English And Globalization

ENGLISH AND GLOBALIZATION
Written by: M. Wakhid Qomari

Life needs communication which, as I know from Mr. Jauharotul Anwar a teacher of MTs N Babat, is a way to give and accept information between a speaker and a listener or a writer and a reader. In other words, communication is a way to make a union of understanding between the speaker and the listener. Then, language is one of the forms of communication that is used to communicate among the people.
Today, all people around the world recognize that we are in the Globalization era. Globalization, as a popular name among the people, is a term of union life of a whole of the world. It means our life is not limited by group, ethnic, race, nationality, or country any more. It’s free for us to live wherever we want. There’s no “intimidation” or “limitation” of our willingness. Willingness, in this case, is indeed good willingness such, being citizen in other countries, getting job in other countries, being student in other countries or others.
We are free to interact to other people throughout the world although they are not in the same group, ethnic, race, nationality, or country with us. Then, the interaction can be in the form of trading, politics, economy, or other importance. So, Globalization has already escorted us to be a part of universe people or it can be said that globalization has already made us a part of international society.
Because of the reason above, we need an international language too. We can imagine if the International society that consists of millions of people containing million kinds of races, ethnics, nationalities, and countries with millions of languages communicate one another with their own language. It’s certainly impossible if there will be communication between them. They’ll never be able to communicate with the different languages because union understanding will never come to the speaker and the listener. So that, through the growing moment, by the awareness of having an international language and then also by an international agreement, International people agree to confess that English as an international language.
Then, next, by the reason of globalization, the people around the world in great numbers endeavor hard to master English even those who are not the English speakers. They study hard in order to be able to speak English fluently and correctly. In addition, they take some courses to make it perfect.
They have a lot of purposes to master English. Some of them want to be English teachers either domestic or international English teachers. Some others want to be international workers, especially in some big companies or industries. Some others want to study out side of their country or it can be said that they want to be international students. And there are many other purposes of which they just want to declare that they are really a part of international Society today.
On one hand, there’s no problem for those who are not English speakers who want to be international citizen. It’s proved that there have been a lot of non native speakers who have got something they intend successfully in this globalization. For example, in our country, there are a lot of foreign specialists who have been white workers. They have become leaders on each position such as, manager, director, or skilled staff of each department. Commonly, they come from America, England, German, France, Australia, and many others. Contrarily, there have been a lot of Indonesians who have worked in other countries too. For instance, in America, Malaysia, Singapore, England, Holland, China, Japan, Korea and many others. Although most of them are only blue workers like, housemaids, drivers, mechanics, or cleaning server but the other have become white workers such as directors, managers, or secretaries in some big international companies or industries. They are required to speak English. Then, as the result, this condition has described us that English is a kind of Communication language that can bring us to be international citizen.
However, on the other hand, there are a lot of people who fail to be international citizen too. Why?! Because they have problems in mastering or even speaking in English. English, as an international language, is a very complicated language with a great number of complicated problems. Therefore, not all people can master English easily. This reality has been shown by some facts. From the lowest part of the proof, in Indonesia, there are a lot of non native speakers from Indonesia who still feel difficult to speak in English. They feel confused to pour their thought trough their mouth. Why do they feel confused to pour their thought trough their mouth?! Or why do they feel like that?! Some possible answers are: first, because they can’t understand about grammatical construction rightly. Second, they can’t analyze body language in English. Third, they can’t master lesson about pronunciation and intonation and so on. Therefore, not being able to speak English, make them fail of being international citizen.
However, out of the problems above, whether or not we can be international citizen successfully, we have to be aware that today, we are in globalization era. It is an era which is full of strict global competition so that from now let’s view and ask our selves. Have we been real international citizen?! If not yet, let’s start from here to master English. Why should English?! Because English, that is agreed by the International Society, is a facility to communicate one another among the International People. Let’s make our English ability perfectly and then become successful international citizens in this globalization, right?!?!?!?!?!?