The young learner

To be a young learner is to acquire knowledge in the first stages of our lives. Talking about the classroom, our young learners are between the ages of 4 to 10, wich are the most vital years in children development. Children at this age are natural learners; they are trying to know what life is about, and when you take them to the classroom, you can take advantage of it.

Centro Escolar Francisco Ignacio Cordero's first grade students

We as future tachers have to know that all children are different, some of them develop early, others later; some children develop gradually and others in leaps and bounds. It is impossible to say that they develop at the same age and go through the same stages, so we have to take a general view of our students and take out some similar characteristics of them to be able to understand their needs.

In our teaching practicum, we were in charge of teaching English to four, five, six and seven-year-old children; we must know that every single one of them has different needs. At this age is really important to use the things they have learned in their mother tonge and adapt them to what we are trying to teach them in English. They can already talk about what they are doing, have done or heard, so you can put this into practice by doing oral activities, making them tell a story or just describing something. A very important thing that we have to take into account is that the most powerful tool that children have is their imagination, so you can use that to make them participate, feel important and secure during classes.

Five-year-old English students

With kids of these ages, the physical world is dominant at all times. They discover things with their eyes, hands, and ears; everything has to be explained. As an example, Children know that the world is governed by rules; they may not always understand them, but they know that they are there to be obedient. Why do they understand that? They do it because an adult told them; maybe they heard someone saying that, and they took it for them.

Something important is to wear children's shoes; you have to understand them, despite them being so different from adults. We have to ask children as many questions as we can; we also have to find out what  they want and need. Children can be very enthusiastic about learning; we have to take advantage of it, so we have to help them to have fun while learning and encourage them to do their best in order to get better results in learning process.

Five-year-old students carrying out an activity