Current Issue in ELT

            English Language is one of the most important language in the world. Not only because it is literally the universal language, but also how long it has gone from the history of time itself. When people hear other people speaking English as their second language, they are seen as a professional and an intelligent. However, the journey to get there is not as easy as it sounds. Why, you might ask? The answer to that question is because there are some difficulties in the process of English Language Teaching. People think it is easy to teach the English Language, yet they do not know how challenging it is to get students to actually learn the language.

            One of the biggest issues in English Language Teaching is the classroom management. In general, it has always been difficult to manage a class especially if it is filled with huge number of students. With COVID ruling over the world, everyone is forced to use technology to do their activities including school. There are a lot of software that can help this process happen and schools have already used them to connect teachers with the students so that they can still get some knowledge through group video call, or as they call it video conference. This means students have to use their smartphones or laptops to join the class and this has definitely backlashed.
Research affirms that the onslaught of smartphones, videos, and social media is influencing our brains, consciousness, and certainly on our attention span. In the language learning classroom, this translates into students incessantly checking their phones and using a number of mobile apps to displace meaningful learning.  (Lorimer, n.d.)
I have seen a student using her laptop as the hardware to connect herself to the online class and in the background, she is playing with her phone and not paying any attention to the class. This online class mechanism just makes students even lazier and less focus on the subject at hand. Although this does not only relate to English Language Teaching, but it is how the situation of a classroom nowadays. Manage a classroom have always been difficult but without having the ability to see the physical figure of the students, it is even more difficult to manage which will eventually lead to ignorance of the students towards English Language.

            Fortunately, there are some solutions for this problem. For example, asking the students to turn their camera on at all times to supervise them during the lecture and to make sure everyone gets the lesson. Although, this solution is not 100% effective but it is one step closer to a better learning environment.

Career Dilemma

            People keep saying that hobby and passion are two different things and how you should not mix those two things up. However, what if you are not certain about your passion? All passion starts from a mere hobby, does it not? The biggest question we all are wondering is, ‘How do we tell the difference between those two?’ Yes, It won’t feel like work if your line of work is based on your hobby or at least has something to do with your hobby but for those people who are struggling about what kind of job do they want, what kind of career they want to pursue; because this is not a choice-based game where you can replay the choices until you get the life you desire, no this is real life.

            I am often told to be clever person just because I have my sheer of knowledge of the English language. While it may be true that not all people can speak English fluently, especially when its role is as a second language, but that alone is not enough to get yourself a comfortable and desirable job because English is no longer a rare thing to learn as how most schools have English as their second language. I have always loved creating stories in my head, though most of them are just alternate versions of my past like how different would it be if I had not done this or if I had done that instead of this and so on. I tried making a draft of my own story that is based on my life and posting some of them in ‘Wattpad’, which of course is completely flawed as a story and I got a lot of constructive criticism from my friends. However, I did enjoy the time I spent on my story. Those late nights where I just stared at nothing but thin air were exciting because I got to reminisce my past and put it in a blank sheet of paper so that I can read it again and again.

            I know that I am million miles away from being a writer, let alone a good one. However, if I could get the chance to be one, I would definitely like to be one. I have my English language background to help me write my stories in English so that my audience can be worldwide, not limited to Indonesian. I also see myself as an imaginative person because whenever I go out, I find myself creating scenarios of stuff that are currently happening like a couple arguing in a restaurant. I turn that into a scenario where the man picked the fight on purpose so that the lady would get thrown off and the man can finally propose to her later at their first date location by the bridge while the moon shines upon them.

            People kept saying, “Being a writer is not a job, you won’t get compensated enough to live by” and sometimes I feel like that is true because the competition is fierce and there are like tons of good writers out there. This is exactly why I chose writing as just my hobby or something to do on the side. Choosing a career is hard, especially in this difficult time with the economy crashing and all.

Helping You Improve Your Work Ethics

It’s no wonder that we have experience in the working-world whether it’s just a mere exposure or actually living in it. No matter if you’re a child or an adult, you must be getting some work-related experience from your parents, or maybe from school. Maybe you’re asked by the school to sell some bread to gain some income in order to complete your school project. In order to successfully selling out all the bread, you need work ethics, and without you even knowing, you already had some work ethics because let’s be honest, you can’t just come up to people, offering your bread, and hope the customer just take them off your hand. No, you need technique and skills in order to do that and that applies to your work ethics. With how things have been going for the past few months like COVID-19, people have been struggling to find any work especially because they can’t get out of home. The most popular question asked by new worker and even old ones is, “How do I function efficiently by working from home?” and that is plausible because you have to communicate with others, having meetings, negotiating, all of them through a single screen on their gadgets. Just because you’re working from home, doesn’t mean you can behave as if you’re at home outside of your work-time. You still need to maintain your work ethics to make sure you won’t be one of them who are forced to be let go because of the economy.


