SUMMARY AND SUGGESTIONS
The following is my Summary for the 7th Batch of SEA TEACHER Project and my Suggestions for the Improvement for the 8th Batch:
Purposes of the Practicum
According to SEAMEO, the following are the purposes or objectives of this practicum:
1. To enable pre-service student teachers to develop their teaching skills and pedagogy
2. To encourage the pre-service student teachers to practice their English skills
3. To allow the pre-service student teachers to gain a broader regional and world view
4. To expose future teachers to diverse teaching and learning situations and opportunities, and the value of flexibility.
As for myself, I clearly attained objectives 1, 3 and 4. Through this practicum, I have given a chance to develop my teaching skills and pedagogy in teaching students with a different culture and language. Because of this, I attained the objective 3, I have a broader perspective about the similarities and differences of the Educational system in the ASEAN Region and become a more open-minded educator. The teacher should not impede himself in discovering new techniques in teaching because the teacher should prepare himself to be a global educator—which means flexibility should be the number one characteristic. In this case, I clearly attained objective number 4.
However, I did not attain fully the objective number 2. The reason why is that, majority of the students and teachers cannot speak English fluently. Therefore, I tend to communicate in simple way and sometimes I do not mind my Grammar at all since I understand that they do not care about it.
Procedures of Practicum
Overall, the procedures of the practicum are smooth sailing. SMA Negeri 1 Cangkringan welcomed us warmly. The environment is enjoyable for us to teach. The teachers are approachable when we needed help. The students are well disciplined making the practicum easier. As what I observed and experienced, the students do not complain when I ask them to do classroom activities. Moreover, what I admired and found fulfilling is the culture here in Indonesia called Salim. During our practicum, we have twice tried to stand in front of the gate, greeting students Selamat Pagi! while they are putting their hands in their forehead then place it in their hearts after. It really shows respect to teachers and even to us as student teachers.
The Challenges of Practicum
The following are the challenges that I faced during my practicum:
I am not used to eating spicy food. Most of the food in Indonesia is really spicy.
Language barrier between my cooperating teacher. She cannot speak English making it a hard time to communicate and ask suggestions on how to improve my teaching skills based on her perspective.
The language barrier between my students. Majority of my students are not used to speaking English. They know how to speak but they were shy to speak. I experience that only 1 student inside the class can speak English confidently and fluently.
Overall impression
In a rating scale of 1 to 10, 1 is the lowest and 10 is the highest; I am giving the SEA TEACHER Project a rating of 8.5. Overall, I enjoyed and I found my practicum fulfilling. SMA Negeri 1 Cangkringan gave me a chance to be a flexible and adaptable teacher. Universitas Islam Indonesia, on the other hand, took good care of us. We have great accommodation and service. We also have amazing buddies which help us throughout the practicum. They were all friendly and approachable making them not just buddies but FRIENDS.
The remaining 1.5 is discussed in Suggestions and Future Improvements.
Suggestions for Future Improvement
I have two suggestions for Future Improvement of the SEA TEACHER Project.
Number one is to extend the duration of the program. One-month is good but not enough to fully grasp and immerse in the culture of the country the SEA Teachers have been deployed. The one-month internship should be changed to 3 months or 6 months.
Secondly, I would like to share that our receiving university, Universitas Islam Indonesia gave us free BIPA Class (Bahasa Indonesia Language Class for Foreigners) before they deployed us to our host school. In that class, we learned about the basic expressions and words of Bahasa. It greatly helped us throughout our practicum and while staying here at Indonesia. Because of that class, we know how to count in Bahasa, the currencies of Bahasa, transportation, the names of the goods that we want to buy in the market and even how to bargain to the sellers.
I suggest that maybe the all the participating schools of the SEA TEACHER project could also provide that kind of language class to the SEA Teachers before they will deploy to the field. So, aside from developing English, the students can learn another language, in a more deeper and meaningful way.