It was 3 PM on Monday, October 28, 2019 when I had just arrived at my boarding house after the “Community Service x Malam Keakraban Faculty of Education 2019”. The event was held at Pulau Pari which required me and other FoE family to cross the sea by riding the ship for about 2 to 3 hours. I then still needed to take the bus or car to finally arrive at my boarding house. I was of course so tired, moreover there were so many activities that we had to do during the 3 days 2 nights event. Arriving at the boarding house, I directly prepared myself to sleep. I was worried that I would not be able to wake up on time the next day, because if I did, I would probably give a bad first impression to the school where I do my School Experience Program (SEP) this semester.
This time I am assigned to do my SEP at Global Islamic School (GIS) Condet. This time, I have to complete the peer teaching activities during the two weeks at school. There were no other English Language Teaching students from my cohort who is assigned at the same school which means I have to do the peer teaching with the teacher from GIS. I have mixed feelings: happy because the school is not too far away from my boarding house, worried that I will not be able to fulfill the school’s expectations, and also curious about how the feel to finally teach in a real classroom situation. I myself have ever heard about GIS: it is a private school with a good reputation which is also quite famous compared to other private schools in Jakarta. I believe GIS also has great school system which provides students a great environment to learn.
Let’s get started!
And yay! Finally, my first day at school came. Yes, it was literally my first day because I could not join visiting the school before SEP started as I had a midterm on the same day my group went to the school. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to introduce my group members! There are six people in my group including me: Erik (ME 2017), Dhanan (ME 2017), Aulia (ME 2018), Amel (ELT 2018), and Rena (ELT 2018). The five others had arrived first when I arrived then we greeted our mentor teacher. We joined the session where all students at each classroom pray together lead by a student using the speakers. The teachers walked around to monitor the students and our mentor teacher asked us to monitor the second floor area. It was Tuesday, October 29, my mentor teacher had no class on Tuesdays thus my first day was mostly about introduction and we also tried to help doing the administration things a little bit.
Oh ya! On this first day, I actually found something so interesting and shocking. At that time, I was sitting with my mentor teacher near the front door to make sure that no students go out during the teaching and learning progress. There was this one student who did not come into the classroom and stayed sitting in front of his classroom. My mentor teacher then called him and asked why he did not come to the classroom even though the bell rang. He then approached us and my mentor teacher asked him once more why. He then said, “Saya lagi mikirin hidup saya, Bu.” and suddenly cried. I was instantly reminded about the Social Emotional Learning assignment: how should I apply SEL in my classroom later?
So this is how teachers prepare materials.
The next day, Wednesday (30/10), I started talking with my mentor teacher about how we divided the parts in preparing the materials, what materials that should be covered in these two weeks period. My mentor teacher then asked me if I could directly teach one full session without her companion. Of course then I explained that I am still not on that level yet, I still need to learn from her and peer teaching is one of the ways that is chosen by campus for me to learn. She then assigned me to create materials about descriptive text. One of the language features she wants the students to learn is passive voice.
My mentor teacher asked me to make a reading comprehension worksheet and give the students some questions to answer, thus I tried to look for reading passages that would fit the students’ level and also the passage that they can relate to. I chose to give students readings about tourism places in Indonesia. I started creating the questions while considering the level of the questions: it should not be too easy nor too hard. As what I learned at the campus, there are several question levels according to bloom’s taxonomy. I tried to follow the characteristics explained and discussed it with my mentor teacher. She then commented on the materials I created, I changed what she said is less and also received some compliments.
On Thursday (31/10), we joined the students’ activity which is sports day. If we are usually obligated to wear formal attire to teach, on that day we were allowed to wear casual clothes. Our mentor teacher told us to bring the formal attire and change our casual clothes once the sport events ended. During the sports day event, we joined students playing jump rope, playing volleyball, watching them playing basketball, and futsal. Remember the boy I mentioned before? If at that time he looked frustrated, during the sports day he looked more relaxed, enjoying the activities and also was so active in participating. I was so curious about him but unfortunately I did not get the chance to teach his class as he is in the twelve grade, while I was assigned to teach the ten grade.
After the sports day ended, my mentor teacher asked me to change my clothes and prepare for teaching using the materials I created the day before. The class that I attended was Ten Science I. Before, the teachers have told me how the characteristics of GIS students. Most of them are so active, hyperactive. The difference is, the students from natural science major can be controlled easier compared to those who are from social science major. That description is just so right. When I was teaching, I was a bit flustered. Most of the students in the class were talking on their own, even though I have raised my voice volume. Moreover the teacher really left me teaching alone some time after the class started she had a sudden meeting for the school event. I was actually helped by Amel and Rena, even though they are actually still not allowed to teach, the ended up helping me controlling the students.
