Teach English in Zouma Zhen - Enshi Tujiazu Miaozu Zizhizhou

The advent of the twenty first century has brought about an onslaught of change to the world and its inhabitants, one of the biggest being the rapid development of the English language as a global language. This has led to the establishment of many English language learning institutions all over the world, including in Indonesia. With greater opportunity and accessibility to learn a globally recognized language, students learning English in Indonesia are ecstatic. However, the reality is that learning English in this large island country is not so simple. Indonesia was formerly a Dutch colony, unlike Malaysia which was previously under British colonization. Whereas Malaysia recognized English as a national language after its independence from British rule, Indonesia had no exposure to English at all. This would serve as an enormous disadvantage for future learners of English in Indonesia. After its independence, Indonesia’s national language was announced as Bahasa Indonesia, with several hundred regional dialects. Coincidentally, the alphabet used in Bahasa Indonesia is the roman alphabet. Fortunately, this provides a framework for students interested in learning English to work with, as there is no need to learn the alphabet from scratch. However, that is probably where all similarities with the English language end. Learners in Indonesia experience problems with their motivation and commitment when learning English. Unlike in other Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Indonesians do not use English in daily life. After all, the people never had any previous exposure to the English language like Malaysia's people had. Even in a professional working environment, English is rarely used unless one works at a translating agency or in a specific field. This results in many learners lacking a strong motivation to learn English as they may not have any use for it other than as an interest. The fact that English is rarely used in daily life in Indonesia also affects how learners can maintain and practice their knowledge of the English language. With no practical use, their skills and knowledge fade over time, and it becomes difficult for them to improve their fluency through communicating in English. Their knowledge of English is only ever in proper use in classrooms. Indonesia is also a third-world country, where the need or interest to learn a new language is overshadowed by other societal and basic needs. Most families are unwilling to spend to send their children abroad for their studies, so most students have no use for English in their daily lives or even for examinations. This lack of necessity and interest in learning another language affects not only prospective learners, but even current learners. There is a risk that some may lose their motivation for learning English in the first place. Alongside the possible lack of motivation in learning English, learners also have to tackle the striking differences between English and Bahasa Indonesia, mainly in the grammar, pronunciation and syntax. The multitude of tenses that exist within the English language is confusing for students because Bahasa Indonesia does not follow those same rules. There is no clear past tense or future tense within Bahasa Indonesia. For example, in English, one would say “I ran”. Here the verb “run” has the past simple tense of “ran”. In Bahasa Indonesia, however, the sentence “Aku lari” can take place in the present, past or even the future. Only through context clues and adverbs of time does the listener know when exactly the speaker is running. Another major difference is the use of plurals. In Bahasa Indonesia, the noun does not change form when it is plural. At most, one would only add adjectives such as “many” or “a little”. For instance, “kucing”, which means “cat”, does not add any letter or change form to become plural. It simply remains as “kucing” or “banyak kucing”, which would mean “many cats”. In contrast, the English language has many rules for making a noun plural, including dropping ‘y’ and adding ‘-ies’ and much more. Pronunciation of letters in English is also quite different from that in Bahasa Indonesia. Where the pronunciation of the letter ‘i’ is similar to “eye”, in Bahasa Indonesia, this letter is pronounced similar to the letter “e” in English. The letter ‘c’ is also pronounced differently; it is instead pronounced like the ‘ch’ in “chop” or “chime”. The main issues that Indonesian learners have when studying English are the motivation to learn it, the commitment to continue learning, and linguistic differences between their native language and English. Although these issues seem severe, they are not impossible to overcome. In fact, these problems are commonly shared amongst most non-native English learners. It is the role of a good teacher to help students overcome these barriers, and encourage and guide them in learning English, catering to their specific weaknesses and needs in order to ultimately allow their students to understand the English language.