THE INFLUENCE OF ENGLISH AS THE GLOBAL LANGUAGE ON ENGLISH TEACHING PRACTICES
| Main Author: | Sulistio, Urip |
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| Format: | Article info eJournal |
| Terbitan: |
Universitas Batanghari
, 2012
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| Online Access: |
http://journal.unbari.ac.id/index.php/JIP/article/view/68 |
Daftar Isi:
- Abstract This paper is about the impacts of English as the global language on English teacher profession. The impacts are both positive and negative. This paper also points out the nature of English learning and teaching in Indonesia in accordance with English as the global language as well as the relation between English and culture. In the last section of this paper, a writer describes his reflection as an English teacher. A conclusion has been made to clarify that English has more positive than negative impacts, especially for English teachers in terms of having opportunities to improve their professionalism which in turn could help students get better English learning. Keywords : Global language, English Teaching, Culture INTRODUCTION In this paper I am going to discuss the role of English as the global language and its impacts on my profession as an English teacher. English has roles as both an international and a global language. As an international language, English has played role as the tool of communication among people from different countries, in other words, English is used to bridge linguistic odd among people in international communities. Meanwhile, English has also played role as a global language. Some theorists mention some characteristics of English as global language i.e. the use of English has spread across the world and it has become the most preferable foreign language teaching. English has also been used widely in economic, politic, and scientific fields as well as the main tool of communication in media such as radio, television, newspaper, and even internet. (Lynch, 2000, Crystal, 1997, Fishman, 1998). Urip Sulistiyo adalah dosen Jurusan Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris Universitas Jambi In this paper, I would like to elaborate the impact of English as a global language, both positive and negative impacts. Next, I am going to explain the nature of English teaching in Indonesia, it will relate to culture and the position of English as Foreign language. Finally, I will discuss about English teachers and English teaching as well as its challenge. The Impacts of English as a Global Language The globalization is unstoppable nowadays. Although the definition of globalization itself really depends on what perspectives someone may look at, its impact has infiltrated in some aspects of our life. Similarly, the spread of English as a global language has been an interesting issue on whether it will bring bad or good impact to the society. Like God has created everything in this world in pair, for instance, men and women, night and day, badness and goodness, life and death, and so on. The impacts of English as a global language also come up with such nature, the positive and negative. The Positive Impacts of English as a Global Language The existence of English as a global language has contributed positive impacts on some areas. In trade or business area, English is a medium of communication among businessmen throughout the world. Indonesian exporters, for example, who want to export their local products to another country, must negotiate with prospective importers by using common language, in this case, English. In academic communities, the use of English in lecture-rooms or lecture-conference has commonly happens in international leveled-universities. A lecturer in Indonesia can deliver his/her lecture to students in Thailand by using English-teleconference. It might happen because of a global language and global technology. In addition, in English Language Teaching (ELT), as a global language, English gives great opportunities to many English speaking countries to promote ELT all over the world. As Tsuda (1997) points out, the spread of English use in most part of the world contributes more benefits for English speaking countries. British council, Indonesia Australia Language Foundation (IALF) are examples of institutions that carry out program on English language teaching in Indonesia. These Language institutions are considerably gaining profit by providing language training for Indonesians. They can make a lot of money from Language teaching materials, TOEFL /IELTS preparation and any other English course. Negative impacts of English as a Global Language The question whether the spread of English leads globalization or the globalization has led English appears to be on going debate (Fishman, 1998). Obviously, the impact of English spread is undeniable. The negative impact is particularly for those who can not use English as the tool of their communication. Tsuda(1997) notes that a global language can cause “linguistic and communicative inequality”. We can see a good example of this inequality in the classroom. When we are teaching speaking skill to our students, we often find students who can not speak English fluently tend to be quiet when we have them in discussion or other speaking activities. On the contrary, students who can speak English fluently tend to dominate the discussion. In broader sense, for example, in international conference, the English speaker delegations often take