Indonesians fall short in conversation skills<\/p>\n
Leo Wahyudi S, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Compared with other Asian students who speak English as a foreign
\nlanguage, Indonesians are among those with an outstanding
\nstandard of proficiency in grammar, but lack confidence when
\nspeaking it, a teacher said.<\/p>\n
Country Director of English First (EF) Indonesia Arleta
\nDarusalam said on Wednesday that Indonesian students were often
\nencouraged to study grammar in a theoretical way, such that they
\nmastered the subject better than their Asian counterparts in, for
\nexample, Thailand, Japan, Korea and China.<\/p>\n
\"The relatively easy linguistics in Indonesian also
\ncontributes to our students' achievement in English,\" Arleta said
\non the sidelines of an award ceremony for students on the English
\ncourse.<\/p>\n
She said, however, most Indonesian students faced problems
\nwhen it came to verbal skills.<\/p>\n
\"As far as I am concerned, many students lack self-confidence
\nin English conversation,\" she said. \"Indonesian students tend to
\nbe passive in class and worse still, the instructors or teachers
\ndominate the course of discussion rather than acting as
\nfacilitators of the learning process.\"<\/p>\n
The lack of confidence also resulted in the students' lack of
\nenthusiasm for practicing the language in class.<\/p>\n
Arleta suggested the use of communicative and interactive
\napproaches to stimulate the students to speak the target language
\non as many occasions as possible. However, she did not elaborate.<\/p>\n
In a bid to encourage students to improve their command of
\nEnglish, EF has awarded two of its 5,000 students nationwide a
\nfour-week course overseas. This year the winners came from the
\nSouth Sumatra capital, Palembang, and from Denpasar, and
\nrespectively will travel to London and Sydney in May.<\/p>\n
\"The most important thing is not the destinations but rather
\nthe opportunity for real-life language learning through traveling
\nand fun activities,\" she said.<\/p>\n
There are about two million students learning English in EF
\nfranchises worldwide.<\/p>",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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