Characteristics of Young Learners

1. Involuntary attention not pay attention to language system but to task, topic & situation form is acquired indirectly through peripheral learning language is a means for expressing meaning Peripheral learning  subconscious learning

2. Limited attention short attention & concentration span tend to focus on the end of words & add suffixes & postpositions before noticing the existence of & begin using prefixes & prepositions (e.g. goed, eated, whom with)

3. Holistic skills approach language holistically  not analyzing it or breaking phrases into chunks but treating & learning it formulaically & integrated with other skills language production does not depend on explicit knowledge, but must be developed implicitly

4. Inability to observe regularities & causal relations are neither cognitively nor psychologically mature to make comparisons between the L1 & the TL require constant repetition to infer & generate grammar rules & to identify causal relations between various occurrences

5. Undeveloped problem-solving skills can’t yet diagnose problems & generate solutions based on the information available

6. Weak memory cannot control what they are taught the younger the learner, the patchier the storage & recall need recycling activities

7. Limited experience have limited life & learning experience do not bring in background knowledge they are in the process of learning their L1

8.  Here & now reasoning concrete reasoning  concerned with physical here & now realia & observable situations in the immediate environment abstract reasoning is tied to biological growth & does not develop until between 11 - 14 years old  abstract grammatical patterns are beyond children grasp

9. Undeveloped LL aptitude influence the rate of development where formal classroom learning is concerned 4 major components of LL aptitude: (1) phonetic coding ability: an ability to identify distinct sounds, and to form associations between them and representative symbols (2) grammatical sensitivity: the ability to recognize the grammatical functions of words (or other linguistic entities) in sentence structures (3) rote learning ability: a memorization technique based on repetition (4) inductive (language learning) ability: the ability to infer or induce the rules governing a set of language materials

10. Mechanical memory 2 kinds of memories: mechanical memory (short-term memory)  predominant in children logical memory (long-term memory) develops very slowly between 11 - 14 years of age, is related to abstract thinking children under 12-13 can repeat & memorize long words & expressions, but are not able to analyze them because logical memory is not well developed yet

11. Lower-order functioning 2 broad types of functioning: lower-order functioning responsible for the understanding & production of speech involves basic syntactic processing & the motor operations employed in speaking & writing a function of early maturing higher-order functioning involves semantic processing & verbal recognition dependent upon late developing neural circuitry available for use only in older learners

12. Undeveloped interactional skills young learners are prone to be less involved in sustaining a conversation progress less rapidly than older learners

13. Motivation rarely have clear motivation be less able to: assume responsibility for their learning use the metacognitive strategies of focusing, arranging, planning, monitoring & evaluation rule out any serious attempt at large-scale comparative assessment of their progress

14. Literacy (& numeracy) children are far behind taking their first steps with the alphabet & numbers a whole new code must be taught alongside the introduction of literacy & numeracy

15. Ongoing categorization children still acquire L1 establish the range of reference of the lexical items find out the boundaries of the relevant classes