My First Day to Become a Schoolteacher

Monday, January 9th is my first day to become a schoolteacher. It’s still unbelievable that I can be here and become a schoolteacher. Yes, the day is TODAY!

I woke up at 5 A.M. Last night, I prepared teaching material until 10 P.M. It’s not easy for me to wake up at 5 A.M but I decided to escape from my comfort zone by setting my alarm at 5 A.M. After I took a bath, I went to school on foot. I hadn’t had my breakfast so I tried to find a small restaurant near the school. Having finished my breakfast, I entered the school. I was very enthusiastic to start teaching today but I was also a little bit nervous. I was not really confident to start teaching. Two of my friends sent me an SMS to encourage me. It meant a lot and I thanked for that.

Today, there was no flag ceremony because the school used the time to do “perwalian” things. It was a kind of habit for my school to do this in the beginning of semester. I felt so relief because I still had time to take a breath for a while. The schedule showed me that I would start teaching at 9.20 A.M (3rd period). In the middle of having small talk with my colleagues, the headmaster and vice headmaster of curriculum approached me and asked me to enter X class (1 class in senior high school). I said that was not my time to teach. However, the headmaster said that I would be introduced to the students in X class because I had to replace the task of previous teacher to be a class advisor (wali kelas). It was quite shocking for me. To be honest, I am not ready for that responsibility. I am new here and they appoint and trust me to be one of the class advisors.

I entered the class with the headmaster and the vice headmaster of curriculum. They introduced me in front of my students. It’s my FIRST class where I was introduced. After that, they left me alone in the class for one hour. Gosh, what should I talk to the students? Trying to think fast, I called their name in order to get closer with them. Whether I liked to be a class advisor or not, I had to help my students in X class. I tried to ask them about the tasks of class advisor because I had not known the tasks yet! CRAZY, yes, it’s crazy! I tried to control my thought so that I could give my best to the students. I asked them what a class advisor should be. I began to think that I was very lucky to be their class advisor because they were very nice and cooperative. They wanted to share many things to me and it meant they accepted me. I thanked God for this. I enjoyed my time sharing many things with my students and we didn’t realize that the time for “perwalian” was up. They were awesome! The next teacher was waiting for me to leave the class. Big sorry for that, Bu!

At 9.20 A.M., again, I entered X class. I continued discussing many things related to class advisor. Finally, we could make some deals that we would like to cooperate very well during this semester. After we finished discussing everything related to class advisor, we began the lesson. Unfortunately, the lesson was not about English. I tried to ask my students make a kind of “class contract” which stated what  the students must/mustn’t do during English class. I believe that the class contract can help me manage my class later on. The students shared their opinion and we made a kind of agreement. It was very nice to have this activity. I plan to type the class contract, print it, and then ask my students to sign the class contract so that I can show them the contract when they are breaking the rules of the class. Of course, I will also sign the contract. Hopefully, it works to help me manage my class. From the contract, I thought I had made a brave deal with my students which were allowing them to drink and eat candies during my class as long as they keep their promise to put the candy-packing into the dustbin. Again, I could enjoy teaching in X class.

Well, I had one period to take a rest before teaching to the next class until I had to enter XI IPS class. Before entering the class, I had to erase my bad perceptions toward social class which were naughty, noisy, etc. I confidently entered the class. There were only 11 students in that class. However, they were very nice. Nobody was naughty. Everybody was nice! Big thanks again, God! After teaching XI IPS, I continued teaching at XI IPA 2. There were 20 students in the class. When I was entering the class, the class was really noisy. Some students were still having their lunch. Well, that’s really OK and I said that I wanted to wait for them finishing their lunch. After everyone was ready to start the lesson, I began to introduce myself. FYI, I had the same activities both in XI IPS and XI IPA 2. Having finished introducing myself, I called their name one by one in order to get closer to them. They were really nice, too. Unfortunately, some students seemed so provocative. When I asked them to make a class contract, some students proposed unpredictable opinions. Well, I had to use my authority as the teacher to decide which one was OK and which one was not. Finally, I have three different class contract today. Anyway, I still have one class which has not made a class contract. I have not entered one class, XI IPA 1.