Professionalism
You may be thinking, “Well I’m always on every meeting sessions and I always do the tasks my boss gave me, how much more do I have to do to show that I’m serious about my job.” That all can be justified but most people do all of this in their pajamas; some of them don’t even turn on their cameras. I’m sure most of you think that since they can’t see your whole body from the screen, it’s okay to wear pajamas to work meetings, and that is exactly the wrong mindset you’ve been having. Just because you’re at home doesn’t mean you can wear anything you like during work meetings because you need to respect your superior and coworker by maintaining the dress code of your workplace. The next point is punctuality. It’s pretty clear that you should never be late when it comes to work whether it’s working from home or from the office, especially from home because you don’t need to waste your time with traffic and driving. Unfortunately, some people still think this is not big of a deal because their bosses or supervisors don’t mind. With this mindset, you’ll curse your own mind by having this behavior in every workplace you will ever be. By showing professionalism, your act tells your boss that you can be left with more responsibilities which will lead to better position which eventually lead to more money.


Tolerance
In a workplace, there are bound to be different people, with different race, different backgrounds and different personalities. We have to respect each other by being tolerant with one another whether it is about their social life, their work ethics or even their religions. Most workplace has toxic community within them by having ignorant people and disrespectful people. By being tolerant, doesn’t mean that you have to support their choices regarding their lives, it just means that you accept them without judging them and build a peaceful and rewarding environment of a workplace.
By showing these work ethics, giving a positive image to your boss isn’t so hard anymore. With these, one can no longer buy their way out by saying things like, “I don’t know how to behave in this kind of setting.”

Work Professionally, Get Paid Professionally

Chapter 1

I have a sucky love story in my life. It was my 1st year of high school. I was living a normal high school life, which maybe lots of people might think.

My first day at school

It was 6.55a.m and I was running late so I had to run all the way from the gate to the school yard, and on top of all that I still need to find my classroom since I haven’t been told about my class at all.

After I checked for my class from my phone, I found out that it was in front of me and it was on the ground floor, then when I was about to enter the class I saw a girl being hit on by some douchey guy and then I was thinking, “Damn, what the hell is wrong with this girl, it’s early in the morning for god’s sake”.

My first impression of her was not pretty good of course, I thought she was some sort of an easy woman who would go for any guy, but then I got her name Sherine, turns out that she wasnt that type of a person according to her friend. But more on that later.

So, after that I just entered the class and found my 3 friends from middle school Kevin, Jeffry, and Steven were sitting together in a group, so unknowingly I went to them and Steven and I started to sit on the same chair.

Across of our desk was my ex-crush and her name was Cindy, she was sitting with my friend named Venezia. Venezia was my friend from middle school and i don’t know why but she hated my guts at first. How do i know this? Well, she told me later at high school that she hated me because back then i was too cocky and arrogant according to her, me… cocky and arrogant…. i know right, but now that she knows about me, her image of me change to a whole new light, we became friends since 3rd year of middle school.

So back to Cindy. I had a crush on Cindy back when we were at middle school, even though its probably a kids love or some junk, but still it was a really good and of course bad feeling I had back then but sadly she doesn’t love me the way i did so it didn’t turn out well. She ended up hating me for the whole middle school but we’re good now, we’re friends.

My first day at school, we were still in our middle school uniform since the new uniform hasn’t come out yet. We spent the first day by introducing ourselves in front of the class.

The teachers also introduced themselves to us and some of them even told us about their hobbies and stuff. It was pretty weird you know to hear about your teacher’s hobbies cause well, it’s unnecessary for god’s sake. But still, it was a pretty fun first day of high school even though i didn’t get to be in the same class as my best friend William who was also a jackass.

William was my best friend since middle school. Actually, we were in the same class since 5th grade but we were never together so we didn’t get the chance to talk but thank god, we met each other at middle school and i don’t know if this is fate or some weird magic junk, but we got to sit next to each other at the back of the class. Ever since then, we became best friends.


So back to the story. The next day, my best friend William and i went to the canteen to try the food there. We wanted to taste the so-called legendary ‘fukian‘, it’s some sort of asian cuisine that was told to be really delicious so William and i were pretty psyched to taste it. “So…. what do ya think, buddy?”, i asked. “Meh, medium”, he replied while doing some kind of gestures stating that it’s medium height.

After we had done eating, we went to buy some drinks, i bought coca-cola and he bought fanta. On the way back to our class, William said something funny and cracked me up while i was drinking the coca-cola. “Bro, i think i have a boner from seeing that chick“.

