Indonesians’ Problems of Speaking English

As an international language, English is needed by people in every corner of the world for different reasons. However, not all nations speak this language that it comes as no surprise to learn that English simply becomes a foreign language in many countries like Indonesia. Therefore, if we want to be able to use English, we have to first study and master the four English language skills, namely speaking, listening, reading and writing. From those four competences, speaking is the ability often presenting people in Indonesia problems. Many Indonesians face some common problems in speaking English.

The first problem facing Indonesians is lack of confidence.  It remains difficult for them to bolster their confidence to communicate in this lingo even though they have learned English since their Primary school. Some of them understand English grammar very well and even score high marks in examinations, but their speaking skill is very poor. The main reasons behind this weakness are they are often too shy to strike up an English conversation and afraid that if they make a mistake, others will laugh at them, causing them to avoid speaking English in front of others.

Next, most Indonesians still do not have sufficient English vocabularies. It is as a result of their little enthusiasm of reading some English texts and opening their dictionary to find out some new vocabularies and idioms. These habits certainly make them often miss two or three important vocabularies  when trying to speak English, leading to their lack of ideas and difficulty to say what they are going to express. Another factor is this language is not our first language. So, naturally, the number of English words we have in our vocabulary is never enough.

Another problem Indonesians are struggling with when communicating in spoken English is their lack of practice. As they think that their confidence to speak English is low and their English vocabularies are insufficient, they will lose interest in practicing English. Then, it is worsened by difficulty people encounter in their environment when they try to speak this tongue. Their environment usually does not support them to frequently practice it. Other people may even think that those speaking English just want to show off. At last, since they do not want to be rejected by the other people around them, they use their native language in daily conversation.   

To sum up, it has been generally known that many people face some problems in speaking English as a foreign language in non-English speaking countries like Indonesia. Some of the problems in spoken English experienced by Indonesians are their lack of confidence to use English before others, their insufficient English vocabularies and lack of practice English.