English As An Important Aspect In The World Of Work (ESSAY)

All over the world, human needs are not only limited to food, shelter, and clothing. Many other needs have arisen with the times. Similarly, Indonesian society has faced this economic problem too. To meet all these needs, it needs a job with a decent salary.

Unfortunately, as the increasing number of population in Indonesia, it makes job vacancies more difficult to get. Moreover, we have entered the era of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). This situation makes Indonesian young people harder in getting decent jobs. To get a decent job, we need some special skills, for instance, leadership, decision making, time management, soft skills, and many more. However, there is one crucial factor that is forgotten by Indonesians youngsters, it is communication skills.

Communication is a media to convey and accept ideas or opinions either verbally or nonverbally. Communication skills have a huge impact on someone's work performance. In particular, this skill is giving effects on work performance including increased productivity, raised business profit, improved employee retention, and created a healthier work environment.

Of course, communication skills require language as its media. As a result of the development of globalization, the use of English as the language of instruction is increasingly crucial. Thus, English language skills are needed to support one's abilities to compete in the world of work. But pathetically, the English skill of Indonesian's youngster (in middle and high school) is at 61st out of 100 countries based on the world's largest ranking of countries and regions by English skills 2019. While among Asia, Indonesia is standing at 13 out of 25 countries. This fact is ironic but inevitable. This is one of the causes that make us left behind.

The reason why it could be happen is our English education system. The English education system in Indonesian schools mostly is still unsuccessful. The school learning system is still 'classic'. In the learning process, teachers in schools still rely on the classical lecture method by only using learning media in the form of books. Whereas in fact, in the era of the industrial revolution 4.0, traditional education where it is using pen and paper media should have been combined with more interactive and integrated learning media such as animation and many more. It can make the students' enthusiasm to grow up. So, the students can feel enjoy and happy in the learning process. Hopefully, with that pleasure, they can like and master English.

Another way to increase English skills among our generation is to make learning English as a lesson that requires a lot of practice in it, not just material. Many teachers only teach English on the blackboard. The teachers seemed to teach English only to be memorized as preparation for the exam, not as a language that was practiced in daily life. To change this perception, many roles are needed, such as the role of government in producing an appropriate curriculum for English, training in teacher training, and teacher supervision. And also, the moral support students receive in the school and community environment also plays a role in changing this. Moral support can be in the form of support to students who use English in everyday conversation and also do not mock when they mispronounce in English. All of these things can encourage students to learn English seriously.

To conclude, many skills are needed to face harsh competition at work. One of them is communication skills in English. To master the language, appropriate learning styles are needed in English education. It is by combining traditional teaching styles with modern learning media and practicing English regularly. These things are intended to make students can master English. So, they are able to compete in the workforce and meet their daily needs.