MY LANGUAGE LEARNING HISTORY

I was born in a family that didn’t have any English basic. In my family, there was no one who can speak English in a good structure. I was born in Semarang regency on December 16^th, 1990. I grew up in bilinguals family which was using Javanese language and Indonesian language. At that time, English wasn’t as famous as English nowadays. Maybe it’s because my family lived in a small village, so they didn’t think that English is a universal and very useful language.

As I said before, I was growing up in a bilinguals family, my parents taught me in Javanese language and in Indonesian language.  In my opinion, learning those languages wasn’t too hard for me. I know that sometimes I met some obstacles,  such as in making short story and poetry in both languages. Nevertheless, it’s not a big interference and I feel that there is no problem in my learning process. It’s easy as smooth as the water flows. I don’t know why learning those languages seems easier than  learning English language, maybe that’s because I learned English later than Javanese and Indonesian language.

My parents taught me Javanese first, I think Javanese language is very important for me, because it was the first thing that introduced me to something called “communication”. My father thought that a Javanese person must be able to speak Javanese language whether in Javanese krama inggil or in Javanese ngoko. That’s what my father said to me when he taught me Javanese language. My father taught me in a simple way of learning. He said some words in javanese and I should immitate and memorize everything he said. I know that nowadays there are a lot of people who can’t speak Javanese krama inggil  in a good rule, so I thank to my parents who have taught me Javanese language so that I can speak Javanese krama inggil and Javanese ngoko quite good.

Then I learned Indonesian language almost at the same time I learned my Javanese language. My parents didn’t teach me Indonesian language as much as Javanese language. However, I still could use my Indonesian language without any problem. That’s because I learned my Indonesian language in elementary school. My indonesian language’s teacher forced me and other students to write a journal once a week. The journal was about giving some comments to a story book that I borrowed once a week at the school library.  As the time went by, my Javanese and Indonesian language increased. Slow but sure, I can say that I have mastered those two languages.

In elementary school too, I was introduced to English language by my English teacher. As I remember I got my first English learning in my 4^th grade of the elementary school. At that time,  my English teacher translate some simple words in English such as: book, pencil, blackboard, etc, into Indonesian words.  that was rather late I think. If I could ask, I want to learn English when I was in kindergarten. If I learned English when I was in kindergarten, maybe today I can practice my English better than I am now. Why do I think that way? Because based on the article I’ve read, 3 – 6 years old is the golden age of our brain development, that’s why.  But it’s ok I will learn more and more to increase my English and also to master it.

From that fact, I was motivated to learn one more language in my live. In junior high school, I learned English seriously. I was more interested in English because at that time I often listening to the western music which is using English. I was not only listened to that music, but also wanted to know the meaning of the lyrics. So, I used to open my dictionary to understand the meaning of the lyrics. Opening dictionary every time made my vocabulary knowledge increased. It was very useful when I entered my senior high school. I could understand what my teacher said, I can understand what was written in a guidebook and many more. In my opinion, vocabulary is the basic thing to learn English. Without knowing vocabulary, you couldn’t learn English nicely.

In senior high school, I learned English deeper. The willing to master English language was implanted in my mind. I learned very hard until I graduated from my high school with a quite good grade in my English lesson. After I graduated from senior high school I planned to go to a university that has a good English faculty. And finally, I found Satya Wacana Christian University that was recommended by my English teacher.And now in Satya Wacana Christian University, I feel like finding what I really wanted in the past. I can learn everything about English language in very detail way. This is a very right decision to study in Satya Wacana Christian University.  I hope my dream to master English would come true soon. Amen.