BASIC OF LEARNING ENGLISH : READING AND LISTENING

Abstract

We all know that English is now an international language. Almost all the places in this world know English and use English, either for its first language, second language, or foreign language. It shows that how important for us to understand English and to master it. But in our country, Indonesia, we use English as a foreign language. It has its own difficulty when it comes to teaching a foreign language to a place that has its own language. But it doesn't mean that it's impossible to learn. There are a few language performance that we have to learn when it comes to studying a language. Reading, writing, listening, and speaking are the one we have to master. Without mastering these skills, it will be hard to learn a language and most of the times, people forget about this (Rintaningrum, 2018). The skills are many but the most-used skills are the reading and listening. This two are connected, also with other skills, that without each other, the basic will fall. But some people find it hard to learning this skill. Listening is a skill that constrain people to focus not just to the speaker but also the people itself. Reading is the skill that connected to literacy and knowledge. Literacy is now not only means that we read and write (Rintaningrum, 2009), but also understand what inside of it and implement it in the real life. By reading literature our, what we think about something will also change.

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BASIC OF LEARNING ENGLISH : READING AND LISTENING
Muhammad Rifqi Suhaidi
CHAPTER 1
1.1 Introduction
We all know that English is now an international language. Almost all the places
in this world know English and use English, either for its first language, second
language, or foreign language. It shows that how important for us to understand
English and to master it. But in our country, Indonesia, we use English as a
foreign language. It has its own difficulty when it comes to teaching a foreign
language to a place that has its own language. But it doesn’t mean that it’s
impossible to learn. There are a few language performance that we have to learn
when it comes to studying a language. Reading, writing, listening, and speaking
are the one we have to master. Without mastering these skills, it will be hard to
learn a language and most of the times, people forget about this (Rintaningrum,
2018).
The skills are many but the most-used skills are the reading and listening. This
two are connected, also with other skills, that without each other, the basic will
fall. But some people find it hard to learning this skill. Listening is a skill that
constrain people to focus not just to the speaker but also the people itself.
Reading is the skill that connected to literacy and knowledge. Literacy is now not
only means that we read and write (Rintaningrum, 2009), but also understand what
inside of it and implement it in the real life. By reading literature our, what we think
about something will also change.
1.2 Problem Statement
1. How to learn reading correctly ?
2. How to learn listening correctly ?
3. What is the importance learning the basic of language performance ?
4. Why learning English is important ?
5. Why English become an universal language ?
6. Why people finds it hard to learn reading ?

7. Why people finds it hard to learn listening?
1.3 Purpose of writing
1. To know the importance of learning the basic of language performance
2. To help solve the problem of learning reading and help to learn it correctly
3. To help solve the problem of learning listening and help to learn it correctly.
CHAPTER 2
The Answer and The Solution
2.1 Solution
In learning, we must have something that makes us want to do it. It’s usually called
motivation. There are so much things that we can used as motivation like want to be
known by other, want to have a better job, or many else. In learning also, we must
say that there is no shortcut. We have to learn it step by step. We can’t learn in one
day and say we understand it. That’s not the way it works. We don’t have to study
in a long hour we can just study 2-3 hours a day, but we have to do it constantly.
That way we will get used to that and understand it. In reading, the main problem is
the knowledge that we have. To be able understand what we read, we have to know
the meaning of each word and that’s not easy. In learning reading in foreign
language, we have to always open our dictionary. After we find the meaning, we
also have memorized it. There is no doubt that process of learning reading is a long
process but if we able to get used to read, everything will become easier without we
realize it. You can start reading what type of literature that you like. Comic book,
novel, or a newspaper, anything that written in English can be used. But, we can’t
stick to this book. Because the limitation of what inside of a literature, every
literature has its own knowledge and if we just learn in one literature, we just get
one knowledge. We have to change the literature every time we finish discussing
about that literature. In that way, we can get a various type of knowledge and it’ll
get us used to read. Learning reading is just same like learning the whole world. It’s
like studying a whole library. Because of that, we need patience. Start of with
something small. Make your work even bigger and harder. The knowledge that
you’ll get will be big also.

Also in listening we don’t have a shortcut. We have to hear what the speaker says
along with understanding what the speaker says according to our knowledge. This
kind of work that makes people find it hard to learn it. There are also several
reason why people finds it hard to learn listening like the status of the language,
knowledge of language, familiarity, lack of practice, speed of the speaker, speaker
himself, and many else (Rintaningrum, 2018). There are several ways that we can
do to make us easier to do Listening. Some of the ways are doing more practice and
giving more chance to learn English (Rintaningrum, 2018). These two solutions are
connected and the process will be useless if we don’t do one of it. In listening, we
have to get used to listen while translating what the speaker says. We can’t do it if
it’s the first time we do it. But if we practice more and do it every day, doing two
process at the same time will not be an impossible thing to do it again. But if we
can’t do it, in this case there is no one that want to help us, it’s also useless. People
have to be given chance to learn. It’ll be hard to student to be able to listen when in
that school there is no subject or course that related to this activity. From what
we’ve talked above, learning English can’t be done if we don’t understand the basic.
Learning the basic is also hard like learning the English itself. That’s why we can’t
do it just one time and by ourself. We have to learn it every time we have the chance
and we need other to help us. If this process continued, we can get the basic and we
can continue to learn English in more advance way.
2.2 Why is Basic and Why Is So Important?
Reading and listening are activities that we usually do in daily life. Almost all kind
of work has this kind of activity. We also can’t neglect that we need this skill to
learn a language. Because people know a language from this kind of activity, either
listening to radio, music, movie, or just some people speaking with that language or
reading a book, newspaper, journal, magazine written in that language. Learning
without knowing the basic is just like walking without opening our eyes. It’s hard,
even almost impossible, if we don’t know the basic of what we want to learn.
English as an international language is well-known as it is used in almost every
aspect of life. If there is a meeting between two corporation in different
nationalities, it usually uses English as a bridge to communicate each other.

