.

2.      Children have no real linguistics, different from the adult learners that already have certain purpose in learning language, they learn subject what school provide for them.

3.      Children are still developing; common skill such as turn talking and the use of body language.

4.      Young children very egocentric, they tend to resolve around themselves.

5.      Children get bored easily.

Meanwhile, Halliwel (1992: 3-5) stated that children are already very good in interpreting meaning without necessarily understanding the individual word, children already have great skill in using limited language creativity, children frequently learn indirectly rather than directly, children take good pleasure in finding and creating fun in what they do, and children have a ready imagination.

Brumfit (1997: v) gives a list of the characteristics which young learners share:

1. Young learners are only just beginning their schooling, so that teachers have a    major opportunity to mould their expectations of life in school.
2.  As a group, they are potentially more differentiated than secondary or adult learners, for they are closer to their varied home cultures, and new to the conformity increasingly imposed across cultural grouping by the school.
3. They tend to be keen and enthusiastic learners,
4. Their learning can be closely linked with their development of ideas and concepts, because it is so close to their initial experiences of formal schooling.
5. They need physical movement and activity as much as stimulation for their thinking, and the closer together these can be the better.

Young learners’ characteristics are also divided into three sides:

1.    Physical side

·      The physical world of young children is dominant and the understanding comes through hands, eyes and ears.

·      They perform physical activity in many ways; coloring, drawing and writing.

·      They are at the developing stage (critical period) in which they are capable of attaining native like second language because their organ of speech is still plastic.

2.    Social side

·      They are happy playing ad working in the company of others.

·      They are always aware of themselves in relation to others.

3.    Psychological side

·      They have short concentration span.

·      They are free of prejudice.

·      They get bored easily.

·      They are forgetful.

·      They like imitating.

·      They have high curiosity.

·      They are risk taker.

In conclusion, teacher should learn the characteristic of young learners whom she teaches because it will determine the success of language learning. By considering the characteristics that have mentioned above, hopefully teacher is able to choose the best teaching strategies so that young learners can understand the material well.

REFERENCES

Brumfit (1997) Young Learners Characteristics (TEYL/TMYL). (online) (http://peni.staff.uns.ac.id/2008/10/10/young-learner-characteristics/ accessed on March 9 , 2014).

Clark, J (1990) Teaching children: is it different? JET October 1990.

Halliwell, Susan (1992) Teaching English in the Primary Classroom. London: Longman.

Lecturing by Mrs. Dra.  Diani Nurhayati M.Pd. on March 10, 2014.

Prasetia, Cicik (2011) Teaching English for Young Learners. (online) (http://cicikprasetia.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/teaching-english-for-young-learners/ accessed on March 9, 2014)

POEM ANALYSIS: WHEN YOU ARE OLD

POEM ANALYSIS

WHEN YOU ARE OLD

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

                                                                                                            William Butler Yeats

1. PARAPHRASE

The speaker is a lover addressing his beloved and wondering how she would look when she grows old. The speaker describes his lady with gray hair as old, sleepy, and sitting by the fire. The speaker asks her to take the book of his poems written for her and read it. When she starts reading from his book, she will dream of the tender stare her eyes had when she was young, and of their profound gloominess. The speaker describes her beauty and how she was loved by everyone for that beauty. She will remember these men that have loved these instants when they were rejoicing her beauty and her charm either sincerely or falsely. Yet, the speaker stresses that there is only one man who truly loved her for her spirit, and not only for her beauty. Finally, the speaker portrays his lady bending down by the fireplace to whisper with sadness telling us that she rejected his love out of pride.

2. RHYTHM

The first line                When you | are old | and grey | and full | of sleep,

This line consists of ten syllables with five meters. Each meter consists of unstressed and stressed, so it is called Iambic Pentameter.

The use of punctuation, and the repeated use of “and”, Yeats manipulates the pace of the poem and encourages the reader to slow down. This also gives the stanza a rhythmic beat and structure and extends the poem giving it a feeling of old age.

3. RHYME

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,                       
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,        
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look                       
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;                  

‘When You Are Old’ is a poem that makes use of a number of sound patterns. As we can see in the first stanza, it uses ABBA rhyming scheme. The use of rhyme and the fixed rhythm gives the poem a romantic and beguiling quality.

•        Alliteration

The poet’s use of alliteration adds to the pace and mood of the poem, as well as giving certain lines a hypnotic and memorable quality. If we look at the third stanza we can see a good example of this:

And bending down beside the glowing bars

Also, in the second stanza, notice that the poet uses repetition. Three times we see the key word “loved”, which of course emphasizes the central theme of the poem.

