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
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 largescale 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