ENGLISH MASTERY: HOW TO MAKE IT EASIER

Patrisius Istiarto Djiwandono

English Study Program, Ma Chung University
atis18@indo.net.id

Abstract

This paper departs from a background of English language learning in Indonesia,

stressing the importance as well as the common difficulties for Indonesian learners.
Then, it embarks on a deeper insight into English and language learning principles. On
the basis of these principles, it offers a few strategies that should make English language
learning an easier undertaking.

Background
Mastery of English language skills is becoming increasingly vital in today’s information
era. Almost all of the vacancy ads in the mass media demand English proficiency as one
of the requirements. Events are held in different languages, one of which is definitely
English. Universities have started opening classes delivered in English. As one widens
his or her network, one finds how indispensable this language is to achieve mutual
benefits with the parties involved. Friendster, Facebook, Goodtree, Yahoo, Google and
many others simply stop being functional if the user does not understand English. So
pervasive is it that many people feel they are mute if they cannot speak or understand
any English.

According to Graddol (2003), despite the rising status of other languages like Mandarin
and Spanish, English will continue being one of the world’s lingua franca. With the
global aspiration of becoming a one big village with a common medium of
communication, the requirements for English proficiency has been expanding to earlier
ages. Previously, an IELTS score of 5.5 is required from senior high school graduates,
but now high school graduates have to obtain an IELTS score of 7.0. Even elementary
school graduates are strongly recommended to obtain a score of 4.0. In short, to
survive the global competition in today’s modern era, a non-native speaker of English
has to be proficient in earlier ages.

Despite the well-known popularity and increasing demand for its mastery, for many
people English is also notoriously difficult to learn. Complaints like, “I am really tongue-
tied when it comes to speaking English,” “My English vocabulary mastery is really
poor,”, or “my TOEFL score is only three hundred and eighty and I don’t know how to
rack up my score,” are still frequently heard. But whether that is the case has yet to be
confirmed. The paper brings up some research-based facts about English language
learning, and suggest how simple techniques, coupled with the appropriate motivation,
can promote success in learning the language.

Facts about English vocabulary: the more the better?

Just as thousands of words build a language, large mastery of vocabulary makes up
one’s English proficiency. The formula is simple: the more the better. The more English
words one can understand and use, the better her English command. So, the key is to
learn more and more words. The more, the better, so to speak.

But, is that really the case?

An uniformed learner would stop with the above conclusion and start learning like
crazy, devouring contents of dictionaries and memorizing all vocabulary in the texts she
happens to read. But actually, there is one more important fact about English
vocabulary. According to Nation (2002), English words fall into several types, and each
type is used in English texts with certain frequency. If one understands the frequencies,
she would spend her time and energy more efficiently, knowing which words are more
worth-learning, and which ones are not. In other words, she does not need to know
and memorize all English words; rather, she needs to spend time and energy
memorizing those with the highest frequencies, and use these words to help her figure
out the meanings of the less frequent words.
The following table might gives us a better idea about the distribution of word
frequencies in English texts:

Table 1. Types of English words and their frequencies (adapted from Nation, 2002).

Implication for
Types of words Properties
learning

High frequency words

2,000 words
A small number of words
Number of words 80% of English texts
that cover most of English
Coverage
texts

Academic words

Number of words 570 words

Coverage 10% of English texts
 A small number of words
that occur frequently in
English texts

Technical words

Number of words
Coverage 1,000
about 5% of English texts

Low frequency words

A very large number of
Number of words 126,000
words that cover only a
Coverage about 5% of English texts
little of English texts.

