Teacher Training Materials of Professor Dr David Ngin Sian Pau

Classification of Children Groups

TESOL age categories: One of the most important things in teaching oral English is
                                   understanding the ability and skill of students’ at different
                                   age levels. By understanding your students, you know what
                                   to teach and how to do the teaching job and it makes easier
                                   for children to understand your teaching.

Early Childhood Development

Toddler:

· Children of this age range are mainly using language and refraining from crying to
    communicate.
·Telegraphic” is emerging at this point. “Telegraphic speech” is the use of short words and
    phrases that omit unnecessary modifiers and articles in order to convey general meanings. For
    example, the child would say, “cat gone” in place of “the cat is gone”.

Age 5:

· The attention span and memory of the group expands dramatically.
· Newly increased logical abilities lay the groundwork for classification and discrimination.
·Learning to Learn” is the key.

Elementary Age Development

Ages 6-9:

Two important terms for childhood development:

1. Movements that involve the body as a whole such as jumping, hopping and running.
2. Movements that occur with the involvement between the hands and fingers in conjunction with
    the eye such as writing, cutting and pasting.
· Excellent recognition skills are the basis of mathematical, reading and writing skills
· Begin to further social skills, or example the sharing of toys is easier. Also, they will begin to
    pinpoint objects or reasons behind their distress. They can easily relay this information to
    others and begin to cope with feelings of separation and anger.