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

•        Assonance

Assonance occurs when the same vowel sounds are used close together, often in the same line. This adds to the music of the poem and helps to create a rich and nostalgic feeling. If we look at line 8 we see the pattern of ‘u’ vowel sounds repeated in the same word “murmur”:

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

Looking at the entire stanza we can see a number of examples of assonance with the slender “e” and broad “a” and “u” vowel sound:

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Assonance only occurs when the vowel sound is the same in two words. So, while “bars” and “stars” have assonance, “bar” does not have assonance with “paced” because the “a” sound is different in the two words. “Paced” is, however, assonant with “face”. If we look at the words with the “e” sound we will again see that only words that have the same “eh” sound have assonance (‘bending’, ‘fled’, ‘overhead’).

4. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

             Metaphor

1. “When you are old and gray and full of sleep”

The phrase “full of sleep” is a metaphor.

·  Denotative meaning: sleeping that leads to dreaming.

·  Connotative meaning: the death.

2.  “And nodding by the fire, take down this book”.

       In this line, “Nodding by the fire” is used as a metaphor.

·  Denotative meaning: an old person who lower and raise her head slightly and briefly by a fire place.

·  Connotative meaning: an old person who is slowly falling asleep by a fire place with the weight of time on her shoulders bringing her down.

3. “And bending down beside the glowing bars”

·  Denotative meaning: lean the body downwards beside the fire place bars.

·  Connotative meaning: seeking warmth or comfort -- suggesting the desire and need for the fiery love she once rejected.

 Personification

1. “Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled”

Love is a noun, but the poet made it as a person who can flee.

·  Denotative meaning: love which ran away.

·  Connotative meaning: the man who loved her was gone and left her forever.

2. “And hid his face amid a crowd of stars”

            The word “his” refers to love as in previous line. It is also a personification because love cannot hide.

·  Denotative meaning: love hid its face among the stars in the night sky.

·  Connotative meaning: the man has become part of the immortal group of artists whose name will live on forever.

                Imagery

“When you are old and grey and full of sleep”

In the first stanza, Yeats uses words such as old, grey and full sleep which describes a lady with grey hair as old, sleepy, and sitting by the fire remembering how once she use to be young and beautiful.

5. SYMBOLISM

•           Fire

Denotative: the state of burning, in which substances combine chemically with oxygen from the air and typically give out bright light, heat, and smoke.

           Connotative: the fiery rawness of a past love.

•         Book

Denotative: a written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound with covers.

Connotative: reading someone’s face.

•         Mountain

Denotative: an elevation of the earth’s surface rising abruptly and to a large height from the surrounding level.

Connotative: love that is very distant.

•         Shadows deep

Denotative: a very intents dark area or shape produced by body coming between rays of light and a surface.

Connotative: expressing the difficulties and sadness hidden in the look of the eyes that can only be seen by someone who really cares.

•         Pilgrim

           Denotative: a person who journeys to a sacred place for religious reasons.

           Connotative: the long walk that her soul has had searching for real happiness.

•         Glowing bars

            Denotative: a long rod or rigid piece of wood or metal to place the fire.

Connotative: showing how her beauty has faded over time; like the fire, she was once vibrant.

6. SUBJECT MATTER

            The subject matter of “When you are Old” is unrequited love.

7. THEME

The theme of “When you are Old” is that it is important to recognize a true love when one is young, because things change when one grows old and one will feel regretful.    

8. REASON

            In this poem, the speaker pointed out how a woman was loved by so many men when she was young and beautiful. However, there was only one man who really loved her soul and body, whether in her happiness or sadness. But, the woman rejected the man’s love and now, when she is old, she realizes the value of the love she lost, she grows regretful that she did not see how he loved her and how unwise she was for not taking notice of it which made her lives alone in her impending death.

ESSAY OF LITERARY APPRECIATION

LITERARY APPRECIATION

Appreciating literary works is one of the attempts to make those masterpieces to be more valuable. By doing this, all written materials are not supposed to merely a combination of words which is made to be read. We can get as many as possible the benefits served including the feeling of joy, interesting information, life experience and so on. In order to appreciate maximally, we need to know some aspects that are related to this subject such as literature, literary appreciation, the way to appreciate literary works, and the advantages of literary works.