The table above implies several points for vocabulary mastery. First, learners need to
master only a relatively small number of words to be able to grasp most of the content
of an English text. By mastering 2000 high-frequency words plus 570 academic words,
they can expand their comprehension up to 90% of the text content. At this mastery
level, only 1 out of 10 words they read is new, or difficult word. Second, a reader can
read a text with great ease only if 98% of the words in the text are familiar to her. This
equals to one new word per 50 running words. The reader can easily guess the
meanings of few difficult words by using the words she has known well. Third, a learner
should encounter a word at least fifteen times before she can finally understand and
master the word.
It follows from here that learners should maintain and increase their reading habits in
order to increase their chances of meeting high-frequency words. Learners can first
determine their interests, and then pick up texts that suit their interests. Driven by
interests, the learners will supposedly read more and more. The more they read, the
more they are exposed to high-frequency words and academic words, and the bigger
their chances are for mastering these words.
In order to be effective, a vocabulary enrichment program should make sure that all
materials a learner is reading or listening to contain words that she has already known.
This way, the learner will not feel frustrated by the amount of difficult words that she
has to overcome.

Incidental and intentional vocabulary learning

Learning vocabulary can be done in two ways, incidental and intentional vocabulary
learning (Hulstijn, 2002). The former means knowing the meanings of words through
activities like reading, listening, talking with someone, or when listening to someone’s
speaking. Learners do not have the intention to learn vocabulary in the first place, hence
the term ‘incidental’, but as they come across new words during listening or reading, they
can somehow figure out the meanings of these words from the situational and linguistic
context. As they run into these words over and over again, they begin acquiring the fully
correct meanings, improving their vocabulary mastery.
Intentional vocabulary learning, on the other hand, is done purposefully by the learners.
They set up a plan to learn vocabulary, and usually writes down new words form a
reading text, look them up in dictionaries, and memorize the meanings. Intentional
learning can also be in the form of memorizing word list, such as irregular verbs. This
technique is best applied with the high-frequency words and academic words, which, as
discussed previously, build a foundation on which a learner can read fluently.
One way of fostering intentional vocabulary learning is extensive reading. This kind of
activity engages the learners in reading texts or materials that suit their interests and
contain words that are within their current proficiency level. They read the texts not to
learn the linguistic elements, but merely to entertain themselves and enjoy the stories.
It’s anything but intentional learning. Subconsciously, as they read and derive joy from it,
they add more to their knowledge of words and other linguistic features of the language.
What follows from here is the need to promote and maintain reading habit. Time,
Newsweek, National Geographic, and Reader’s Digest are some popular materials among
hundreds, even thousands, of other materials available on the Internet. In this
technology-enhanced media coverage, one should not find any difficulties finding the
appropriate reading materials.
The presence of online facilities makes the task even easier and more efficient. Learners
can paste the Web-based texts they like onto http://www.edict.com.hk/textanalyser/ to
get the information about what words are academic words, high-frequency words, and
low-frequency words. This mapping of word types helps learners focus their efforts on
words that need to be learnt, and informs them which words can be put aside, or at least
not prioritized in their learning.

Memorizing effectively by means of mnemonic

Learning new words from a list may be an arduous task, a tedious undertaking which
leads quickly to boredom. But there is a tactic for making this task easier, or at least more
exciting. The tactic is called mnemonic. In mnemonic, a learner creates a link between
a certain feature of the target word and a mental picture in her mind. For example, in
learning the word ‘tremor’ (which means = getaran), a learner notices the fraction ‘trem’,
and creates a mental picture in her mind of a trem (a small train that travels across
city roads) passing by, creating getaran. Now a link is created between ‘tremor’ and that
mental picture, and the meaning. Every time the learners reads this word in another text,
the association between the word and her mental picture helps her recall the meaning.
Thus, ‘tremor’ ? a trem moves ? getaran . The table below shows some other examples
of mnemonics:

Table 2. Words and mnemonic

Meaning in
Target word Mnemonics
Indonesian

The pronunciation of the word

contains the sound /thor/.
Imagine a fighter named Thor
Authority Kewenangan who has the authority to
command his troops. Thus,
“authority” = “Thor with his
authority”.

The pronunciation of the word

contains the sound /ben/ and
/fit/. Imagine there is a man
named Ben who is healthy/fit
Benefit Mengambil manfaat
because he benefits from
something. Thus, “benefit” =
“Ben who is fit after he benefits
from something.

