General English

Nah, it's been really a long time since my last post, i guess the blame should be put on DotA2 haha, before I got to know this game, i really seldom playing games in my laptop, I used to spend my time by watching movies, browsing article, or even write a post in my blog,, haha nevermind..

This time I want to talk about my 3-week-english course at Pusdiklat KU, it called "General English" and there are actually 5 subjects with a total of more than 100 hours of study, and I want to share my thought about each subject, and try to elaborate it, as simple as i can haha,

Structure
Structure is the subject which consumes the most time, it consists of 40 hours of study. Structure is the basic of english, it teaches you a bunch of tenses, nouns, prepositions, adverbs, adjectives, and many more, in short, it teaches you how to use english in a really correct way. Tenses is always confusing, especially when it comes to tenses like : "Past Perfect Progressive" or "Future Perfect Progressive" haha, it is really difficult to use, yeah you can memorized the formula, but sometimes your logic will be hard to distinguish the differences among each tenses, and for me, i think it is the most boring class, although it is the only subject which is taught by 2 lecturer, it is not about the lecturer, it is the subject itself, cause it seems that it is not too applicable talking with somebody else with a correct grammar.

Btw, there are two lecturers who teach us, first is Mrs.Linda, she is the most energized lecturer, she just can't stop haha, I appreciate her energy, and the other one is Mrs.Hiqma, when I first saw her name in the time schedule, i suddenly remember that she was my first english lecturer in STAN, she taught me for one semester, 5 years ago, and her teaching-style is barely change, she is still the most british-accent lecturer I've ever met hehe and i'm glad she still remember me, cause when he called my name, she ask "did I ever teach you before? your face seems so familiar for me" haha, apa saya yang ke-GR-an ya? mungkin haha.

Listening
Listening always become one of the hardest part of english, cause you need to put your attention to every sentences that is said, listening in this GE course is one of my favourite subjects, eventough sometimes my head becomes dizzy when i listened too much haha, Mrs. Efi is a really good lecturer, she has a clear voice and pronunciation, she always give us some games to play, we not only listened to conversation, but she also asked us to listened one episode of US serial TV (i forget the title, but it is a really good serial TV, a detective-themed serial and the plot is really good, i really want to watch the whole season to be honest), and even she asked us to listened into the lyrics of songs, from 60's to 2000s, various kinds of songs are played that day, from elvis, queen, metallica, westlife, dido, to the new songs from craig david, Jessie J, and shakira, no Jason mraz there unfortunately haha.. but listening class is always fun for me..

Speaking
Speaking is the most enjoyable class in my opinion, because Mr Karim always teaches us in a really funny way haha, I love speaking because it really trained us to try to communicate by using english word, I dont know, but sometimes speaking in english is more comfortable for me, not because i'm good in using english, but you know sometimes there are words in english that has no proper translation in Indonesia, cause english in my opinion is far more straight-forward when you use it than Indonesian, it doesnt mean english is better, actually indonesian is better in terms of how easy to understand it, perhaps, it is just our culture that prevents us from saying such "straightforward word". In US parents and their children usually say "I Love You" to each other but in Indonesia saying "Papa/Mama Cinta Kamu" is a weird one right? haha.

But according to Mr. Karim the most crucial problem in speaking is the dillema between Fluently vs Accuracy, it is really true IMO, cause somehow, when you try to speak fluently, you will tend to forget the structure, the grammar, the tenses, I love watching US reality show like Survivor or Amazing Race and even people in the US still don't use the english grammar well enough, and on the other hand, when you keep focusing about accuracy, it is even get harder just to begin speaking right? cause you will think too much about right or wrong structure. But Mr. Karim give us suggestion to try to speak fluent first, cause the essence of communication is to understanding each other, then when you already speak fluently, gradually think about the grammar, it really sounds difficult, dont you think? haha

Reading
Reading is weird, it is the most boring section of TOEFL, yet it is the easiest section to get a score, haha, don't you agree? cause reading section always gives you two or more long-paragraph to read, it is nice to read some new information from the passage, but it is frustrating if you read it when you are in a hurry, haha, but our lecturer Mrs. Desy always told us that there are two simple ways to solve reading question, by skimming and scanning, some question are worth skimming, but some others are only need scanning, but personally, I think that reading is the most subjective section of the test, cause everyone got their own method to solve the question some people prefer reading the paragraph first, but some other prefer to check the question before go to read the paragraph, so it is up to you, whether you are more comfortable in reading the paragraph first, or reading the question first. Oh, and Mrs.Desy always play some games before jump-in to the subject and she always give a present to the winners haha that's really nice :D

Writing
Writing is the last subject, and together with Reading, it consumes the least hours of study among all the subjects, only 20 hours, which means only 4 times meeting, and I find writing is one of the most difficult subjects, because i'm not usually write in english lol, yeah this post is in english actually, but the grammar and structures are really screwed up haha, writing not only teach you how to make a good paragraph in english, but it also teach you how to make a good writing, how to draw your ideas, how to elaborate that ideas, how to make a good topic sentences, and how to support that topic sentences, in short it really give me some insight about writing, cause we know sometimes we got an inspiration out of nowhere, and we can't just describe it in words, and this subject really help us to solve that problem. Mrs Stefhani teaches us this subject, she's good i think, but perhaps, it is her unusual style of teaching that makes this class is the most awkward one, cause everybody seems like quiet in this class haha...

But sometimes, I'm wondering, why learning Indonesian is hardly as fun as learning english? I dont know, maybe it is only my opinion, or maybe the teachers think that "it is our mother language so everyone must be speak it fluently" hahaha we should proud we have our own language, and it is one of the simplest in the world, no wonder many countries start to teach their students indonesian language, cause our language is having a potential to become one of the major language in the world, and be proud of it and keep using it as your main language..


"But behavior in the human being is sometimes a defense, a way of concealing motives and thoughts, as language can be a way of hiding your thoughts and preventing communication"
- Abraham Maslow -