WHAT KIND OF A LANGUAGE LEARNER I AM

I have found the interesting world of foreign languages when I was 11 years old. At that age I was sent to Junior High School, where students were being taught English for the first time. I was really interested in English because it was the first foreign language I learned. However, my English teachers at that moment mostly focused their teaching on grammars, tenses, and sentence patterns, which I kind of disliked.  Moreover, the teachers did nothing to add any interest to the subject. 

Fortunately, I had taken into interest to English by my childhood friend and her family who had just got back from Hobart, Australia. Her mother ran an English course "Ciarylene". I and some of my friends from our Jr. High School attended the course for about 2 years. It was a good opportunity for lots of fun, we were taught about grammar, vocabulary in interesting ways. We learned stories, poems, and songs in English. We played games to improve our vocabulary such as “Hangman”. In addition, at the end of each course year we held a performance in English.

Attending that course encouraged me to immerse myself for better English. Preparing for class, attending the class, reviewing lessons learned were my formal type of learning. Whereas listening to music, news, watching movies, reading novels and comics in English were some of the efforts which I did to immerse my self informally. Therefore my preferred learning style was immersing informally of what I had been taught formally in school.  The immersion had made me feel a lot more confident about my language learning ability in listening, reading and pronunciation. I was pretty good in memorizing words as I made a vocabulary list. By writing them, I could memorize them easily. This was a good way to memorize vocabulary. However, when it came to experimenting with speaking, I was always afraid to make mistakes, even now I still have the same problem. In addition, I realized that vocabulary retention is more efficient when actually using it in conversation rather than simply sitting down at my desk and going through new vocabulary over and over again. 

I got two opportunities to improve my English by studying abroad. In 1993, I was chosen to participate in an exchange student program between two sisters city Ambon-Darwin for 6 months and did my master degree in Melbourne for 2 years. I lived with an Australian family and went to school and university that English was the language of instruction. I think that was the best way to improve my English as I could interact and communicate with the native speakers. However, my speaking was still average after several months. One of my weaknesses is that I have somewhat shy personality, especially when in a new and uncertain environment. Knowing that fluency only comes trough much practice, I tried to make deeper relationship with people I really related well, I spent much time with them talking on many and varied issues.  I became more fluent in speaking, however when I came back to Ambon, my speaking was back to average since I did not have the chance to actively practice my speaking. Therefore, I think the best way to master English is that we put ourselves in situations where we could hear and use English actively.

To conclude, despite the strengths I have in learning English and the considerations regarding what kind of a language learner I am, there are still some important plans to make in order to improve it. I still have to be more confident to speak, and should not hesitate to speak in front of many people. Be more open-minded and not afraid of making mistakes. In English, I should realize I am only a learner, and I will naturally make many mistakes. Finally, I should try to put myself in situations where English is practiced actively. Hopefully, English will be mine.