The pronunciation of the word

resembles Indonesian word
“kaos”. Imagine kaos-kaos
Chaos Kekacauan scattered all over the road after
a chaos broke. Thus, “chaos” =
“kaos-kaos which are scattered
all over the place after a chaos.

From reading and listening to speaking

If you want to be able to speak in English, first of all you have to be quiet.

Confused?

Experts have agreed that the ability to speak is a result of a silent period, during which
the learners merely read and understand written texts or hear and understand the
language spoken around them. In the field of language acquisition, this is known as
‘comprehensible input’ (Krashen and Terrell, 1983). The input is the utterances that
people around the learners say, or sentences that these learners read from texts. To
start activating the language learning mechanism in the mind, the learners somehow
have to make these sentences or utterances understandable to them, hence the term
‘comprehensible input’. The more they are exposed to this kind of input, the more their
mind actively prepare the mechanism for speaking the language. Of course, this is only
one of the factors that lead to the ability to speak, yet suffice it here to conclude that if
someone wants to be able to speak, she has to expose herself to English-speaking
sources, and learn quietly, before she starts saying things in English.
What contexts are rich with comprehensible input? The following suggests some of
them.

Films with Indonesian sub title is a good source. Learners listen to the actors, and read
the sub title to understand pieces of utterances that are being spoken. Radio broadcast,
which is delivered in slower speech so as to make it easier to comprehend by learners,
also serves a similar purpose. Audio materials, especially ones that come with the
tapescripts, are excellent sources for comprehensible input. The learners can listen to
them while reading the tapescript so as to make the materials comprehensible to them.
Extroverted persons who enjoy the company of others may benefit a lot from a
conversation club. In such a club, there are ample opportunities to obtain
comprehensible input from more able members. A strategy which I loosely call ‘input-
eliciting pause’ can also be effective to learn how to express ideas in English. A simple
illustration below may make it clearer.
Anita, an Indonesian student who is learning English at the pre-intermediate level, is
cooking together with Amber, a native speaker of English from Great Britain. Anita
wants to say “kamu bisa mengocok telurnya, dan saya akan mengerjakan yang lain-
lainnya” but does not know how to say ‘saya akan mengerjakan yang lain-lainnya’ in
English. So she says, “You can whip the eggs, while I . . . .”., deliberately pausing at
the end of her utterance, right at the part which she does not know how to say. At this
point, her pause prompts Amber to supply the correct expression: “. . . do the rest”.
Thus, Anita’s pause has elicited the correct input from Amber, and shortly after Amber’s
utterance, Anita learns that ‘saya akan mengerjakan yang lain-lainnya’ is expressed with
‘I’ll do the rest’ in English.

A simple, yet effective strategy for improving speaking fluency.

Speaking grammatically
In terms of grammatical development, learners of any foreign language go through
three stages, namely (1) lexicalization, (2) syntacticization, and (3) relexicalization
(Larsen-Freeman, 2003). In the first stage, they exhibit two typical behavior. First, they
produce formulaic utterances. These are more or less fixed expressions for common
communicative functions that may range from a simple greeting such as "good morning"
to more complicated ones, like "would you like a cup of tea?". At this stage, learners
simply memorize these expressions as a whole, and then say them without necessarily
being able to break down the expressions into their linguistic components or state the
grammatical patterns. Second, they also tend to combine English words without much
attention to grammatical devices. Thus, it is quite common to hear learners at this stage
saying: "Me no can speaking Chinese".

Syntacticization, the next stage, manifests when learners are gradually able to apply
syntactic rules to their speech. Thus, what was previously produced as "me no can speak
English" now becomes more grammatically correct: "I can no speak Chinese".

Relexicalization, the final stage, sets in when the learners are now capable of applying
the correct patterns to produce grammatical and fluent speech. Learners at this stage
produce "I cannot speak Chinese because I have never had any spare time to learn it"
with reasonable accuracy, ease, and fluency.

