Hortatory Exposition

How to get English

We realize that English that we are learning is not our first language. Therefore, we sometimes get trouble in understanding it. English has four skills; speaking, writing, reading and listening, which are always connected with three elements; grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. And the most important thing that the English learners should have is sights and experiences. Those are required by all of the English learners. Many English learners are difficult to master all of those things. We often find some students being able to speak fluently but they are lack of structures. They cannot arrange their sentences grammatically so that what they are speaking is difficult to understand. And many students are not confident to write because they are lack of vocabulary and grammar. Not only this but also we often find students not being able to understand it at all.  

As my observation about the students’ difficulty, it is all because the way English teachers teach the students and the way students study the materials. Nowadays almost all English teachers are looking for the strategies to make the English subject not too difficult to learn. However, until this time it is still hard to understand. Some English teachers blame their students that it is because the students are lazy to study but some English students blame their English teacher that it is because of their teachers. They said the way their teachers teach is boring and difficult. So, whose fault is it?

When I was in senior high school, my English teacher was really diligent to come to teach English. He had afforded hard to make his students understand English subject but almost all his students did not understand what he explained. I did not blame him because of his hard effort and he could not blame me or other students because we were still learning. This problem needs solving as soon as possible before coming into the English students’ mind that English is too hard to learn. And the result the English students will not be interested in learning it. It will be dangerous.

According to my opinion about how to get English is first love. The word love here means that we should love the English as the material that we want to get. If we have loved it, we will be willing or diligent to learn it or another word we will never feel that we are forced to learn it. Of course after having that feeling we will enjoy learning every time and every where. Remember nothing is impossible to get if we try hard. However, we need not only love the material but also we need to love the teacher. How can we study well if we do not like the teacher? Maybe we will be lazy to study or even we will be lazy to go school. Therefore, to get English we need to love both the material and the teacher.

The second thing that we should have is big intention. Actually, having big intention comes from our love to get something. And the word ‘big intention’ is almost similar with the word ‘love’. The love will never come if there is no intention. But it is just intention that sometimes can disappear. Here what we need is big intention. By having this everything will be managed well. We should manage what we need to get something in order that we get it well. By having this big intention we will be easy to manage ourselves to do whatever we want to.

The next thing that you should do is learning it as much as possible. Of course we need learn much to get English. After we have all what I wrote above, we will always be able to study. No one perfects. Therefore, we need to make ourselves perfect (in understanding English) by learning. Today we do not understand, tomorrow we will understand it. 

Another important thing that we should have is self-confident. The phrase self-confident here means that we should believe ourselves that if we want, we will be able to get it. We do not need to be shy. Remember, never do you feel ashamed of your English. Your mistake is not your business but it is your teacher’s. In English we are required to be able to speak English as fluently as possible. In this case, we need much self-confident. How come we can speak in front of people if we are ashamed? We will never say any word instead of just saying I AM SHY. And the worst thing that will happen if we are always shy is we will forget our vocabulary easily because we never use it.

The next thing that we should do is practice. English is not our first language. We need to translate our first language into English. Remember when we were still children. Did we learn our mother language like at school? Of course we say NO. The language that we have until now comes from our habit. We always listened to our Mom when she spoke to other people. The first we listened and then we tried to say what our Mom had said until we could speak it. It is step by step. We did not get it at glance. We were just accustomed to listening it. Therefore, we should study English here like when the first time we tried to speak and understood our first language. We were never shy at that time even all the words that we said were wrong. We never frustrated to try to speak it. We always practiced until we can speak it correctly. There is a good wise word that I found in a book. It said ‘no harm to try and practice makes perfect’. So if we want to have English as our second language, we should always practice it.

The last thing that we should do is praying. Praying unto God is the most important thing that we should do because everything will be easy if he disposes. This language belongs to God. Man purposes, God disposes. Therefore, to get this language we have to pray unto him as much as possible. We can pray every time we want to study or finish studying. Once my teacher said to me, ’if you always begin studying with praying, it will make what you have studied stay in your brain for a long time.

Considering the difficulty of learning English, it is no harm to try to have all those things that I said above. Remember, the most we try something, the most we got the experiences about it and the experience is the best teacher. We as the English learners, we have to be creative. To be creative is not easy as its name because we are always required to look for the way to make something easier. Finally I declare that having those things above are the basic things to have as the English learners.