How do you learn English?

How Do You Learn and Teach English?

This piece of writing is  a real life story about  my experiences in learning English as a Student and  teaching English an English Teacher. I hope that the readers could help themselves more in learning English as students and teaching English as English teachers after reading. This might not help much but I hope it could become as an inspiration for everyone.

I went to SMP Negeri Sigalangan-Kec. Batang angkola- Tapsel – North Sumatera in 1984. It was located about 5 kilometers from my village (Desa Siture). I went to school on bared foot  because the path that we had to travel was grassy, wet and muddy.  We had to cross rivers through a very simple shaky bamboo bridge; we had to pass paddy fields, orchards and private plantations. That’s why we didn’t get out of our house in the morning with our shoes on. Because if we did it,  they would certainly got wet and dirty by the time we reached our school. So we put on our shoes somewhere  on dry places where we can  get and use some water to wash our feet. it was usually about 100 or 200 meters before we arrive at school. That was how my friends and I then arrived at our school every schooldays.

It is in this school, English was taught to me for the first, at first year class of course.  I still remember very well how my first English teacher gave the first English lesson. When he entered my classroom, most of the students  were busy with  their own activities, and suddenly I saw a short skinny old  man with thick eyebrows and big spectacles got in to our classroom. While he was keeping on walking into our classroom. He got all our attention by saying loudly,’ Asing pambacana, asing panulisna. I ma bahasa Inggris’(Batak Mandailing language). It means that English is differently pronounced from the spelling or writing if we compare to the way we write and pronounce Indonesian language. And  I whispered to myself: ‘This lesson must be very difficult’.

During the first year learning English at school, I found it  very difficult to cope with English. That’s why I didn’t like English very much. I sometimes escaped from my class before my English teacher got in. I always  tried to do something else to avoid English lesson. As a consequently,  Of course I always got  ‘Red Scores: 5’ in my report book. And I didn’t worry so much about it, but my parents did.

 At Second year class they asked me to joint extra English class.  Then my friend and I got extra  English lesson with our English teacher privately in his house exactly. This activity continued  until I graduated from JHS but I still didn’t think that I got something significant from this activities. And that was how I felt. In those years I was just suggested to memorize formulas of English tenses. And I couldn’t figure out the reason clearly of why I had to do that.

No wonder, of course , I scored only 2, 73 for my English in EBTANAS 1987. Based on this score, I kept saying to myself that I got insignificant changes for my English even though I had tried hard to learn it seriously. I still hated English lesson, because it was difficult and boring to me.

When I sat on first year class of Senior High School (SMA Negeri Pintupadang: one kilo meter farther than my JHS), I experienced the same thing; I got ‘Red Scores’ for my English. And again my parents very worried about me. This time they sent me to one of English Course in town. I needed 60 minutes to reach the place with twice  exchanged of public transportation .

In this English Course, I introduced myself to a senior student and then we became friends. He always spoke to me in English but I could not speak out something to reply, I could only kept smiling and turned around to hide my incapability. And it seemed that he realized my problem, my English need much practice. I always saw senior students speaking English. I remembered that they were talking and asking about simple things like:  ‘What is your  name?, Where do you go to school?, When was your birthday?, Where do you live?, What is your religion?, Have you got married?,’ etc. Actually we had known all those information when we chatted in Indonesian before, but my friends kept asking in English about it again and again. I thought it was silly  thing that time.

One day, he asked me to join him to practice English with some foreign tourists in a hotel lobby, bus station around our town. I spontaneously tried to reject it by giving some reasons. Of course I didn’t tell him the real reasons: I was afraid to make a mistake, felt no confidence and knew only very little English. To my surprise, it seemed that he could read my mind and persuaded  me by saying, ‘ Don’t be afraid just stand behind me and enjoy listening to our conversation.’ Then I thought and replied,’ Yes, Why not?’ After that I decided to go with him to see some foreign tourists to practice English.

I did stand behind him during his four conversations with different foreign tourists. But when he finished his conversation with the fifth foreign tourist, I felt very ashamed and tried to stop blaming myself, I forced myself and came forward in front of the foreign tourist and said:

 I          :Good afternoon!

Foreign tourist: …,

I           : What is your name?

Foreign tourist : …

 I          :How old are you?

Foreign tourist : …

Where do you come from? Good bye!.’

Foreign tourist : …

I remembered that I didn’t really  listen to his  answers. I just concentrated on preparing myself with the next questions to fire him anytime he stopped speaking at that moment.

