Would you choose a degree qualified non-native English speaker in teaching and linguistic over a native English speaker with no academic qualification? If your purpose is to ace in academic field that demands rigorous grammatical correctness, proper choice of words and structure, then a degree qualified non-native English speaker is fine. If however, your purpose is to aim English mastery as an active medium of communication in daily life e.g. speaking and listening, then nothing substitutes a close contact with native speakers.
I scored 8.9 in EBTANAS for English course back in high school. As part of university entry requirements, I satisfied 6.5 overall mark for my IELTS test with each component scoring at least 6. I thought my English was good enough to live in English speaking country. Unfortunately a harsh reality sank in as soon as my plane landed. I found it hard to understand what the custom officers said and they had a hard time to understand my English. To my ears, they spoke extremely fast with peculiar accent (thanks to Hollywood movies we are only accustomed to American accent).
Having said that, I don’t advocate that we should have a native speaker for every English class in Indonesia, it’s simply not realistic and prohibitively expensive. Besides, let’s be honest, it’s boring to learn language in classroom environment. Not to mention that it largely fails to capture common slangs spoken in the native country. For example, ‘having a barbie’ in Australia means having a barbeque not necessarily a doll.
In short, we must find a way to have immersion in the culture, way of life/thinking of the target language we aim to master in our home country. Read their news in English online, watch movies without the subtitle, write a diary in English, volunteer to help out foreign aid workers as an interpreter if possible, translate English songs to Bahasa Indonesia, join an online forum of your interest in English and so on. Yes, it’s scary to expose your ‘broken’ English to the world. But receiving immediate feedbacks (“I don’t understand you, please speak slower”) is far preferable than losing a touch with reality (“I have a degree in English literature, I scored XXX in TOEFL, IELTS so my English gotta be excellent!”).
This writing is not meant to undermine the credibility of non-native speaking teachers. As anyone living aboard can tell, most of us are not confident enough to converse in English with native speakers. Learning English must have practical communication values. And what else is more practical than being able to communicate well with native speakers?
Hendra Makgawinata
Sydney, 19 January 2014
Baca Juga:
Belajar Bahasa Inggris Lewat Video Game
Belajar Mudah Grammar Bahasa Inggris: Present Tense
Kesalahan Pemula Dalam Belajar Bahasa Inggris