Understandably, i spitted some of it towards someone and turns out it was Venezia. “Oh shit, i’m so sorry, i didn’t mean to do that, seriously, i’m not kidding. Here have some tissues. And again sorry, didn’t mean to do that” i took some tissues in panic.

Ewww….. ughh….. gross…. it’s alright, nevermind.” She moaned sarcastically.

After i helped her wipe my coca-cola off her, i yelled at William, “Dude, what the heck, not cool man…….. But seriously, you’re hard? That is soooo grosss…. By the way, where’s the chick, is she hot?“, i asked curiously.

Nah, there’s no chick. Just messin’ with ya.. and it worked….. hahhh in your face“, he smirked at me.

“Seriously??!!…. A prank? On our first day at school? Really??….. Really?!!!”

What… It’s still funny though how you burst it all out towards her and all, and on top of all that on our first day of high school, man you’re screwed as hell, sucka” he laughed so hard.

I immediately looked around, afraid that there would be a lot of people watching me spit coca-cola towards a girl and then i found out there was a guy who stares at me like, You’re so dead. Turns out, it was my acquaintance Adung. I knew him from our orientation.

We were in the same class and he was a bit too active and a little aggressive, but we weren’t that close cause i’m not that kinda guy who’s all like, “Hey, nice to meet you i’m bla bla bla….. blehhh“. I’m the type of guy who likes to receive not give.

So I didn’t know what to do about his glare and i did what a normal person would do when that happens. I turned around and went back to class with William.

After i got to class i went to Venezia.

I’m really sorry about that coca-cola malfunction, it was an accident and i swear, i didn’t do it on purpose so no hard feelings?”

Ohh… that’s okay, I mean it only hit my hair and now it reeks because of that so…… no worries though no hard feelings“.

It hit me like a truck but i didn’t tell her obviously cause well, it was literally my fault so i couldn’t say much about it. So i spent the rest of that day in a deep huge embarrassment.

One day, out of nowhere Adung came to me and said, “Hi, umm… can you help me get this girl?”
I wasn’t really ready so I was all like, “Uhhh… okay…. so who is this girl we’re talking about?”
And then he replied, “Venezia…. you know her right? My friends told me that you know her”. I was shocked, I couldn’t believe that he liked her cause well to be honest, they won’t look good together. But who am I to judge, right?

He’s a dark-skinned and Venezia is well…. how do you say it hmm…. brownish? Yeah some sort of brownish.

Actually I didn’t want to help him cause well I don’t like being the third wheel in some relationship cause it sucks you know, but I can’t say no cause I just can’t say no to people like that especially with that kinda guy who speaks awkwardly, I can’t handle confrontation really well.

So I said, “Ah…. Fine… I’ll do what i can to help you but don’t expect too much though cause I’m not that close to her, and i’m gonna bail if this won’t work, got it?” “That’s okay… uhh.. thank you so much”, he replied then left to his class.

After that I headed back to my class and rethink about the favor and I was all like, “Well great, what in the world should I do to help him get closer to her?!!” I spent the entire week thinking about how and what should I do to make them closer.

And finally one day, that chance came out. We were on our break time so Venezia and i went to the canteen to grab some food with our other friends.

At the canteen, we met Adung who was hanging out with his friends, and just before we finished our meal he called out to me and asked me for a favor, “Uhh….Can you please help me by using this money to pay for her meal, please?”

So I took the money and tried to pay for her meal but when I was about to give out the money to the canteen lady, suddenly she cut me off and paid her meal herself so I backed off but then, Adung kept on saying, “Go, please…. hurry up…. pay her meal”, then again when I tried to pay, she said, “Don’t try to follow his order or I will hate you!”, I was really confused and kind of mad, “For god’s sake, i’m outta here… screw this!!” so I took the money for myself and went back to class,

Since that day, Adung stopped asking for help from me, I was kind of happy and relieved that the burden has gone but ever since that day, I don’t know why but every time I see Venezia it feels a little different, it’s like she becomes more and more glowing from her appeal. It’s really weird, I could get all nervous and shaking every time I see her at school it was so weird and I don’t even know why. But I found the answer of that big question later.

About me

My name is Vincent Andersen with the height of a small man which is 162 cm. I am a 21 year-old guy majoring in English Literature at Binus University. Ever since I got into college, I find fiction stories more entertaining especially when you read it. When you read, you feel like you’re there with the characters in the story, experiencing their events, seeing what they see. That feeling led me into the thought of my interest in writing a story. At first, I had no confidence in writing a story since I never wrote one. However, my best friend encouraged me to at least try write it in notepad or something and make a draft. I used my own real life story as my first story since my high school life was full of drama, though that’s according to my best friend. I used to dream of having my own book published. Wouldn’t it be cool to see your story entertain or at least catch people’s attention?

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