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Learning a language other than your first language (L1) is remarkably difficult for
most people. It takes so much effort for the learners to grasp and persistently
practice the new language they learn. They need to have some patience in acquiring
the new components of the target language in order to successfully integrate the
new language into their current language system. Indeed learning another language
is extremely challenging and it demands good endurance and persistence. I have
been experiencing it since I was a child. My first or native language is the Sarawak
Malay language, and the second langu age (L2) that comes after it is the Standard
Malay language. Even so, English has become my L2 as well since it was first
introduced in the curriculum system of education during my primary schooling.

People might have different reasons why they want to lea rn another language
of other speakers. For some people, learning another language might give them
power and advantage to socialize with people of different languages; however, for
me, learning other languages is most influenced by the political system of my country
which is Malaysia. Standard Malay has been the official and most spoken language
of the nation, and this has influenced the way education is brought into people and
society where language is the means of communication and delivery. The
government has made Malay language as the prerequisite subject to level up to the
secondary and university entries; consequently, students n eed to master the
language and get an excellent grade for the Malay subject in order to get into tertiary
institutions.Unlike the Standard Malay, English is considered a foreign language and
it is not a prerequisite to secondary or university entries; however, Malaysia has
made it its official second language to be spoken by its people. This is due to an
increasingly amount of English speakers i n the country who are actively
communicating using that µnew¶ language as a medium of communication. In
addition, as most sources of knowledge content of critical science subjects are
coded in English, people started looking up to master English language and make it
their second language. This has also influenced the educationists to make English as
the second important language after the Standard Malay in schools.

The Standard Malay has been spoken around me since I was seven, but not
at every corner of the classroom or anywhere around the school. The language has
just been used only as a means of communication for some purposes mostly related
to formality; writing a formal letter to the principle, presenting a speech, or
responding to classroom tasks. Most of the time, I practiced Standard Malay during
classroom interactions with guidance from the teacher. This helped me to expand
the vocabulary required to enable me to perform classroom tasks given. Likewise,
English has also been spoken in schools especially during the secondary school.
Though it has been taught since primary school where words and sentences were
first familiarised, most students could not fluently practice using English including
me. I had to look up for meanings in the dictionary every time I wanted to respond to
a particular question given in a task. When I had enough words to make up
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sentences in mind, it was only the moment that I had a chance to practice English
orally especially with my friends.

I was six years old then when I first learnt Standard Malay. I went to a local
kindergarten which was mostly attended by local Sarawakians who spoke Sarawak
Malay. Though the teacher spoke the same language too, she delivered her teaching
in the target language which was the Standard Malay. This had given us the
opportunities to know and get used to the words and sounds of the L2. She had
taught us from single letters to word chunks which I found a good start to learning
the language. She provided the class with a series of vocabulary cards from which I
learnt to pronounce and spell new words. She would present the words first before
the class went after her, and this pattern of remembering w ords went on throughout
the year. Being less important than the Standard Malay, English , however, had only
small parts in daily lessons during this time. We had only few English words
introduced in class of which most of them were known from flashcards and picture
boards. Though we could have the words correctly spelled by imitating or re -writing,
we could not grasp the sounds made of those words. This was fairly due to lack
emphasis of teaching pronunciation by the education system during this time, and
the teacher we had could not teach English as better as she could in Malay perhaps.

Standard Malay had become more complex but interesting during my primary
and secondary schools. It had a lot to offer on learning new structures and specific
components of the language where students were taught on grammar items and
literatures. During primary school, I was introduced to more sentences and word
chunks from which I could apply in authentic daily conversations for soc ial purposes.
These were including basic routine utterances such as greetings, phone
conversations, giving directions, and responding to questions. They were presented
together with pictures which would give me some references to what was being said
in those sentences and chunks. In addition, the teacher would check on my
understanding of the lesson by giving some matching -up activities where I had to
match or find the suitable pictures to be matched with their sentences. Different from
primary level, secondary classes offered a more serious and academically focused
Standard Malay lessons. Students were expected to be able to apply the
components of the language into writing and speaking tasks. My teacher often gave
me tasks such as writing essays, responding to texts, sharing opinions, and peer
reviewing. Through these activities, I learnt different kinds of language expressions
of which were mostly learnt by understanding, sharing and viewing ideas. I also
learnt new words from those activities apart from spelling-bee sessions conducted by
the teacher.

