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)
