Maintaining English Speaking Skill in Their Homeland through Technology: Personal Experience

Ratna Rintaningrum*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

How are children still able to speak in English in their homeland where the English language is not readily available there? The ability to speak English in a setting where the language is not readily available there, is not as easy as people think. Moreover, it becomes a major concern when the status of the language is only a foreign language, meaning that the language is not widely used as a tool of communication. However, in global era where technology develops very rapidly, proficiency in English, in particular, speaking skill is highly demanded. Increasingly, every year international students from Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, Vietnam, China, and Indonesia continue their study in English speaking countries such as the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. Their family such as their wife or their husband as well as their children goes with them for some years to live in an English speaking country. This study investigates a set of efforts concerning the ability of those children to sustain their spoken language in a country where the English language is not there after returning back from an English speaking background. This study employs observation and interview to obtain the data. This study argues that technology is a tool that can be used to maintain children's ability to speak in English under a foreign language setting. This study documents how children keep talking in English where an opportunity to use English is very limited in their country.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)107-119
Number of pages13
JournalAsian EFL Journal
Volume2016
Issue numberSpecialEdition
Publication statusPublished - 2016

Keywords

  • Foreign language setting
  • Maintain
  • Speaking in English
  • Technology

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