Not all the materials could be done on that day: one of the materials that has not been covered is passive voice. There are several points that I could take notes from the session: It is maybe because I have not gained students’ trust thus they did not really pay attention to me, I have not known which teaching methods that will be best for teaching these types of students, besides I also did not get any chance to observe the classes I will be teaching beforehand, I will tell you why in the following reflections, which also makes me think that the possibility to observe the students is indeed small.
Helping grading is eventually not easy.
Weekend has ended and here comes Monday (4/11)! This time the teacher asked me to help her grading the worksheets which were done by students in the previous session with me and also students from other classes which was taught by my mentor teacher as I was not able to attend the school on Friday (1/11). She explained how to grade the worksheet, gave me the book where I should insert the grade, mentioned the characteristics for grading, and also allowed me to ask her anytime I need her help. I started grading the students’ works. Some writings were so hard to read because of the unique writing style, some had not completed the task yet, some had done a great job, there are so many types of students which ready to amaze me once more.
Grading which I expect would not be too long before, turned out to consume quite a long time because of those students’ different characteristics. When I have done grading all the works, I insert the grades on the book my mentor teacher gave me. In this grading book, there are so many columns which have different kind of worksheets and should be filled with students' score. In the end of the semester, those scores would be calculated to know the final score for each students. Then I started thinking, how about the students who had not done their works? Their score would be empty and it is teacher's duty again to make another exercise for students. Wow, teacher. What a job!
Tuesday (5/11) came again, means I will not have any duty at the school since my mentor teacher has no class on Tuesdays. This time I helped my mentor teacher to stand by near the front door to monitor students. Then she asked me to make another worksheet, but this time she wanted it to be more focused on understanding passive voices. She suggested me to write various active sentences and also passive voice, then ask the students to them. I then wrote several sentences with various tenses, different subjects, and also include several complex sentences. Once I have done creating the worksheet, I shared it with my mentor teacher, then she will give me feedback.
Why you need to fail.
On Wednesday (6/11), I was given the chance to teach using the materials I made on Tuesday: reversing sentences (active to passive and vice versa). This time the teacher stayed with me until the middle of the session. I was more comfortable with the students, they were easy to manage too. During the session, while explaining I gave an example to them about how to reverse a sentence. Then I tried to answer, but I intended to answer it incorrectly. When they realized that I made a mistake, I inserted the values of why they need to fail, why it is okay to fail, and mention that because it is part of the learning process itself. I actually want to show them a video related to this value, but the projector in the classroom was not working. There is only one projector that can be used and it has been booked by the other teachers.
I also offered help when they seem to have difficulties in answering the questions. I said to them that I wanted to learn together with them thus it is okay to make mistakes, rather than saying I wanted to teach them and show which one is true or wrong. I found this kind of way to approach students make the class atmosphere more friendly, students seem to be more relaxed and are more interested to ask questions to me. The students also seem to be more open about what they have understood, what they need to know more, what the have not understood yet, so it is easier for me to help them based on their needs.
I also inserted these values when I teach other class on Friday (8/11). Compared to the previous class, this class was quite more crowded. Even when I said that I want to learn together with them, some students seem to be less interested and did not pay attention to me. In the middle of doing the worksheet, there was this group of boys who were talking by themselves and did not do any of the questions. I approached them and asked them why they were not doing it. They carefully answered that they actually have not understood the materials and I responded, “I want to help you, help me so that I am able to help you” sincerely. When I have gained their attention, I said to them, “Okay, let’s learn together!”. Fortunately, I can finally help them and they started to be open to ask me so many questions.
This is the routine!
Another Monday (11/11) greets! This day my mentor teacher assigned me to grade the worksheets done by students then create another worksheet, again. I understand, this is the routine of being teachers: preparing materials, worksheets, grading/assessing, then come back to the first again. My mentor teacher asked me to search for a song that can be used as a material for reviewing students’ understanding on passive voice. We discussed what kind of activities that would be interesting and engaging, missing lyrics turn out to be our discussion result. I started creating the missing lyrics worksheet, choosing a song which is not popular to the students so it would not be too easy for them but also a song which still fits students’ interest, deciding which lyrics to erase, and so on.
But unfortunately, I could not know how this worksheet is used in the classroom because the next day, Tuesday (12/11), is our farewell. Hey, but I have learned so much from my mentor teacher, from my students, from the school as a whole. It was an experience which is so full of fruit: fruitful.
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