This very short experience, I meant the moment I talked to the foreign tourist, is so precious to me. Because of this few seconds of conversation, I changed my percetion toward English. I realized that English was useful. It is something that can be used to communicate with other people (foreign tourists). It is not only a lessons at school but  it is also important to be used in communication. And the most important thing is that I like English so much after I talked to one of the foreign tourist.

I couldn’t sleep well that night when I got back to our rented house (I successfully persuaded my parents to let me stay in a house with other people who lived around my SHS because I had been so tired of walking on foot to school during I was in JHS). I kept remembering the short special moment. I was so proud of myself. I felt great, happy and very glad about what I had done that afternoon. Then I prepared myself about what to say if I met a foreign tourist or some foreign tourist again. That night I prepared and memorized more questions to be used in  communication with the foreign tourists. I trained myself. I kept repeating and practicing how to pronounce the questions until I could say them fluently. My room mates called me ‘crazy boy’ because they always saw me talked to myself while I was practicing my memorizing activities.

I memorized the expressions or questions:

Good afternoon!

How are you Sir/ Ma’am?

What is your name?

How old are you?

 Where do you come from?

What is your religion?

Have you got married?

Why do you come to Indonesia?

Nice to see you!

Good bye!

My seconds experience talking in English with foreign tourist was two days after when  I finished  my English Course activities.  My friend was surprised to see me because that time it was me who asked him to find some foreign tourists to practice English. When my friend had done  with his dialogue,  I directly asked the foreign tourist with  some expressions and questions that I had prepared and practiced before. These activities continued until three months. I meant I talked to many foreign tourists by using the same expressions and questions every time I spoke in English with them. I think the foreign tourist will surely get bored with my English if we accidentally met more than once. Luckily we met only once, so they didn’t know about it. 

After three moths experienced these activities, I  tried to be more creative. I memorized not only questions, but I created some opening expressions before firing them with my favorite questions. I Said,’ Excuse me sir/ ma'am,  I am a student of a Senior High School., I like English very much and I would like to practice my English with you. But I hope you don’t mind about my English, because my English is very bad.’ I said that fluently.

Do you know the response of the foreign tourists I got after that short speech? They all   said to me, ’No your English is good,’ or ‘No, your English is great!’ I was absolutely very proud of myself.  It really motivated me to learn and love English more and more. It was  just like gasoline to an engine. It motivated me to say the same expressions again and again and didn’t care too much about their answers. I mean I kept repeating saying the same expressions and questions  to different foreign tourists.

One day as usual, I spoke to a foreign tourist. I said:’ Excuse me sir I am a student of a Senior High School. I like English very much and I would like to practice my English with you. But I hope you don’t mind about my English, because my English is very bad.’  And He said;’ No, your English is good!’ Then when I asked him:’ Where do you come from? He answered:’ Netherlands. ‘I was just about to ask him my next question, he asked me a yes/no question. May be it was,’ Have you ever been there?’ I was so shocked, because I didn’t expected this. So this time I had to say yes or no to answer the question that I didn’t understand. But then I said ‘Yes’. He was so surprised about my answer. There was a few seconds silence between us, then He said,’ May be you see Netherlands on TV’. And I directly responded by saying,’ yes!, yes!, yes!’ to pay for my former wrong answer. From that time I tried to pay more attention to what foreign tourist(s) said every time I have English conversation.

After six months, I tried to be more creative in my English. I added expressions about how to get some money from foreign tourists by telling them that I was a person that needed help from them. I said, ’Sir my parents are farmers … ’ But before I finished my sentences, I was so surprised about their interruption and said,’ Good for you!’.  As a response. I never got the money from them.

Then I changed my tricks to get some money from them by saying that,’ I have an interesting hobby. I like to collect money in different currencies from all over the world. Would you give me a piece of your money?’ yeahhh …I often get some of course.

 After one year studying  in IKIP Medan I realized that I made a wrong diction by saying that my parents are farmers. I should have  used ‘peasants’ instead of  ‘farmers’ in my sentences, because farmers means persons who own lands and have some other people work there. No wonder they said, ‘ Good for you!’ as the response. What I really meant to say was ‘petani miskin’ which we say  ‘peasants’ in English. So my sentence should have been:

 ‘My parents are peasants’, How poor I was.

In this case, I learned and practiced English in real life situation. I used it.  And I found it challenging and interesting since there were many foreign tourists came or stayed at our town (Padangsidempun) everyday. That’s why I had good chances to  practice my English.

