Peer

1

Alamsyah

Ignatius Alamsyah

Prof. Fernando Pérez

ENGL 101

1 February 2021

Code Switching is Difficult

I was born in Semarang Indonesia, a small city in the Central of Java. As an Indonesian, I was born around Indonesian culture and I was taught by my parents how to speak Bahasa Indonesia, not English. In the modern era, more and more people are moving to study abroad. And I am one of them. From my everyday life, I have switched between Indonesian and English to communicate, between me with my parents, and my classmates.

Since I was a kid, I always being pushed by my parents to study English. Although they don’t speak English at all, they still pushed me to learn English. I am happy enough to have the opportunity to learn English since I was six. But, before all of this, I nearly never use my English. I entered Bellevue College by Fall 2020, and I have never been in a situation where I have to use English that much. When I mean much, in my opinion, it is still wasn’t that much. I still considered myself an introvert among my classmates.

As an international student, code switching happens to me in the most essential moment of studying. Esen mentioned that code switching occurs “mostly in bilingual communities” (Esen Code Switching: Definition, Types, and Examples). Moving to the United States from where I am right now has not been an easy path for me. Even my physical self is still in Indonesia, I already felt some of the culture shock. As an Indonesian, I realize that I have a lot of Indonesian friends. And right now, I don’t even have any international friends that I communicate with every day. I joined a group of Indonesian Catholic Students of Seattle, and most of them are already sophomores or juniors, and so, they have already moved to the United States. During this hard time, where I am still taking remote classes from Indonesia, they are the ones who I used my English the most to, from outside classes. Even though it is still mixed Indonesian-English, not pure American English.

When I was talking to my seniors who have been moving and staying in the US, most of them use mixed Indonesian English, something like “You mau makan apa?” that means “What do you want to eat?” to be honest, at first, I was not comfortable with that kind of language. As I was growing up around strong Indonesian culture, that kind of sentence was odd for me. It is either to use Indonesian, or English. And just that.

From time to time, the more frequent conversation we held, the more I started to realize the convenience that I wasn’t even thinking about that style ever before. I feel like the impact of words in English is somehow greater than in Bahasa Indonesia. Also, it is sometimes more effective to use English. By using the second language, “allows speakers to increase the impact of their speech and use it in a more effective manner” (Esen Code Switching: Definition, Types, and Examples).

 As my family and Indonesian friends do not speak English at all, to be honest, it is hard for me to switch every time I have to communicate with my peers. I can write something like this, but I am still not comfortable with my work. I still have to check it with Grammarly and stuff like that. When I first assigned 250 words essay, it took me around 4 hours to finish. As an international student who have never use English in a real-life situation ever before, no family involvement, and few relationships with an English speaker, it has been a rough path for me. I felt the same thing with Amy Tan about my parent’s language influence for me she mentions “it is affecting me how to speak English with proper grammar. And I believe that it affected my results on achievement tests, I.Q. tests, and the SAT. While my English skills were never judged as poor, compared to math, English could not be considered my strong suit” (Mother Tongue, by Amy Tan). I don’t know, if it is just me with slow language development, or just my thoughts that a communication with an English speaker is essential in developing good English. But as the time goes, I started to feel more and more comfortable with where I am right now, as I also have a strong desire to pursue an international career, not just in Indonesia.

Works Cited

Esen, Seckin. “Code Switching: Definition, Types, and Examples.” Owlcation, 2 Jan. 2019, owlcation.com/humanities/Code-Switching-Definition-Types-and-Examples-of-Code-Switching.

Tan, Amy. “Mother Tongue.” www.u.arizona.edu/~sab4949/mother.html.