Review Journal article 13

A REVIEW JOURNAL ENTITLED THE ENGLISH SCANNING SKILLS OF BILINGUAL AND

MONOLINGUAL INDONESIAN STUDENTS

by Anna Marietta da Silva

Nowadays, Indonesian young generations are having more ability in English language rather than their parents or grandparents. The primary schools in Indonesia especially in the big cities are now teach English at least once a week within around fifty to sixty minutes per session. Even in the playground, they are beginning to learn simple English vocabularies. In addition, most people belief that the younger a child learns a new language, the easier for her/him to understand and speak that language. Furthermore, it is now easier to found any written or spoken text in another language especially English. We can found it in the advertisements, billboards, television, newspapers, magazines, internets, smart phones, etc.

The rapid enhancement of technology makes a new language to develop faster. English is the prominent foreign language that learn in Indonesia. It happens because of the several reasons. For instance, economic and trade, ,‟ easy access to information mostly printed in English, or tourism (Baker 2001, pp.111-112), and Indonesian speakers‟ positive attitude towards English (Heaney 2005; Siregar 2010). Furthermore, English is more acceptable for advertisements, features of national TV programs, or titles of features in popular magazines. However, considering the job market in the future, many parents have their children joined an English course

The bilingual students may be classified into continually early bilingualism in which they gain the local language(s) which their parents speak. Yet, the monolinguals may be classified into consecutive childhood bilingualism as they were able to speak their first language dialect first before learning English.

Moreover, Indonesian young learners in general are more exposed to English through developing contact with foreigners from the English speaking countries that emerges some kinds of code mixing and switching, and the desire to learn English at school and courses now higher than in the past. Hence, the fact occur has not seemed to make English as a second language, it still becomes a third or maybe the fourth language learned, not acquired by most Indonesians. Up to now, English is still an optional subject, the teaching of which is dependent largely on the school’s funding. It  also stated that another crucial factor that should be taken into account in a learning process is the reading habit or culture, which is not highly appreciated in Indonesia. Moreover, English has produced important effect for the learning of English reading skills, particularly reading skills.