The good news for English language learners is that every learner goes through the
three stages. In other words, everyone can eventually speak English correctly and
fluently. However, the smooth transition from stage one to stage three occurs under
some conditions. First, the learners should be exposed or receive adequate amount of
comprehensible input. Second, at some point after absorbing enough input, they must
push themselves to speak. Third, there must be feedback, either from a teacher or their
more proficient peers, on their grammatical accuracy so that the learners do not get
stuck with certain mistakes.

All in all, the foregoing discussion underscores the importance of having the courage
to speak English. In the field of language learning, this is called 'output practice',
and according to Larsen-Freeman (2003) benefits language learners greatly because
it promotes automaticity in language production. The message is clear: the more one
speaks, the better his or her English will be.

Swimming in the sea of models

In a way, learning English is similar to learning how to swim. I could not really master
swimming until I was twenty three. At that age, I joined a rural development program
where I and several friends were sent to a remote village in Southern Malang. The only
place to take bath was the river. It was during these bathing times that I observed the
villagers and my friends swim. After a while, I started to learn the strokes, and finally,
after several attempts, I managed to swim.
By the same token, a learner develops the ability to use English when they ‘swim in the
sea of good models of English users’. Humans are endowed with a heuristic capacity,
that is, the ability to learn from their environment. An environment rich with input and
good models of speakers and writers is ideal for a language learner. Thus, if someone
wants to improve her English writing skills or speaking skills, she should immerse
herself in such environment. She has to ‘swim’ in that environment so her brain can
gradually absorb the English language patterns, vocabulary, writing styles and speaking
skills from the people around you. She should watch these models closely, silently learn
the patterns, the frequent words, and the way ideas are organized. Then, after a period
of time when she has mustered enough confidence, she can try to produce a piece of
work in English following the models. Gradually, with perseverance and constructive
feedback, she will speak better or write better, or at least almost similar to the model
people she has been swimming in.
The previous point underscores the importance of joining communication club and
reading a lot of essays. A communication club typically has a few members with high
level of proficiency. A learner can use these highly proficiency members as models, and
silently learn from them various aspects of speaking skills, such as pronunciation and
patterns. By the same token, a learner writer can also read essays in journals, and
quietly imitate some fundamental aspects of expressing ideas in written English. In
suppport of this social dimension, Vygotsky (1989) long ago maintains that “social
intercation produces new, elaborate, advanced psychological processes that are
unavailable to the organisms working in isolation”. Joining communication club puts a
learner in what he designated as Zone of Proximal Development, an area where a
learner can strive to close the gap between her current ability and more proficient
people’s abilities.

Motivation is vital
Just as a key holds the access to a house, so motivation is a primary key that
determines success in learning English. Despite the availability of high-technology
facilities, native speakers, capable teachers, updated textbooks, captivating books, and
fancy infrastructures, if one is not motivated to learn English, nothing will happen. He
or she needs to develop high motivation to gain ‘affective access’ to those supporting
facilities and start learning English.
Motivation stems from outside the learner, and from inside the learner. The former is
called instrumental motivation, and the latter integrative motivation. A learner with
integrative motivation has a strong desire to become bilingual and bicultural. He or she
is very keen on identifying himself or herself with the native speakers of the language.
In other words, a person with integrative motivation wants to be like an English native
speaker. This kind of motivation spurs learner to make great efforts to learn and master
English. A learner with instrumental motivation, in contrast, simply wants to learn
English in order to meet some external requirements such as job interview, career
promotion and the like. Norris-Holt (2001) states that integrative motivation casts a
stronger influence on the success of language learning.

