best selling books on English Language Teaching, teaching English to Young Learners


Young learners are energetic and enthusiastic individuals. With a high degree of brain plasticity and curiosity that cannot be compared with older learners, young learners are known to be individuals who are always ready to learn new knowledge and skills needed in their development. One of the strengths of young learners is their speed at acquiring, learning, and mastering languages. Scholars have stated that they inherited the gift of being born to speak. Chomsky, among others, believes that children are equipped with certain mental modules that enable them to acquire and learn language naturally and automatically. In fact, although it is still debated, their age is a golden age in learning languages, an age that we know as The Critical Period. Armed with the knowledge of young learners, we then become very sure that they are individuals who are ready to learn a foreign language. This is where disagreements begin to occur between experts. Some of them support foreign language learning for young learners while others prefer not to rush to teach them foreign languages. Reason after reason, research after study, was put forward to strengthen their respective positions.

On the other hand, teachers and parents are competing to send their children to foreign language courses, especially English. They reasoned that by sending their children to study English as a foreign language, their children would have the opportunity to get better jobs in the future (better than their parents). Should it be?

This book contains theoretical descriptions and real cases that occur in the context of learning English as a foreign language for young learners. Through this book, the author invites us to look at the opportunities and risks faced by young learners when they are semi-coerced into learning a foreign language. Aimed at readers in countries where English is taught and studied as a foreign language, this book will open our eyes so that we can make wiser decisions as to whether our children should be sent to foreign language schools, or should we be patient until they grow up.

Various interesting issues regarding teaching English as a foreign language to young learners are discussed in this book. Although this book is written in a specific context, namely TEFL, the ideas expressed by the author can be used in the context of teaching foreign languages to young learners in general.