Talk Less, Do More?

I just read an article in the blog that I randomly found after clicking over a link in twitter page. It was quite interesting for me because the writer wrote exactly the same topic I have discussed with my Dutch classmate here in Rotterdam. She came to me with a question, why other Indonesian students were so quite in the class? Then I replied, maybe they feel their English was not good enough. She thought this was not the case, because she talked with them and they have good English, at least she could easily understand what they were talking. I came up with another answer, maybe they did not need to ask because they already know the answer, we are Indonesian, yes, we are small but we are not stupid. She smiled at me and told me that she thought that was not the answer. Then I gave up. However, I took her point.

There are 11 out 26 of us, Indonesian, in the class. But like my friend said, we were never dominating the “noise”. We barely asked the questions and discussed the arguments. I am among the students that quite active in classroom. It is because I am interested in the subject and I just want to improve my English. I barely ever attend formal English course. The only English course I had was for the TOEFL preparation. Almost like other Indonesian students, I have studied English in junior and senior high school and that’s only few hours a week in which we never really practice it. Maybe that’s the reason why I frequently make mistakes when I speak and write in English. I want to change it and I believe practice is the only possibility.

I am not afraid asking a silly question in class. Why? Because by asking the question, even the stupid one, I learn at least two things. First, I am practicing my English, formulating the sentence, choose right words and finally verbalize it. Another reason is I got the answer for my question, even only to find that it was the stupid question, at least I knew it and try to ask better question next time. Not to mention other reasons such us keep focus on the subject, understand it better and even get attention from the lecturer that you are interested in things that she or he talking about. It is nice to know that someone have an interest with something you said, isn’t it?

So, why Indonesian are so quite? I could say that we understand the lecture. However, I believe that there are some details that need to be more clarified. Students from other countries usually take the initiative to ask this kind of questions. They are more outspoken and open. They asked what they want to ask, without hesitation. I think it was coming from the culture. To be honest, asking the question is not really part of our school culture, or at least mine. Asking a question sometimes interpreted as your inability to understand the subject, and you don’t want others know that you don’t understand. They will laugh at you for sure! And believe me, at that time, that was really not cool. Fortunately, I had learned something, being cool is not helping you to understand the subject and get a good marks. 

I don’t know the exact answer of the question. The thing that I know is, other people see us, Indonesian, as quite-people in class but very much noisy outside, especially when we have two or more fellow Indonesian with us. Is it really matter? I don’t know, I am not the one to judge. As long as we stick to the principle of “talk less do more” then we are okay I think.