Speaking fluently without formal classroom

Every Senior High School English teacher must ever have an experience in teaching students who have been learning English from elementary school until Junior High, but they can not apply the language for active communication. The students actually have a lot of experiences in learning English for about 10 years which is always evaluated every semester through Semester test. They initially learn English for getting a lot of vocabularies and how to use them in short sentence in Elementary school. In Junior High School, they are required to have higher English skill such as, using it for simple communication, writing simple essay or functional text, and understanding the content of certain English text. After they have reached the competence in Junior High School, they are expected to be able to use English for contextual communication in Senior High School.

A question rises up dealing with students’ English in Senior High School, Why most Senior High School students who have been learning English for about 10 years can not use English for communication. The following examples may help us to answer the question. Most of us must know that Kediri town has an icon in which attracts many people from different city in Indonesia visit it every year, it is Kampung English pare kediri. This place is popular since it can create person to use English for communication in a short time. People around this village, such as shopkeeper, foodseller, are able to speak English fluently. If we observe the their educational background, they never learn about English in formal class for many years. We can also have a look at another example from Bali people who work around many tourism objects in Bali, such as souvenir seller, foodseller, cleaning service, etc. They actually never have long formal study of English, but they are to use English for communication fluently with foreigners. So, why most students who have learned English for ten years can not speak English, but people in pare or Bali who never study English in formal classroom have skill in using English for communication?

Here are the answers

1. Motivation aspect – people who stay in Bali or Pare are more motivated to use English for communication because having good communication becomes one part of their successful selling their product. But most students are very motivated when they should have a good score in written English
2.  Exposure – people in pare or kediri have a lot of exposure of English. They always listen other people who speak English anywhere anytime. But for Senior High Students, they think they study English only in the classroom. In other words they only get exposure of English in the classroom in limited time and place.
3. Opportunities – People on pare and kediri have almost 24 hours to use English for communication. Most people around them using English for communication. The more they use it with people, the faster they are able to use English. What about Senior High School. They only have opportunities to speak English in formal classroom (4 hours ) a week. Since they don’t have a lot of opportunities to use it actively, they don’t have good in English.

Having formal English class, important or not?