Advertisement of a product from foreign country usually use English so the target
customer understands the product function and what it offers. Even some book and
journal that we used in school use English. To understand this kind of things, we
can’t straight to see it and just understand like that. To fully know, we have to know
what is inside of it by listening to it or reading it. There is no other way because this
language is now a globalize language.
CHAPTER 3
The Problem
3.1 Why People Struggle with Reading and Listening
Most of people find it hard to learn a language because the first thing that they have
to learn is something that they feel difficult also. They want to know the meaning of
a word in English but they have to read the meaning in English also. That’s why
people sometime give up or just pass to learn the basic. We have to admit that in
reading, we depend on what we know that is our knowledge. In English, sometime
there is word or an expression that have one meaning but have 2 different type of
saying. To people who have just started to learn, they must be struggled first
because they usually have so little knowledge about this language. Also the other
thing why people avoid reading so much because the topic of what they read is not
their passion. In Listening, it’s usually happens with student or someone who still
in educational level. In listening, people also struggle to learn it and this skill is the
hardest to be learned. People when learning something, they tend to focus on it and
can’t be bothered. But in listening, they have to focus on two things, the speaker
and themselves . We can’t do listening if we don’t focus to hear what the speaker
says but we can’t understand the meaning of what have been talked if we don’t
think. This two process while doing listening are the one that makes listening so
hard. Yet, other reasons are afraid of listening, the speaker, and facility
(Rintaningrum, 2018). We sometimes feel anxious when doing a test with listening.
This psychological feeling is the one that usually ruins the process of learning.
There is also factor of the speaker. When it’s the first time we do listening, we
usually hear a random person speaking and this person has a different way of
speaking with the one we usually hear. This difference usually makes us confuse.

Not to mention that the speed while the speaker speaking is different in each person.
If we get used to hear with a speaker’s way to speak, when the speaker change, it’ll
be harder for us to understand. And there is also factor of facility. The better the
facility that we used, the easier the process of learning English.
CHAPTER 4
Conclusion
Learning a new language is a unique challenge for every person, especially for
learning foreign language. English as a language has been used for many countries
since a long time. Because of this, English is well-known as an universal language.
Many of international events or business occasion with other company from
different country. Because of this language becomes so important in our life, we
should learn this language also so that we can improve ourself. In learning English,
there is some basic that we have to learn. It’s also usually called as language
performance. There are four of these. They are Reading, Listening, Speaking, and
Writing. In our life the skills of Reading and Listening are common for us also. If
we can learn and master these skills, learning English in the future will become
easier for us. It’s because these two skills are just like the basic of language. The
first thing you know from a language is must be its writing, whether it is from a
novel, a newspaper, a magazine, or a subject book in school. To learn this language
there are some ways we can do it. But before we learn deeper about each of the style
of learning, we have to know one thing that every learner must have. It is
motivation. Motivation is important for us because things will become easier if we
are motivated to do it. If we already have the motivation, we now can learn for each
skill.
For reading we can’t deny that we have to be patience for learning this skill. It’s
because the occupation for this skill is so wide that when we learn this, we like
learning the whole world. To master Reading skill require a lot of hours of opening
dictionary and read many books. It doesn’t have to be the one that has a difficult
discussion, we can start from the one that you like. Do this constantly and every
single day. In that way, we become used to reading in that language and some of
difficult word or meaning that we found earlier, now become easier for us to

understand. For listening, the key to it also practice. Because this skill requires us to
do two things at the same time, we must become wonted in using this skill. But
practicing all the time doesn’t enough for it. We need other person as our speaker so
that we can listen to his/her saying. This two ways are connected and if one of them
is left behind, our leaning become less effective. I know some of you think that why
we have to learn again this daily skill. You can’t underestimate this basic because
we can’t straight to understand what others are saying. If we don’t know how to
listen correctly, no matter how much you know about grammar, it becomes useless.
Also if we memorize all the word in dictionary but we don’t know how to read an
article correctly, it also become useless. So basic is important for us.
But in some of case, people find it hard to learn English. Especially when they do
reading or listening. In case of reading, people usually can’t understand what the
meaning or a word or a sentence. It makes them not interested of reading that
literature. Also sometimes people read literature that has a topic that they don’t like.
In case of listening, it’s hard because we have to focus on two things on the same
time, the speaker and ourself. This kind of work that make people give up in
listening. There are also factors like how fast the speaker are saying each word, the
fear of listening that they heard from someone, the facility that they used when
doing a listening practice, and many else. The main thing is that people sometime
can’t focus when they do listening. But in every difficulty, there must be a way to
solve it. learning a foreign language is never easy. It needs hard work and will to
fight. But if we already have this, it just matter of time we master this language.
References
Rintaningrum, R. (2009). LITERACY: ITS IMPORTANCE AND CHANGES IN
THE CONCEPT AND DEFINITION. TEFLIN, 20(1), 1–7.

Rintaningrum, R. (2018). Investigating Reasons Why Listening in English is
Difficult: Voice from Foreign Language LearnersTitle. The Asian EFL
Journal, 20(11), 6–15.