metrouniv.ac.id – Divia
Khairunita (A
Student of English Language Department, IAIN Metro)

Talking about English, a thing that quickly crosses mind
is that it is an
international
language. All people would
agree that English is important since most people in this universe speak
English, passively or actively. Everyone must learn English, then. If
you ever search in google “the most used language in the world”, you will find out that  English is the first with 1.132 million
speakers which is the 379 million of them are native. Therefore, many non-English-speaking countries include English into their educational system, including
Indonesia.

Nowdays,
English is
commonly learned among the students in Indonesia.  The schools, private and public, accommodate English into their curriculum. The kids and adolensce are encouraged to master English.
In other words, from the elementary students until high school
students
in Indonesia have to learn English. With this is mind, we can declare that English is common languange in
Indonesia. Indonesian
students have been  familiar with English from the early
ages, where the brain development to learn languages in its peak.

English
teachers
have been gradually developing the ways of how they teach, explain, and implement English in their classrooms. The addition of how
technology had developed as well,  the ELT in classrom
became more various from
the interactive method
to the development in strategy of ELT. Students find English
intriguing in that they may
adapt with English
quickly. But recently, the disrupt from pandemic makes the English language teaching (ELT)  in the Indonesian classrooms turn upside down.
While the teachers
find out the way for their
students
for learning from their home, the students almost comfortable
with their leisure condition in their home.

There’s
a popular saying among Indonesian student lately, which is if we write in
indonesia, the phrase goes “gabisa basa
enggres”. Well, that infromal phrase if we translate it into English, it means that the students
do not understand
English. Of course the students
would not
be able to say it directly to their teachers in the schools. But, it is another
story for a private English
teacher. It will be quite sad and annoying to hear students say “gabisa basa enggres” directly to your face.
And based on how my personal experience, they said that phrase just to get the
teachers
understand their  real condition. In fact, the students cannot learn  English
properly because of the pandemic.

The first
time the teacher will understand them, indeed the pandemic had delayed
everything, inlcuding the learning and teaching process. The second time students say that, the teacher
will try his or her
best to explain to them. Third time, fourth time and so on it became a bad
habit to give up learning. Certainly, this leads to another problem in
learning English. And from my observation alone from teaching, the conventional
method of story telling, watching
movie and singing song
cannot attract
the students’
attention to learn English. The
students will  just pay attention to the fun activity and
fail to be serious in the next learning. It needs time to bring back the students’ focus and keep
their attention in the purpose of the learning. This problem needs an extra care for
teacher to
be able to teach their students
without losing their student focus when doing online learning.

The
most common way that has
been implemented by most
teachers in Indonesia is using Whatsapp.
Whatsapp is common way to communicate online. It is quite practical for everyday use. But
the students
can just simply reply in the chatroom and come back sleep. The other way is to
meet virtual using video call fitures in zoom, microsoft team, or google meet. The teachers can have a face
to face meeting with their
students to explain the materials. But even so,
the interactive
process can stop when students
just simply turn off their mic and video, and later tell their teachers  that they have bad connection. Moreover, an online quiz also
makes
the students
tired if the teacher gives
quizzes too often. All things mentioned
should be done but in an appropriate method. And once again, the teachers will cause difficulties for the students because  of the bunch of application that should be
installed.

The
alternative way is to create
an virtual world like classes and design and fill the world with daily quest.
It can be reading materials and answering quiz, or the teacher can upload the
teaching video there. Is it possible? Of course, it is. One of our lecturers
had already implemented this technique for his teaching, an tiktok account of Zahranfth
posting her virtual classroom situation and it has already spread from mouth to
mouth. From the arrangement ot the chairs with the students’ names, a
blackboard containing materials of learning. English teachers might want to try
such games as Gather Town and Zapeto for their online teachings. I believe that
many millennial learners would love to learn English through interesting games.