“My Teacher Taught Me to Focus on My Speaking Skill at First”: A Portrait from an Islamic Boarding School Student on His Foreign Language Acquisition Process

Modern English has forsaken the traditional English tenet. The endeavour on the shift of modern eductaional needs has been studied by myriad researchers. Thus, the current study inquires the learning style change of an Islamic boarding school student, providing novelty to the identity struggle in an initial teacher education context. A narrative inqury design was piloted in this study, recruiting Arif (pseudonym) from a pesantren (Islamic boarding school) in Probolinggo. Moreover, the current study uncovered that Arif used to consider grammar in speaking. Focusing grammar in speaking was the drawback of Arif when he tried to speak English fluently. He should think twice before produce the sentence. Therefore, he changed his learning style on focussing on the meaning after listening to the sheikh of the Islamic boarding school. The condition unconsciously adhered to the World Englishes notion that English does not belong to anyone but the speaker itself (Kirkpatrick, 2010; Wei, 2020). He believed that the new learning style may improve his speaking skills.