English Language Learning THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
proficiency and academic achievement that preclude them from assessing, processing, and acquiring unmodified grade-level material in English.
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A second language learner is different from a very young child acquiring a first language.
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Young children learn their first language in their daily activities, they listen to the language when they were a baby, and they listen it with a
pleasure, they learn the language through the acquisition process. And it is different with the second language learners. Mostly in Indonesia, students learn
language in their own country, as Lightbown and Spada write that the older learners have to solve the problem and engage in discussion of the language.
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Learning related to the education. There is a relation among education, learning and training, as Crow and Crow write on his book, “the terms education
may be interpreted to connote the process through which experience or information is gained, or it may be use to indicate the result of such training, or
the product of the learning process.”
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Abdurrahman writes Education is “transfer pengetahuan dan nilai.” Transfer knowledge and value. From both transfers can be achieved through
learning and teaching process to get the whole of the materials aspect. According to a definition formulated by a group expert for the dictionary of
Education, education is, “1 the aggregate of all the process by which a person develops ability,
attitudes, and other forms of behavior of practical value, in the society in which he lives; 2 the social process by which people are subjected to the influence of a
selected and controlled environment especially that of the school so that they may obtain social competence and optimum individual development.” Reprinted
10
Margo Gottlieb, Assessing English Language Learners: Bridge from Language Proficiency to Academic Achievement, Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press. Inc., 2006, p. 3.
11
Patsy M. Lightbown and Nina Spada, How Language are Learned,3
rd
Edition, New York: Oxford University Fress, 2010. p. 29.
12
Ibid., p. 30.
13
Lester D. Crow and Alice Crow, INTRODUCTION TO EDUCATION – Fundamental
Principles and Modern Practices, New York: American Book Company, 1960, p. 53.
from Dictionary of Education, edited by Carter V. Good, copyright, 1945, by the McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York.
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From the entirely statement about learning, in summary, learning has the complex meaning, it also has the purposes, methods and ways. In learning
someone must have a new point and an evaluation, about what, why, and how it’s happened or done. Learning can change everything; it can be he or another that
impact should be prepared, in the behavior changing, for instance if he has a bad thing in something, he should be better after he learn. People learn in a conscious
way, so he knows the improvement after he learn. Furthermore, the most fundamental realities of language learning is that
language is a tool of communication. Because most of the teacher doesn’t encourage the students to see that English is a communication tools, they only
focus on the memorizing vocabularies, grammar rules, and preparation for the test and never involves the language as a communication tools. Studying English may
be exciting if the students are introduced to make the communication with a new world possible, allow the student to face-to-face with someone from the foreign
country, read the books, world magazines and news, or even watch films and listen to the song in English. Learning English is mean the developing the ability
to understand and interact with the world.
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2. English Language Skills
The language skills itself define to the productive skills and receptive skills. a.
Productive Skills The word productive is an adjective form of word produce, produce has a
same meaning as create or make. If this is related to this language context, productive skills can be defined as language that produced. The productive skills
are speaking and writing, because learners doing these need to produce language.
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Ibid.,
15
Don Snow, From Language Learner to Language Teacher, Michigan: McNoughton Gunn, Inc., 2007. P. 21
They are also known as active skills. They can be compared with the receptive skills of listening and reading.
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In summary, why it is called as active skills, because when someone uses the language people can see the result of these
activities. And here are some definition about speaking and writing.
1 Speaking
According to Jones, “speaking is a form of communication, so it is important that what you say is conveyed in the most effective way. How you say
something can be as important as what you say in getting meaning across.”
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It’s called speaking if people produce the sound with the meaning, if someone can
understand about what the people say, so that it can be called as speaking. Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves
producing and receiving and processing information Brown, 1994; Burns Joyce, 1997.
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Because it has a meaning, speaking should be an interactive way in communication, because in this process people can understand the meaning
each other.
2 Writing
Lewin write on his book that writing is constructing the meaning through the text.
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In the same book also he write that wring enable the students to think about, to process, to grow ideas about the topic we are teaching them, then writing
enable the students to gain proficiency in a critically importanty skill; writing itself, which is obviously a key communication tool.
As we see that writing produce the word, not like as speaking, writing is expressed the ideas inside the writers’ mind into written form.
White editor writes on the introduction of the book New Ways in Teaching writing,
that “writing can be viewed as involving a number of thinking process
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http:www.teachingenglish.org.ukknowledge-databaseproductive-skills
17
Rhodry Jones, Speaking and Listening, London: John Murray Publisher Ltd., 1989, p. 14.
18
http:www.cal.orgcaelaesl_resourcesdigestsSpeak.html
19
Larry Lewin, Paving the Wayin Reading and Writing, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003, p. 118.
which are drawn upon in varied and complex ways as an individual composes, transcribes, evaluates and revises Arndt, 1987; Raimes, 1985.
”
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Like speaking, writing also produces the word, if speaking through the sound, writing explain it
through the written form.
b. Receptive Skills
The receptive is receiving something then save it. In the language context, receptive skills are like we receive the information from the outside or the other
and after that we process it passively. And the activity that include in receptive skills are listening and reading, because learners do not need to produce language
to do these, they receive and understand it. These skills are sometimes known as
passive skills. They can be contrasted with the productive or active skills of
speaking and writing.
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And below are a short definition about listening and reading. 1
Listening Listening is assuming greater and greater importance in many foreign
language context, which have until relatively recently focused their efforts on the development of writing skills.
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Listening is essential in teaching language; it’s not only as a receptive skill but also to the development of the spoken language
proficiency. In listening student should get the idea from whatthe information they listen to. Listening also can help the students in improvement of the
vocabularies. In language learning for example, through listening students can improve their competence in pronounce the word, produce the word when they
speak, and also listening skill make the communication between the people or students more effective and understandable.
20
Ronald V. White Editor, New Ways in Teaching Writing, Illinois: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. Inc. TESOL, 1995, p. v. an Introduction.
21
http:www.teachingenglish.org.ukknowledge-databasereceptive-skills
22
David Nunan and Linsay Miller editor, New Ways in Teaching Listening, Illinois: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. Inc. TESOL, 2002, 2
nd
ed., p. v an Introduction
2 Reading
Reading is an interactive process that takes places between the text and the
reader’s processing strategies and background knowledge.
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Reading comprehension is a very complex activity. Like the eyes glance or move at the printed words, it is also happened in the readers mind, there will be so
many words should be processed in the readers mind. Good in reading can be achieved through practice the lifetime. Reading is difficult, because one must
work, one must accomplish multiple thing simultaneously. But good readers actually have a strategy because their good skill on it.
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The simple view of reading proposed by Hoover and Gough is that reading is the product of decoding and comprehension.
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Reading = decoding x comprehension Language is both knowledge and skill. A second important truth of language
learning is that it is mastery of a skill as much as acquisition of knowledge.
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That means that students don’t enough to know the vocabulary and the grammatical
only, they also have to apply that knowledge in speech or writing, or comprehend the language with the speaker, and read the text. Language skills have the
important roles in language learning. And it is a big part of language besides of language components. Students use those skills when they learn a language.