The Significance of the Study

among others through communication, and language is a medium to communicate. Thus language has important role in the life to express idea, opinion, thought, and socialize among human being. Through language, people can develop relationship, learn such as culture, knowledge, and discover the world. The language that has important role in the international world is English. It cannot be avoided that English is the most widely spoken language in the world. The spread of English all over the world was very fast. The higher economical growing of English people and the successful of colonization, made many people relied on English as common language used for communication in the global world. No matter as first, second or foreign language. As stated by Meyer: English is currently the most widely spoken language in the world. Mandarin Chinese may have more speakers, but no language is spoken in more parts of the world than the English language. The global reach of English is one reason the language has more non-native speakers than native speaker. The popularity of English, it must be emphasized, has little to do with the languge itself, and more to do with geopolitical considerations: the initial spread of English world-wide as a consequence of British colonization, and the rise of the twenty century of the United States as an economic and political power in the world. 5 In addition, Harmer stated, “although English is not the language with the largest number of native or first language speaker, it has become a lingua franca. A lingua franca can be defined as a language widely adopted for communication between two s peakers whose native language are different from each other’s and where one or both speaker are using it as second language”. 6 Thus, as a lingua franca, English has important role in global world that is used to communicate in the international relationship. In More than Native Speaker book mentioned “the growing role of English as the world’s international language make its mastery especially important in a world brought ever closer together by globalization”. 7 Again this book mentioned that: …learning English means developing the ability to understand and interact with a universe that is largely inaccessible to those who don’t know English. 5 Meyer op. cit., p. 1. 6 Jeremy Harmer, The practice of English Language Teaching, 3 rd ed, Harlow: Person Education Limited, 2001, p. 1. 7 Ellen Garshick ed., More Than a Native Speaker, Arlington: TESOL, Inc., 2006, p. 6. Here it is worth pointing out that although learning any language may open new doors, learning English particularly does so because of its growing role as an international language; English is now the language of publishing and speech for most international communication and is often used even by people from non-English-speaking countries when they need to interact with people from other nations. 8 Meyer further said “Because of the importance of English of the world language, English has been widely studied and taught; English has been a focus of many linguistics descriptions and it is taught worldwide in thousands of classrooms and language institutes. In fact more people are learning English... ” 9 Many schools all over the world require English as a foreign language to be learned including in Indonesia. As Manara quoted according to Dardjowidjojo, 20002, …the government encourages and welcomes to the globalization era in which English plays an important role in the field of science and technology, socio-political relations, and economical growth. The encouragement takes the form of the 1998 official policy issued by the Ministry of Education and Culture which allows English to be used as a medium of instructions especially at the tertiary level. Since then many educational institutions, even at the primary level, have been competing in serving an English only environment in their institutions. 10 English also is still learned at university, even most university’s students are required to pass test English as foreign language TOEFL before they graduate. It is because in this globalization era young people are prepared to be ready to compete in the global world. As others languages, English is a product of human being, so understanding the values of what is right and good in using language is not less important. The changing forms of the words and the system of the language carry certain implication which is changed from one language to another. To understand a language, people have to know how it operates, how to pronounce, and how they change in form and sentence pattern to effect a change in meaning. Knowing language expressions appropriately to any situation according to goodness and 8 Ibid, p. 7. 9 Meyer, loc. cit. 10 Gloria Poedjosoedarmo ed., Teacher Education in Language Teaching, Newton: SEAMEO Regional Language Center, 2007, p. 133. badness, correctness and incorrectness of language is important in order to be able to apply good English. So, knowledge about the language particularly English is important. As stated by Broughton and friends Learning to use a language thus involves a great deal more than acquiring some grammar and vocabulary and a reasonable pronunciation. It involves the competence to suit the language to the situation, the participant and the basic purpose. Conversely, and equally important, it involves the competence to interpret other speakers to the full. Using our mother tongue, most of us have very little awareness of how we alter our behavior and language to suit the occasion… 11 Therefore, since language learning cannot be directly learned in the same time, it needs good instruction and organization to which grade and level the language should be taught. Clearly it is not easy to do. More over in Indonesia English is a foreign language that the students of Indonesia are not common to use it. As stated by Broughton and friends that as a foreign languge, even though English is taught often widely in schools, it does not play an essential role in national or social life... 12 It is strengthen by statement found on the book In Touch that ”...compared to an English as a second language ESL context, learning English in the EFL setting needs more effort and persistence due to the lack of opportunity to use the target language TL or no exposure to TL in the daily social interactions.. .” 13 In relation to this, in More than a Native Speaker book mentioned, Even though, “... English is offered in middle school and even in the primary school, often as a require subject, but students study English only a few hours a week and have little opportunities to practice what they learn. Even the few students who complete a university major in English still usually have gaps in their English skills when they graduate... ” 14 Therefore, English teacher must be well prepared to be able to teach English well. 11 Broughton et.all, op. cit., p. 35 12 Ibid,. p. 6. 13 Maireen Howland and Maria Flutsch, In Touch: The Perspective of Indonesian Students in Australia on a Better Indonesia, Adelaide: Persatuan Pelajar Indonesia Australia PPIA and Flinders University, 2012, p. 163 14 Garsich, op. cit., p. 4