Guess … what score did I get for English  on my report book,  yes, they are good score: 7 and 8. And I should tell you that I became quiet famous at third year class among the students  in my Senior High School because of my big improvement in English. Even My English teacher sometimes let me to teach in his English classes. It was really great, right? I was   just nobody before but then became famous only in a short time. And I really thank God for changing my weakness to be my strength. And I always remember to  thank my parents for their  love, support, understanding, and prying for me.

When I graduated from SHS I scored the highest in my school for English Lesson ‘7 point something’, and this result built my confidence to choose English as my major subject in collage. I didn’t want to be a teacher. But one of my English teachers told me that studying English was better in Teachers Collage Institution than that of University. He convinced me by saying that I didn’t have to be a teacher by studying in IKIP. He also gave same examples about some successful people who graduated from IKIP that had good professions not as teachers. Because of this, I decided to join UMPTN and I chose English as my major subject. I passed the test and I was so happy when I knew that I was  accepted in IKIP  Negeri Medan in 1990. Hopefully, that I could graduate with good English and become a successful person in the future.

In IKIP Medan, It was very easy to find people to speak English. I could talk to my classmates, senior students and lecturers. I also went to an English speaking church (Wesley Methodist Church) every Sunday morning. and had some conversations with English native speakers after the church activities. I usually brought them some questions about something that non-native speakers can answer.  These were the way I practice my English that time.

For my second years in Medan I started teaching English in English Course, became private English teacher teaching at students parents’ house. Most of my students were children that year. The following years I taught in children and teenagers English class. Actually I didn’t enjoy teaching but I had to do it in order to survive better that time. 

My first experienced teaching in Formal school was at the beginning of 1996. This lasted only for 2 months. I taught English in grade 6 of Elementary School, grade 1,2,3 of JHS and SHS in one private christian school in Medan. I had to prepare so many different lesson plans and corrected a mountain of students’ tasks because I taught many students and many different classes. In this school I concluded that teaching was a very tiring  job to do. It was really different from English Course, especially the total number of students in one classroom. I happened to have 60 students in 6 grade of Elementary School classroom and I couldn’t control that big class. Every time I had a schedule to teach in that class,  I felt very depressed, terrible and some time I found it difficult to sleep the night before teaching. That’s why; I hurriedly resigned from the school when I got my graduation from IKIP Medan. And I felt relieved of course after that.

This experience made me sick off teaching English; Therefore, I went to Jakarta  to find different job to do for a living.

In Jakarta I lived with my uncle, aunt and cousins. I tried to send as many application letters as I could. I sent about 150 application letters in three months. But there was no reply.  I became so impatient to wait for the reply. I almost decided to go to other big cities like Batam.

In this depressed condition, I saw that there was a private Senior High School next to the post office where I used to send my all application letters. I decided to leave one of my application letters there to become an English teacher. I got the reply from them 3 days after. I fulfilled their invitation for the interview. I was accepted, and I decided to teach English there while I was looking for the other job.

When I started teaching there, I found that the students were really different. They respected me well, they obeyed me and they liked the way I teach them. Teaching there for 3 months could change my perception about teaching. I thought that teaching was interesting, challenging, and enjoyable. I liked my students very much. I knew that they liked me and they expected my present in their classroom. I prepared myself before teaching. I made my lesson plans. I taught them English through games. We played English games almost once in a week. We played Definition games, Mime Games, Drawing Games, Crossword puzzle, Synonym and Antonym Games, Word square Games, Who am I Games, Give me the Clues I can surely guess the word, Hangman Games, Word Chained Games, etc.

I taught them that ways for 2 years, in second year class third year class. At the middle of the second year I taught them, I was a little bit getting tired to design games for them. Then,  I taught them how  to create English games  applied in their classroom with their classmates.

I decided to give them the task. After giving them some explanations about how to make English games, they agreed to do the task. I gave them 2 weeks to prepare the game. I divided the class into groups contain about 5 – 7 students in each group. I gave them the materials to be applied in their English Games such as list of vocabularies and Grammars. I told them that the material that I give them must be used in their games, but they can add other thing (other vocabulary or grammar) that they thought suitable or interesting. And of course, the materials must be kept as secrets. The other group must never be informed about it, because the game would not be fair if other groups had already known about it before playing.

They used the two weeks to do the task.  They came to me when they had difficulties. I checked their works, informed something other needed and changed to make it applicable and interesting in English classroom.