However, the two types of motivation are not mutually exclusive. In fact, one can start
with instrumental motivation, and then, upon learning some amount English, is
gradually inclined to integrative motivation. From the learner’s vantage point, increasing
awareness about the culture of the target language, watching and enjoying its art
works (music, film, literature works) may promote the shift from instrumental
motivation to integrative motivation.
Falling in love with English can happen through getting to know its culture. A learner
may start learning English simply because she wants to pass her school test, an
intention that is merely instrumental. But once this potential learner sees how cool
English-speaking actors are, how advanced English-speaking cultures have become, the
wish to become like those people will start growing inside her. Gradually, the seed of
integrative motivation starts growing. When this motivation becomes stronger, she will
voluntarily exert more energy and time to better her English. Her instrumental
motivation has been slowly transformed into integrative motivation. Indeed, one can
infer easily that falling in love with an English native speaker may speed up the process
greatly!
Even if the idea of falling in love with a native speaker of English seems absurd, one
can still engage in other activities that will promote the transformation from
instrumental to integrative motivation. Watching films, enjoying the literary works,
reading magazines, or listening to lectures or broadcast on English-speaking culture are
some of many activities that are likely to foster higher interest in the culture, which
then leads to higher integrative motivation.

Conclusion
While no one denies that English is becoming an indispensable skills, it is also a
common perception that mastering the language is a daunting task for Indonesian
people. The paper suggests a number of language learning principles and, on the basis
of them, offers a few simple tactics that make English learning a less burdensome
undertaking. It highlights the fact about English words, pointing out that English
learners can get by relatively well once they memorize high-frequency words and
Academic Words. It also offers a strategy called mnemonic, which involves creating a
link between the new word meaning and mental picture that greatly helps in word
memorization. Next, it argues that the ability to speak is promoted by a silent period in
the initial phase of learning, a period during which learners remain quiet to let their
mind absorb language elements from their surroundings. Some input-rich resources are
then suggested. Then, the paper goes on to shed light on simple strategies for
speaking, underlining the importance of speaking practice and being active in a
communication club. Finally, it maintains how motivational factors can be shaped so as
to boost a stronger drive to language learning.
References

Graddol, D. 2006. English next: why global English may mean the end for ‘English
as a foreign language’. British Council.

Hulstijn, J. H. 2001. Intentional and incidental second language vocabulary

learning: a reappraisal of elaboration, rehearsal, and automaticity. In Robinson,
P. (Ed.). Cognition and second language instruction. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

Krashen, S., and Terrell, T. 1983. The natural approach: Language acquisition in
the classroom. Hayward, CA: Alemany Press

Larsen-Freeman, D. 2003. Teaching language: From grammar to grammaring.

Boston, Massachussetts: Heinle

Nation, P. 2002. Managing vocabulary learning. Singapore: SEAMEO Regional

Language Centre.

Norris-Holt. 2001. Motivation as a contributing factor in second language

acquisition. The Internet TESL Journal, 7, No. 6, June 2001

Vygotsky, L. 1989. Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

 Tentang penulis

Dr. Patrisius Istiarto Djiwandono adalah dosen tetap di Program Studi Bahasa Inggris
Universitas Ma Chung. Dia bergabung dengan Universitas Ma Chung sejak Februari 2008,
setelah sebelumnya mengepalai Pusat Bahasa di Universitas Surabaya (2005- 2008) dan
Pusat Penelitian di Universitas Widya Karya (1999 – 2003).

Dia menyelesaikan pendidikan S1, S2 dan S3 nya di bidang Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris
dari Universitas Negeri Malang, berturut-turut pada tahun 1991, 1994, dan 1998,
ditambah dengan kualifikasi Diploma TESL dari Victoria University of Wellington, New
Zealand pada tahun 1992.

Sampai tahun 2008 dia telah menulis dan menerbitkan 4 buah buku tentang strategi
belajar bahasa Inggris, tes bahasa, dan materi ESP untuk Fakultas Teknik. Di samping
itu, karya ilmiahnya tersebar di berbagai jurnal di dalam dan luar negeri sejak tahun
1995.

Pada saat ini, dia juga menjabat sebagai anggota penyunting pada Asian EFL Journal,
dan Jurnal Ekonomi dari Fakultas Ekonomi, Universitas Surabaya.