English Language Acquisition through Educational Computer Game
for Young Learner
Technology has grown into something which is really sophisticated recently. It affects almost every aspect in this world. Education is one of the aspects that cannot dodge the mass effect of technology. Recently, educators are addicted to include technology in their teaching activities. Many programs and applications have been invented to aid the educators. Students are also familiar with technology. Even the young learners have been exposed to technology. Some are even able to use technology as well. Young learners in this era can be called as a digital learner. They are studying in the middle of ...view middle of the document...
Therefore a maximum time allocation exists to prevent that harmful outcome. Dr. Aric said that an hour was the best time for children to be exposed to computer. The teachers should maintain the schedule well so that an hour for computer based activities or the game or the game itself can be effective. After the teachers have scheduled the time, they have to consider about young learners’ ability to operate the computer. In young learner level, the ability to operate the computer may be low, so the teachers have to use very simple games. The simple games can be games that only consist of clicking, dragging and cursor movement. Typing can also be added in form of simple typing activities. However if the condition is the same as our beloved country Indonesia where some primary schools do not even own a computer laboratory or even the young learners themselves are not familiar with computers, it will be difficult to perform the gaming activities. Moreover the budget of the computer based class is not cheap. The school should pay a lot for computer maintenance. This phenomenon can be considered as problems, but it can be solved. The teachers do not have to provide every student with a computer. The teacher can bring laptop and a projector so all of the students can see the games and play it together. That is how simple computer gaming activities can be performed in class.
Some people may believe that teaching a language using educational computer game is not appropriate. However some evidence exist that educational computer games will fit to young learners. Young learners are very different from older learners. According the book “The Primary English Teacher’s Guide” written by Jean Brewster, Gail Ellis and Denis Girard, young learner are still developing conceptually and are at an early stage of their schooling, get bored easily, can concentrate for surprisingly long time if they are interested and can be easily distracted but also very enthusiastic. They are not designed to sit and just read when it is about second language learning. It means that they need method and media which is fun, interesting and not boring. Computer has the entire criterion. There are many applications or programs that can be used as learning aid in English Language Acquisition in computer but the focus of this essay is the computer game. Children are really enthusiastic when they are exposed to a game. That is because game in their mind set is always about fun....