After two weeks passed, I invited the first group to play their game. In this case they became the host; the appointed group took the whole controls of the classroom for 60 minutes to play their games. My roles (about 25 – 30 minutes) were opening, observing, evaluating and closing the class.    Of course I was always there to facilitate them with helps when they had unsolved problem which came out among them. I also gave them some comments and appreciations at the end of the class for the betterment of their games in the next class.

The class was running very well and lively.  Everyone in the classroom got involved. They used English in speaking and writing. The appointed group tried to show other groups that their game was the best of all. Students in other groups tried to give their best performances to win the games. These activities continued until every group got their turn to conduct their games.

From this experience, I realized that the students must not only be involved as much as possible in learning processes but also in the teaching process itself. Because in that way, the students will have more chances to express their creativities in using the language that they are studying about in real life situation.

I used to have my students playing a single game for about 60 minutes but when we were out of new games, I used two until four kinds of games with different topic or vocabulary for 90 minutes. So we had more various games that became more interesting to play although they were not new. In this teaching and learning session the students had to have two until four persons who were good at different kinds, depend on the kinds of the games. When we played for example: 1. Mime Games; 2. Drawing Games; and 3. Give me the clues and I can surely Guess the word Games. There must be someone in each group that was good at acting when ‘playing Mime games’; someone was good at drawing when playing ‘Drawing games’; and good at defining or giving clues when playing ‘Give me the clues and I can surely Guess the word Games’ in his group members in order to win the games. This was exiting because they had to decide who was suitable in doing certain task.

Teaching English through games is very exciting and challenging. It is exciting and the students are so enthusiastic every  time we play. They were competing and trying to give their best to win the games. They enjoyed the class very much. They didn’t realize that they were learning English. And they were doing well in every English test I gave them. They loved me as their English teacher and  I liked them as my students. We had strong bond of relationship. I sometimes treated them as friends of mine. 

(HOTMARITCON MARPAUNG)

                                                                                                 

 

Jatuh Namun Tak Terhempas

Jatuh Tapi Tidak Sampai Terhempas

Aku tidak pernah menduga kalau kau akan meninggalkanku untuk selamanya. Engkau pergi dari sisiku untuk menghadap Allah yang Mahakuasa. Selamat jalan istriku tercinta, semoga Tuhan menempatkanmu disisiNya.

Kehadiranmu sungguh berarti dalam hidupku. Engkau telah memberiku teladan bagaimana cara mencintai yang tidak sempurna dengan cara yang sempurna dan tulus yang tidak akan pernah dapat kulupakan seumur hidupku. Janji kita yang tidak akan berpisah sampai ajal menjemput genaplah sudah dan cintamu tetap abadi selamanya.

Terkadang disaat kesendirianku teringat masa hidupku besamamu, manis yang kurasakan dimasa lalu mengapa terasa pahit saat ini? Hari-hari indah dan bahagia dimasa lalu mengapa terasa sakit dan pilu saat ini? Derita yang kurasakan membuatku tak berdaya dan aku merasa seolah-olah telah ikut terkubur bersamamu. Benar kata pepatah, ‘Haccit magoan ina unhaccitan sirang marale-ale’.

Dengan air mata yang mengalir deras membasahi wajahku, aku datang dan bertanya kepada Tuhanku, ‘Tuhan dosa apa yang telah kuperbuat sehingga engkau menghukumku seperti ini?’ ‘Siapakah aku di mataMu sehingga Engkau menganggap kalau aku akan sanggup melalui cabaan berat ini?’

Maafkan aku tidak akan menangisimu lagi terlalu lama, karena semakin banyak aku meneteskan air mata atas kepergianmu, aku semakin lemah, imanku terjatuh makin dalam dan aku lupa akan tugas dan tanggung jawab yang kau titipkan dimasa  hidupmu.

Saat ini aku sudah mulai belajar mensyukuri segala apa yang terjadi dalam hidupku. Setiap hari aku datang pada Tuhan, menyembah, memuji, dan memuliakan namaNya. Aku memohon kekuatan, kesehatan, panjang umur, kesabaran, dan ketabahan supaya aku mampu melalui segala apa yang Tuhan ijinkan terjadi dalam hidupku tiap hari.

Aku percaya bahwa pencobaan yang Tuhan ijinkan terjadi dalam hidupku tidak akan melebihi kekuatanku. Aku besyukur akan semua ujian yang Tuhan berikan sehingga aku semakin mengenal dan dekat denganNya.