advantages of being able to speak English to impose their opinion on other delegation. For some level, a crucial decision for international purpose sometimes was made based on this dominant opinion. If so, the impact of a global English is not only in linguistic and communicative inequality but also social inequality because a decision made in international conference is for the whole society’s purpose in the world. But practically, it is made by some people who own a dominant language. Furthermore, Crystal (1997) notes that the impact of English as a global language encompasses “linguistic power, linguistic complacency, and linguistic death”. Linguistic power refers to those who have English as their first language will hold more power than those who speak English as their second or foreign language. He further gives an example that being English native speaker is a ticket to have a good career in English language companies. Next, linguistic complacency refers to less intention of English speaker to learn another language as well as its culture because they think that English as a global language has been spoken by all people in the world. So, there is no use to learn other languages. Finally, linguistic death refers to the existence of a global language may lead the death of other languages. The massive spread of English in every aspect of our life can not be caught up by other languages such as French, Arabic, and Spanish. Similar to Crystal, Philipson (1992) points out the dominance of English that causes monolingualism may ignore the use of other languages. The Nature of English Teaching in Indonesia Although English has been globally spread, in Indonesia, English is considered a foreign language where it is commonly taught in schools similar to other subjects such as mathematics, Biology, and Physics. It is not used as language instruction both in education and other activities such as business and governance (Philipson, 1992). So, English teachers in Indonesia should work hard to provide students with various language exposures in the classroom. The students can not get inputs of English use in daily communication. They find less exposure to the English through advertisements or American movies they watch but these exposures are not enough to make them proficient in using English. English teaching in the classroom is the key factor to the success of students in learning English. The teaching of English in Indonesia is associated with the influence of English to our culture. As Mondiano (2001) points out, the teaching of a foreign language may affect the structure of values of students. Their first language also can be mixed up by the presence of a new language they learnt. More over, the spread of English is believed to be the agent of Americanism. It means, when students are learning English, they will also learn about the culture comes along with English, in this case American culture. This statement is without intention to ignore the cultural influence of other English speaking countries like Australia and British. English teaching and learning also contribute a slang language to Bahasa Indonesia and it is accelerated by global communication where teenagers can watch a bunch of entertainments from other countries on TV. “MTV generation”, we often call the group of young people in Indonesia which use a slang language. The new language used by this group is a combination of English and Bahasa Indonesia (Heaney, 2005). For example, some phrases such as so what gitu lho.......or please deh......that are now commonly used in their community, are derived from mixture of English and Indonesian language. Both English and its culture are a unity which means the learning of English may influence the culture of its learner. There is pride among young people to use English in their casual communication, although its use is in the form of a slang language. The way they speak will influence the way they behave which for some level it will affect their culture. Their hairstyles are like American young men with blond color and the way they are dressing is western oriented fashion. Although there is confusion whether it is the phenomenon of globalization or the impact of English, obviously both of them may have the same result on degrading our culture. The impacts of English on my profession I begin explaining about the impact of English as the global language on my profession by looking back to my experience when I was a student of Teacher Training and Educational faculty at Jambi University. English was not my favorite subject when I was in secondary school, therefore when I had to continue my study at University, I did not take English as my first choice, I took Biology as my major. In fact, I passed university entrance examination for my second choice, English. Since then, I had to struggle with English. My turning point started when I attended speaking subject taught by a native speaker from British council. His name is Mr. Christ Staples. Unlike me, I found most of my classmates could talk in English properly. I just kept silent and felt reluctant to speak. Knowing me just kept quiet, my lecturer came over me and asked me to involve in classroom activities arranged by him. He encouraged me to speak. After class he invited me to go to his house if I wanted to know much about English. I regularly came to his house to have some free tutorial since then. What he had done is an example of being a good teacher. Harmer (2003) states a good teacher is not only as source of information, but he or she is also a motivator, facilitator and director. My journey came to an end on my everlasting love of being an English teacher. Teaching a global language brings some advantages for me. On one hand, other teachers will not have opportunity to get scholarship from Australian government. On the other hand, I can continue my higher education in one of Australian universities without worrying too much about tuition fees. Furthermore, in terms of welcoming a new technology, using computer or internet becomes much easier because all instructions used in English. I can learn how to operate computer and get access to internet faster than other non English teachers. The advantages that I get from having English proficiency can be used to improve my quality in teaching English. My experience studying and living in English speaking country will be very much helpful for me. I have got different teaching methods since I took Advanced Methodology in Language Teaching subject. I will implement these methods of language teaching to teach my students. Having an access to internet can be useful in searching for new teaching materials that I will use in the classroom. So, I will be able to renew or update my materials which are adjusted to the students’ needs. Students also can take some advantages by learning English. They will be able to look for better job in the future, because many companies in Indonesia nowadays require English proficiency as one of conditions that their employee must meet. If they want to pursue higher education in some English speaking countries, they will absolutely need English both for day to day communication and in academic area. Last but not least, I invite English teachers to be aware of the influence of English to our culture, particularly our students’ culture. Unconsciously, they sometimes tend to imitate the way English speaking people behaves to show their identity. As English teachers, we often insist ourselves to be native like- speaker, it is good in some way but it is also give impression to our students that learning foreign language must be associated with change our identity and culture. So, teachers should provide cultural equality in the classroom in teaching other language to their students (Modiano, 2001) More over, our government’s policy that imposes the use of Bahasa Indonesia as an official language (Fishman, 1998) must be seen as a shield of maintaining our cultural identity. This policy is supporting spirit for English teachers to teach English in order to take benefit of it, but at the same time, we can keep our culture from the negative impact of English as a global language that may occur concurrently with its spread. Similarly, Russell (2000) notes that English contribute both constructive and destructive impact to the culture of a community. So, now it becomes our task as English teachers to expose constructive impact of English to the culture of students and our society in general. On top of that English is needed by Indonesians to take part in the global community in the world. Conclusion Being an English teacher is both promising and challenging career. Why do I say so? It is promising because I teach an important subject to my students for their future in a global world. English is one of the requirements that my students must have to be able to get better career in their life. So, they will take some advantages by being able to communicate in English. I can improve my professionalism by making use of English in terms of continuing my study overseas or accessing teaching materials for my students from internet. Next, it is challenging because teaching English as a foreign language is not easy due to some reasons such as lack of teaching facilities, less students’ self motivation, and less of language exposure that students can have outside the classroom. Furthermore, as English teachers, we have moral obligation to provide equal portion between teaching English and keeping our cultural identities from destructive impact of English as a global language. We are hoped to promote the linguistic and cultural diversity in the classroom and raise the students’ awareness of their cultural values as Indonesians. Learning English does not necessarily mean losing our cultural and social identities. REFERENCES Crystal, D. (1997). English as a global language Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: Chapter 1 Fishman, J. A. (1998). The new linguistic order. Foreign Policy, Winter, i113 Harmer, J. (2003). The practice of English language teaching. Harlow, England: Pearson Education Limited. Heaney, N. (2005). Hubungan Bahasa Bahasa di Malang: Pengaruh Bahasa Inggris Terhadap Bahasa Indonesia Pemuda. Unpublished thesis. Universitas Muhammadiyah Semarang. Lynch, J. (2000). English as a global language – Issues of Power and Empowerment. Unpublished Manuscript Modiano, M. Linguistic Imperialism, Cultural Integrety and EIL, ELT Journal, 55(4), 339-346. Phillipson, R. (1992). Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford University Press, Oxford Chapter 2 Russell, B. (2000). English as a global language: the impact on cultural identity Unpublished Manuscript. Tsuda, Y. (1997).The Hegemony of English and Strategies for Linguistic Pluralism: Proposing the Ecology of Language Paradigm Toda Institute: HUGG Conference, Hawaii http://www.toda.org/conferences/hugg hon papers/v tsuda.html