Yellow fellow

Long time ago teachers used simple media in teaching. Nowadays after years passed by, a lot of inventions used, such as computer, internet connection, or even software. Those inventions make teaching process easier. Teachers are helped in assessing students. Not only teachers who are helped through those inventions, but also the students. As long as we have computer and the internet connection, then we can browse everything around the world. Even the lessons can be delivered easily through software or websites. Moreover, using these inventions decrease the paper-use.

 

People enjoy using these inventions. However, there are also some disadvantages, people nowadays tend to search the answers of their questions through the internet. More people interact with their friends passively. They prefer chatting through a website to talking face-to-face. In fact people become lazier to do some of their tasks. For example in teaching and learning process, students would rather browse the internet to find the meaning of some foreign words. Dictionary is hardly ever used since then. Probably it could be even worse in the future. It would be much better if we could teach and learn not only from the computer, internet, or software, because actually we can also learn a lot of things from our environment.

Being a Chinese who lives in Jakarta, I find it uneasy. I do not want to say that it is difficult, because we still live in one land. However, if I have to look back again to 1998 era, it will remind me to the pain. The pain that I felt back then when I saw many Chinese people got killed and raped. It was really a hard time for Chinese people to survive. Even at that time our former president Soeharto, forbid Chinese people to have Chinese names, such as: Wu Gong Fu, Zhang Jia Yi, and so on. So, Chinese people back then had to name their children with Indonesian names.

However, we have heard that “time heals all wounds”. It is one of the quotes that I believe. I find people nowadays are more tolerate and considerate. Moreover I am studying at a college with various race, religion , and background of students. By having that kind of situation at my college makes me think, and see a lot of things from different perspectives. At first, I did not really want to interact a lot with people whom I thought different from me. But as time goes by, I can see that the difference makes a very beautiful pattern between us.

A pattern that can not be separated easily, because once you separate it, it will not create any beautiful pattern. Since then I never felt that people around me are different from me, because we learn new things together, share our knowledge, help each other, moreover when one falls down. It reminds me to a saying, “it is better for us to have friends, because if one falls down, then the other will help us to stand up again”. Even I feel that people’s culture which is different with mine is interesting to learn.

I hope that everyone could see the difference in a different way also. We are different from one to another, that makes us become “us” right now. We are unique. We might be different in several things and some ways, but those things also make us attractive. However, through the time and knowledge that we get in Humanistics, I hope that we can be someone with a wider perspective in everything. It is not easy, but it is not difficult either, if we want to open our mind and willing to learn. Everything is possible.

Being able to speak in many languages is interesting, because indirectly we also learn other’s culture. Nowadays many people can speak more than two languages. Some people even can speak a second language fluently. Then, a question appeared in my mind, “How did they acquire the second language?”. Since I have a dream to be able to speak in many languages, so I started asking many people to answer the question. Some people said they took a course before for years. Some said they studied abroad before. The rest of them said that they learned the language through the internet, games, songs, and movies. According to their opinion, through those medias we still can practice our four basic skills : listening, speaking, reading, writing.

Then, I started watching a lot of English movies and listening to English songs. My English was not really improved back then, moreover I never taken any English course before. I could understand when I heard someone speak in English, but it was hard for me to answer. I was afraid.

Fortunately, one day I had a chance to learn in an English course! At first I was surprised that most of the time would be spent with the computer to practice the four basic skills! However most of the students improved their English. That makes me realize that not only the language but also the technology that we use in learning is also improved. When I was in primary school, we did not use any computers, but nowadays people use softwares in learning and teaching a language.

I feel that technology really help people in learning a language. However, it has some disadvantages too. For instance, if we only interact through computer, it will be hard for us to talk face-to-face later on. So, in my opinion, the best way to learn and teach a language is by combining both technology and ‘live’ practice (find somebody to talk face-to-face).