Journal 2

Just like I told you before in my first journal, I’ve learned English since I was in primary 3. At that time I was a bit frustrated because suddenly I have to catch up with my friends who have already learned it since primary 1. In fact, I didn’t find any difficulties when learning English. In some cases, I find that learning English is very fun. As I learned English, I think sometimes I can guess what is the meaning of some particular words without even looking at the dictionary. And I thought that my listening skills have improved. Even when I don’t know the words yet, but I can predict the which letters should I use when the teacher dictated me. Maybe that was the language acquisition I got because I was getting used to English.

Well, about my English class, I think I have various types of classes. They’re not only focused more on the forms of language, but also the functions of language. For example, when I was in my primary school, the teacher taught me more about the basic English grammar. It’s like no day without tenses. She taught me about the tenses step by step. When I was in my senior high school, the lesson was more interactive. It’s not only about doing works that are given by the teacher, but we are asked to be more active in class discussion. Therefore, the students used English as the medium of communication among them. Sometimes, we held a presentation and of course we used English as the medium. And then some students would ask a question, and we tried to answer it in English.

I used to take an English course besides my English class at school. In my English course, the teachers were native speakers. In some point, I could understand what they’re talking about. Even though at that time, I felt like their pronunciations were a bit different because of their accent, but I could understand what they’re talking about. So, Little by little, I tried to imitate their accent. How they pronounce words, accent and other stuffs that are native like. It really helped me and I found that my English become more fluent. Not only in speaking, but also in listening.

In my opinion, children learn their first language from their environments. They acquire it naturally by imitating, and repeating again and again. Usually, they learn it from their nuclear family. The parents, who are always be there for them every day, are the main source of their language acquisition. The first thing that children do is imitating how their parents speak. So, that they acquire it directly from the parents. And they become to getting use to it because they always repeat the same words again and again. Children motoric systems somehow are more sensitive than adults. That’s why they can learn language faster in terms of speaking (fluent) rather than adults. But of course, adults are more advance in grammar.