Students' Reluctant to Speak English

Everybody must agree that one of the successful of  English learning processes is when there is active classroom participation from students. The role of the students in this classroom are more dominant than the teacher. Teacher’s roles is only to facilitate or guide students’ performance in speaking English. The students actively respond to the teacher’s  or other students’ questions, give opinion or comments, solve case study given, etc.

Engaging the students actively use English in the classroom is one of the problems the teacher frequently face in teaching English. Most students who learn English as second or foregin language tend to be passive or reluctant utter the language in English classroom. Students often do not respond to teacher’s questions and they do not volunteer answers or initiate questions. When the teacher does not strict rule of using English, the students tend to be speak their mother tongue. When the teacher gives strict rule of the obligation using English in the classroom, on the other hand, the classroom situation tends to be like a house which is inhabitant. Teachers always find the fact that students will nor produce answers unless they are pointed the teacher. Furthermore, the studens do not want to volunteer to say the answers though they actually know them.

There are many causes why students reluctant to participate actively in English classroom. The following are the factors:

1.       Fear of speaking in front of others.

For most students, speaking in front other is risky activity in the classroom. Students fell a lot better when they are not required to face the whole class.

2.       Fear or Making Mistakes and Being Laughed at.

Most students feel afraid to speak English in front of others because their anxiety of making mistakes, particularly in grammar. They always think that they are incompetent in English when they make mistakes.

3.       Fear of Negative Teacher’s Comments.

Most students fell more anxious and discouragement when teacher is very strict in the classroom. Giving negative comment of student’s speaking is one of the strict forms that make students are passive in the classroom.

4.       Lack of Interest in English Class.

It is natural that when something isn’t interesting, most people are not willing to talk about it. Students are not interested in English topics because they have mindset that English is difficult and boring to study.

5.       Lack of vocabulary.

The role of vocabulary in English is like a foundation of the house. The students are confident to speak English when they have rich vocabularies. They feel nervous, on the other hand, because they do not have enough vocabulary.

Those are some causes that make students are reluctant to speak English. What About You?

I is, you is, they is.........are they right?

Most students who have learned English as second or foreign language must agree that English has a characteristic on its rule or structure. One of the basic English structures that taught in Elementary level is the use of be (to be) in a sentence. Most students who have learned this structure must have same understanding that there are three to be used in present time, they are am, are, and is. And the pattern of the use of those to be as follows:

I	am
You, They, We	are
He, She, It	is

1. I am a student 
2.  I am at school now
3. We are from Indonesia
4. She is a teacher

A question emerges dealing with this rule that “Can we change the patent rule into another one?”. The answer is YES...absoultely YES.....but.....in certain and specific condition.

“How can we change this rule?”

Look at these examples and you will understand how this rule can be changed

1. I is the ninth letter of alphabet.
2.  I is the first singular person of the subject
3. You is the second singular of the subject
4. They is the third plural person of the subject.

“Have you got the conclusion?”

The conclusion is that to be (is) is not always preceded by subject he, she, or it. This be can also be preceded by subject you, they, we, or I in term of the functions of these subjects are not a pronoun.

Unique English

English does not only have rich of structures and exceptions, but it also rich of unique facts. The following are some unique facts of English.

1. “Stewardessess” is the longest word that we can type using left hand on the keyboard, whereas “lollipop” is the longest word tha we can type using right hand.

2. “Dreamt” is the one and only word that ends with letter “mt”

3. There are only four words in English that ends with letter “dous”, they are “tremendous”,”horrendous”,”stupendous” and “hazardous”

4. “Typewriter” is the longest word that we can type using the first row of the keyboard (QWERTYUIOP)

5. “Rhythm” is the longest word in English that does not contain  vocal letter.

7. “Invisibility” is the only word in English which has only one vocal word that emerges five times.

8. “Bookkeeper” is the only word in English which has three consecutive repeated words by removing hyphen and merging the two words.   

9. “Strength” is the only word that contains one vocal word from eight-words in English.

10. There are only three words which ends with “ceed”, they are “proceed”,”exceed”, and succeed”

11. A sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” used for the example of every font  in the computer because it contains all letters of alphabet

12. “Four” is the only number in English which the number of letters are same with the number itself.

See, Look ate, and Watch.........are they the same?

See, Look, and Watch.......are they same?

For students, one of the obstacles of study English is a difficulty of using appropriate word or diction in appropriate context or situation. Although the students have found the meaning of certain difficult English word, they frequently face a problem how to use it in the context or situation they want to explain. They face this problem because they always find a word that has many meanings in dictionary. One of the examples of this problem is the use of see, look at, and watch. Those three words basically have same meaning, the action of using eyes. They will be different when they are used based on appropriate context or situation. Here is the explanation of those three words based on the context.

See : Seeing happens because my eyes are open. It is physical reaction that we never plan to see the object. In other words, we see something or someone unintentionally. One of the examples of the use see in appropriate context is that when we wake up and we see a picture because our room is full of picture or poster.

Look at: Looking is a planned or purposeful action. Looking happens for a reason. In other words, we use term look at when we have a plan or purpose when we want to look at someone or something. We look at the clock in the bedroom because we want to know the time is one of the examples of using look at in suitable situation.

Watch: Watch and look at are same in term of planned or purposeful action. They are different in term of the duration of doing the action. Look at is a purposeful action in short time, whereas watch is purposeful action for a long time. We watch foot ball, we watch TV, and We watch parade are the examples of the use of watch in suitable context.