Lesson 4: Language Learning History

In this part, again, the teacher asked me to explain of what I've learn about English and how does it improve overtime. This is my language learning history.

Language Learning History

Diniari F. Putri S 2159074

I have started learning English since I was a kid. I can’t really explain on what age I actually started, but my parents put me in international pre-school program. So I’m quite used to listening to native speakers’ accent. However, most of the teachers there were originally came from America. I think that’s also the first thing people notice about my American accent. I can’t say my accent is hundred percent American, but in general, I would speak and talk more likely most American would talk. But it doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t like to learn about other accents. Honestly, I would love to learn British accent since it’s nice to listen to and with various kind of intonations.

Then I moved to my secondary educations, which are elementary, junior high, and senior high school. It was not really a diverse ambiance. All of teachers were Indonesian. I don’t mean to be harsh or racist, but I believe that if we want to improve our English, the only way to do is actually working with English native speakers, either come from America, England, Australia and other English countries. Nevertheless, I learned different kind of tenses, specific terms of vocabulary and learned to talk in English with two-way conversation in English Drama. All of the students in high school are expected to perform English Drama as one of their final English Grade.

After I graduated from my senior high school, I went to Australian education. Here, my English improved than before. I really had a diverse ambience. Teachers came from different nationalities; such as Australians, Americans, England and even one of them were Dutch. I learned so many things in here. Since all of the students were expected to develop their own paper and should not plagiarize other people's ideas, at this stage I learned how to make in-text citation, quoting and made reference. It was compulsory to read Harvard Business Journal as our secondary source. I personally believe this has been really helpful for my further studies.

So now I have chosen to study in Groningen, Nederlands, country with complete different culture and tradition from where I come from. I expect to improve my English skills more than before since the program is taught in English, especially improve my reading and writing skills. I always find it hard to easily understand the main point of an article or even harder, business journal. As for writing, I’m having a trouble with how to properly use preposition, grammatical correction, various vocabularies and tenses. For sure, vocabulary and tenses are not my strong potential skills. In my opinion, I don’t really have that many vocabularies of fancy words that people would look at me like an educated person. Furthermore, I always get confused on when and how to use those different kind of tenses. For instance, how to accurately use past perfect tense.

Nevertheless, as a first English student, I would like to advise that English language is interesting and fun to learn. Of course, it can be really difficult to learn, but I strongly believe that this language will help you in your future and further career. Learning English is not about pride, but it is about how educated you can be and how you can internationally recognizable with other people from different countries and nationalities.