Empowering English Conversation
Clubs towards Establishing an English Speaking Community in Compensation for
the Lack of a Second-Language Context
Ferry
Antoni
Learning a language is learning to speak it. The same thing applies to learning
English. As a matter of fact, a person’s language mastery is ultimately
measured by how well he can use it, not by how much he knows about it (L. G. Alexander). It is very unfortunate,
though, that English in our country is only a foreign language, the policy of
which gives students very little chance to use the language they learn in daily
life if any at all. English clubs,
fortunately, can give just this
chance. This is possible as students
here can get to practice their language in various activities devised. This can further, if managed well, lead to
the idea of a speaking community, meaning that the activity of using the
language for daily communication gets to spread outside the club throughout the
learning institution, be it a school, a university, or a course.
This paper is aimed to suggest how this idea can be materialized,
taking an example of an English conversation club our students have at
LIA. It will reveal what the club has
been doing so far to promote English speaking among its members in its various
activities, how it can encourage its members to keep on using English outside
the club among its members, what problems it has faced and faces in doing all
that, what it has done to solve those problems, and how it affects other
students and teachers as well to use English in and around the institution
everyday so that it creates an English-speaking community there that may
resemble that of a second language context for English in a way.
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Antoni, F.
(2002, March). Empowering
English conversation clubs towards establishing an English speaking community
in compensation for the lack of a second-language context
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