Short Essay

I AM AN ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNER

English has become an international language for communication across the world. Although English is not the largest number of native or first language speakers, but we accept that English is currently a lingua franca for many people in the world. There are number of factors for the popularity of English as a lingua franca. Some of these are historical, but they also include economic and cultural factors which have influenced and sustained the spread of English. Whatever the spread of English across the globe, there has been an intriguing debate over the years as to how many people speak English as either a first or a second language. Estimates of speaker numbers are variable. For example, Braj Kachru (1985) suggested between 320-380 million people spoke English as a first language and anywhere between 250-350 million as a second language. On the other hand David Crystal (1995) and 1997) takes 75 territories where English holds a special place. He calculates around 377 million first language speakers of English and only 98 million speakers of English as a second language.

In Indonesia, a country with population of more than two hundred and fifty million, many people learn English, not only in formal places (school and universities), but also in private or informal places. In some places in Indonesia English is mostly taught or used as a foreign language not as a second language, because English is not used as a daily conversation language by people. But in some educational places especially in some schools and universities which use English as their daily communication, English is considered as a second language. And nowadays, many universities in Indonesia offer or provide some English programs such as English for hotel and tourisms, and English for Teacher Training and Education. In these fields English is taught as a second language, because in this context English is taught for specific purposes. In these programs English is also used as their communication between the lecturers and the students and between students and students English programs ask their students to use English for their daily communication, in these fields all of subjects are mostly delivered in English.