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the whole student experience. To this end, this study attempts to describe the essence of learning English to the participants.
B. RESEARCHER’S VOICE
As the world of lived experience is both the object and the source of phenomenological research, to make this study of the lived experience of learning
English, I need to orient myself in a strong way to the question of the meaning of learning English. Manen posits that the ego-logical starting point for
phenomenological research is a natural consequence of finding the access to life’s living dimensions. My own life experience is immediately accessible to conduct a
personal description of a lived experience. Here is the researcher personal lived experience description particularly related to learning English.
Like every afternoon, that day I had waited my father coming home from the office for quite sometimes. I needed him to translate my favorite cartoon on TV as
I did not understand any English word. There was no cartoon with Indonesian subtitle. My dad was the only hope for me to follow the story. He used to stay in
US, that’s why he spoke English well. I was ready in front of the TV when I heard his car entering the garage. He showed up and talked to my mum. I ran to him and
told him, “The cartoon was about to start, dad”. He went to his room and changes his clothes to t-shirt and short pants. A few minutes later, he took a seat next to
me, “Where are we anyway,” he said and we watched the film together. He translated the dialogues as soon as I asked him, so I could easily understand the
film. Unexpectedly, I heard dad’s snoring – “Oh, no….not again” I said to myself. He fell asleep and no more explanation from him. I was so disappointed
as the film was not over yet and I really wanted to know the ending. However, nothing I could do than watched the film with guessing the conversation. Since
then I promised to myself that never depending on someone else – that I had to learn English myself.
I had been waiting quite some time for watching the cartoon with her father as well as following the film thoroughly. Suddenly, father was overslept and left the
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researcher alone without further translation of the text. It was very unpleasant experience but it made up the researcher’s mind to learn English in the future.
With this self-evidence that is experientially undeniable I now have the grasp of being a learner experiencing learning English. And yet the nature of meaning of
this learning needs to be explicated by phenomenological human science. As now the researcher reflects on her own lived experience description and tries to detect
the theme of the description. I become aware of the special meaning of learning English for the learner. The experience of being a teacher manifests me in
learning English on learner’s mind and wondering what one may expect to become of them.
C. PARTICIPANTS’ VOICE
