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.
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.
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
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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