SOCIOLINGUISTICS

Name : Andika Daffa Anshari

Class :A

ID : 162122011

RESPONS ESSAY

In this era, foreign language education has become a significant phenomenon for teacher and students
alike. Responding to personal or professional needs, people needs to learn a foreign language to qualify
for education abroad, to communicate with colleagues in international corporations, or to prepare
themselves for travel, it shows how important learning foreign language. Same goes with teaching foreign
language. I case of foreign language teaching, it has two goals. The first, typically realized in the
classroom, is that students learn the formal properties of a language and get some practice using it in
communicative situations. The second goal, realized outside the classroom, is that students actually
communicate with people in an L2 environment (Cook, 1999).

In my perspective as a foreign language teacher, like what Cook (1999) said, I think learning foreign
language in the classroom is a great way start learning foreign language. Students get a chance to meet
others who want to learn a language and grow from one another. Complexities like verb tense,
conjugation and other details of the construction of language are easier learned in the classroom, a “safe
space” where mistakes are welcomed. Students can explore the bones of a language before adding more
vocabulary through immersive experience. Once students are comfortable in the classroom, an immersive
experience can bring their language skills to the next level. As for example, they prepare for international
travel, they can try to spend time with people for whom their language learning is a native tongue. They
can go to conversation, read books in the language that they are learning, and even watch TV shows in it.

That means, foreign language educations have a great deal with sociolinguistics. Understanding of
sociolinguistics should included in teaching foreign language because students who already have first
language (L1) will have a set of values cultural awareness that had been taught the whole time during
their lives before they are being introduced to the second language (L2) (Mustaqim, 2017). Many
language researchers have stated that both language and culture are related and it cannot be parted both of
these factors into individual. In fact, the behavior and linguistics values mastered by L1 will cause some
forms of influence toward the L2 learners.

Classroom learning is a great place to start to learning foreign language, and with immersion later on,
students will speaking smoothly in no time. And also it should be noted that, in teaching foreign language,
language teacher's role is not only critical in teaching a language, but also in teaching the cultures and
societies that surround the language. Sociolinguistics and foreign language teaching looks at the
relationship between language and society, and more importantly the importance of showing language in
a real social setting.