Theme : The Development of English Learning
English in
Indonesia
English is international language. This language is learned
by people in many countries in the world. English is important language that
becomes a device for communication internationally. Several countries uses this
language as second language, and the others as foreign language. The
differences between English as second language and foreign language are, the
country which uses English as second language is when English is used for communication
generally, but the country has its own language to use. While as foreign
language, the country doesn't use this language but it have to be learned by
people in the school and it becomes a primary lesson. Several countries uses
English as second language, but it is not in Indonesia. In our country English
still be considered as foreign language.
As we know, in this globalization era English is used
generally as international language. So that, almost all countries in the world
ask their people to learn English in order to communicate with people from
another country. In English there are four skills that have to be mastered,
Listening, Speaking, Writing, Reading, they can be capital for communication
using English. While in Indonesia now, English just become foreign language. It
means that English become a subject in school. Althogh in this learning
students are expected to master the skill, in the real life it can be seen that
so much lacks of this, it because of English as foreign language not second
language.
Nurhayatun (2012) stated in his article that nowdays English
is not only needed as communication
device with other people from other country, but also in academic need.
It means that most of student in Indonesia still consider that the most important
of learning English is they have to pass the subject lesson, get high score,
and so on. Hence, the purpose of this learning is ignoring by them. Based on the
historical background in our country, English is taught to elite people in
colonial era, where at the time English learning became exclusive something
(Hunayn, 2012). In his article, Hunayn (2012) also stated that English learning
in the school is a big business and a big project. Million dollars run into the
country that produced the material book for its subject, and through English
learning they can influence our mind by the book that they produced.
Finally, we can conclude that English is important to learn
beacuse English is international language that is used by many countries.
Several countries uses it as second language, while in our country English as
foreign language. It means that English is learned by students in school but in
out of the school they did not use English. History of English learning in our
country begins since colonial era, at that time English is exclusive, because
it is only learned by rich people.
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