I had my first English lesson when I was seven too. It was essentially focused
on learning new vocabulary which was attained mostly from listening to stories and
on-mate-reading activities. The teacher woul d start a lesson by telling a story from a
picture book, and she would provide a list of English words on the board before we
started listening to the story. While reading the story to the class, she would rela te
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what she was reading to them to the picture s on the book. I found this really helpful
since I could make sense of what was being said in the story. Apart from teaching
vocabulary, English in the primary level emphasized the importance of social
interactions where the teaching contents aimed to enab le students to communicate
English language effectively in social contexts. Accordingly, the lessons would be
centralised on teaching greetings, message delivery and conversation practice; there
would be at least two persons in a group to practice a role -play in which each person
had some dialogues to practice. Through this activity, I was not only getting used to
correct expressions of English, but also making myself comfortable and familiar with
the language. As I got into the upper primary class, however, the lessons were
focused most on written rather than spoken responses. Tasks were mainly requiring
students to write essays with long -complex structures; this was to develop and build
on student¶s knowledge of words and sentence construction.

In secondary school, English language lea rning was still working on what had
been taught during primary, but the complexity of tasks were increased and more
workloads were given. Most of the time, I would have comprehension tasks which
required me to understand whole long passage s from textbook and respond to
questions related to those. I usually had to do some written tasks at home too as the
extension of tasks given in class. This had given me more opportunities to imp rove
my comprehension skills and practice good writing skills as well. Compared to the
primary level, the teaching of English in secondary level focused on independent
learning out of the classroom. Students were expected to have external readings of
English materials at home especially those of educational and info rmational
readings. This would not only give them good exposures to authentic English
materials, but also enhance their vocabulary learning. I still could remember the time
whenevery student was asked to have at least five different types of reading; we
were doing newspaper, magazine, internet article, journal and novel readings. We
would bring to class some of those articles and share what we had with other
students. This was a really interesting way to improve my reading and speaking skills
though it might not be quiet working for some people. English during secondary level
also focused more on the public examination compared to primar y level. This had
influenced the way English lessons were carr ied out in classrooms. Teachers would
only emphasize on particular learning materials needed for the examination. This
would include reading comprehension texts, answering short questions and writing
essays.

When I entered tertiary level, however, practicing Standard Malay was not
really as prominent as practising English. This happened when I enrolled for an
English language teaching course which required me to study and be in the English
speaking community. Admittedly, since then, I was ³fed´ with English language day
to day, but not with the Standard Malay. Standard Malay was only spoken when I
had to talk with my friends whose first language was Standard Malay. Most of the
time, English was the medium of instruction especially during class. This had made
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Standard Malay less spoken throughout the day. Though I could not practice
speaking Standard Malay as frequent as English was, I still could learn and use it
better than English. This might be due to the relatedness of my first la nguage and
the Standard Malay where both are originated from Austronesian family.

Perhaps learning second languages could be different for every learner. It

might be easy for some people, but it could be difficult for some as well. For me,
however, learning other languages than the first language somehow is getting
interesting, but challenging. It takes me so much time and effort in giving in mistakes
and errors to learn second languages. Those mistakes are my true learning where I
find them really important in teaching me what is a ccepted and what is not in the
language system. Though sometimes I might find it quite frustrating when I could not
feel a sense of improvement in my learning, I still try to enjoy and make the learning
process meaningful to me. This is what I believe in s econd language learning where
perseverance makes you the best as you could.

(1801 words)