The first thing we should know is the definition of literature itself. Although there is no definite meaning, but we can say that literature is anything that is written. The word literature is derived from a Latin word “Littera” which means letters of the alphabet. Later on, in The Study of Poetry, Professor Egudu stated that literature is a mode or method of expression. This definition implies that words are used to express one’s feeling or new idea. However, we cannot only describe literature as a written material because before we can read the printed forms of literary works, people are tend to tell stories from mouth to  mouth. This kind of literature is called oral literature.

In general, there are two types of literature; informative and imaginative. Informative literature offers us knowledge about history or real ‘great’ life figure completed with facts and explanation, while imaginative literature arouses thoughts and feelings wherein the author communicates through feelings and emotion, not fact and information only. Literature has three genres or branches called poetry, drama, and prose. According to William Wordsworth, poetry is spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling recollected in the moment of tranquilly which implies that poetry is natural, imaginative, and emotional expression. Then, drama is a work of art acted on the stage in front of an audience and usually copies actual life experience. Last, prose is ordinary written or spoken language of man, can be fiction or non-fiction, without metrical structure.

The term literature cannot be separated with literary appreciation. Literary appreciation is the ability to understand, enjoy, and evaluate literary works. It studies the writing styles and literary devices which are used within texts. Literature is the object that literary appreciation looks to study and the medium through which literary appreciation can be expressed.

According to Donelson and Nilsen (2009),  literary appreciation occurs in seven stages as follow:

1.    Pleasure and profit (literary appreciation is a social experience)

2.    Decoding (literary is developed)

3.    Lose yourself (reading becomes a means of escaping)

4.    Find yourself (discovering identity)

5.    Venture beyond self (assessing the world around them)

6.    Variety in reading (reads widely and discusses experience with peers)

7.    Aesthetic purpose (appreciates the artistic value of reading)

To help people to appreciate literary works easily, there are two ways they can do. First, understanding the idea and information. This may be difficult for some people since most of the idea is implicit, or placed beyond words. Thus, they should study the language by giving the meanings of words used, study the structures of  a literary work by listing the elements of each work, and study some approaches which can be useful to make a better understanding. These approaches include study the background (setting) of a literary work, find out the information of the author, identify the target readers, understand literary works as an entity in itself, and find other literatures that may be related to the one we appreciate before. By doing these, we will be able to conclude the idea and information the author wants to express so we will enjoy reading it more. Second, appreciating literary works can be done by performing them in many ways such as discuss the elements of literary works, write a note on certain aspect, recite poems, performing drama on stage and so forth. The second way is more to apply the literary works we have read in a real life situation.

As we know that literature is created for various purposes, hence, it also provides us with many advantages which range in different aspects of our life as follow:

1.    Entertainment: The main purpose of literature is to entertain, please, or delight the readers. Some people tend to read or play literary works mainly for recreation.

2.    Mastering of English language: By reading various kind of literary works written in English, we will develop our English ability especially in form of vocabulary and structures.

3.    Emotional relief: We can release our feeling by expressing our thought and emotions through literary works or reading literature books.

4.    Literature mirrors life: It means that literature is an imitation of one’s life. The experience happen in literature will make us laugh or sad because the situation is similar to real life situation.

5.    Literature is a means of education and enlightenment: It teaches us new things and informs us about the happening around us.

6.    Makes us wiser: Literary works sometime contains of a great value in which we can learn from them and view the things happening wisely.

In conclusion, even though literatures are every kind of written materials, we can distinguish them in sense of any writing and verbal works of art. Appreciating them is important because it will lead us to the higher level of understanding. Since there are many ways to appreciate literary works, we better combine those ways in order to get as many information to understand more. Enjoying literary works is a worth because we not only get the pleasure but also the advantages to make our life better.

REFERENCES

Delta. 2011. Literary Appreciation. Online. Available on http://offeroeduservices. blogspot.com/2011/02/literary-appreciation.html, downloaded on March 7, 2014.

Donelson, Kenneth L. & Alleen Nilsen. 2009. Literature for Today’s Young Adult. Boston: Pearson.

Dwinastiti, Marlin. 2013. The Definition of Literary Appreciation and Criticism. Online. Available on http://marlindwinastiti.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/ the-definition-of-literary-appreciation-and-criticism/, downloaded on March 7, 2014.

Hobby, Nathaniel. What is the Difference Between Literature and Literary Appreciation. Online. Available on http://education.blurtit.com /181314/what-is-the-different-between-literature-and-literary-appreciat-ion, downloaded on March 7, 2014.

Lecturing by Mrs. Dra.  Diani Nurhayati M.Pd. on March 04, 2014.

Risdianto, Faizal, S.S,M.Hum. 2011. Introduction to Literature. Yogyakarta: TrustMedia.