I really enjoyed my first time and I want to thank God and everyone who has supported and prayed for me. Oh ya, I also got a touching moment from my first day of teaching at school. Several days ago, two of my students had their birthday and their friends wanted to celebrate their birthday today because they just came back from their long holidays. Those students were under my class advisor. They were the students of X class. They prepared a birthday cake for their friends. In the first break time (10 A.M), they gave the cake to the students who just had their birthday several days ago. They also put some cream on their friends’ face. It was fun but they made the floor along the corridor in front of their class dirty. After the bell to start the 5th period rang which was my time to continue teaching there, they were still busy cleaning the floor. They felt sorry to me. I gave my tissues to them to clean their friends’ face. Having finished cleaning everything we started the discussion again. It’s so sorry to give them an advice that they should give the cake after the school period ends so that their friends will not get dirty while joining the lesson. I said to them also that I was very happy because they wanted to care to their friends by remembering their friends’ birthday and giving a birthday cake to them. It was awesome but the time was not right.

While I was teaching in XI IPA 2 class, suddenly, some of my students from X class knocked the door of XI IPA 2 class. I opened the door and surprisingly they gave me a piece of birthday cake. It was so touching, dear! We just met today but you had touched something sensitive inside of my body. After the lesson finished, I brought that cake happily to my office and ate it there. My colleagues were happy that my students could accept me in the first day. So am I, I am COMPLETELY happy today.

There are still many things that I must do. First, I should print and copy a form to be filled my students in X class so that I can know them more and get closer to them. Besides, I have to prepare for tomorrow’s material. Then, I also should prepare my students to join Lampung Overland Various English Competition held by Lampung University which consists of debate, storytelling, scrabble, speech, news casting, and quick and smart competitions. It was also surprising because my colleagues asked and trusted me to prepare my students for that competition. I remembered my time when I was still in the university and had to prepare for English Action Days. Fighting!

Oh yes, I have not took a bath, sent my dirty clothes to the nearest laundry station, and got something to eat for my dinner. All in all, I enjoy this day! This day is completely SUPER! I could not do this without God, my family, my colleagues, and friends’ support, and also my beloved students.

Final Reflection

Finally, my friends and I can follow the process to become a professional English teacher with Mr.Prast in Micro Teaching class this semester. I am happy that I can be the part of that process. Thank you very much, Mr.Prast and my classmates.

I have learned many things during the process. I learned not only to become a professional English teacher but I also learned to become a good listener, speaker, reader, and also writer for my future career. Regarding to my final score of Micro Teaching course, I am sure that everyone wants to get an A in every subject but it will depend on many things. Honestly, I also want to get an A in every subject but my lecturers know my achievement. So, I put all decisions related to my final score on my lecturers’ hands. hehehe….

Now, I can bravely say, “I’m ready to be a teacher!!”

Reflection of My Final Test

I was so challenged since I had to teach writing skill for the first grade students of junior high school. I thought that teaching writing was not easy. I always avoid teaching writing and I preferred to choose reading or speaking skills to teach. That was why teaching writing was challenging at that time. One day before teaching, I consulted my lesson plan to Mr.Prast. In my opinion, having consultation before teaching really helped me in preparing everything. I began the lesson that day by giving a game to my friends. Mr.Prast asked me to find interesting set induction so that my students could be more enthusiastic to join my lesson. I asked my students to guess what was inside an envelope that I had prepared since I was going to teach how to write a simple descriptive text. My students had to ask some clues which were actually for yes/no questions. However, I did not explain that they had to ask yes/no questions to get the clues. So, that set induction did not really work. It would be better if I explained the type of questions that my students should ask. After that, I delivered the handouts to my students as the example of a good descriptive text. Mr.Prast showed me the steps of teaching writing which are modeling, joint-construction, and final writing. Then, I explained about the generic structures of a descriptive text. However, I explained it through another text which I showed using projector. I provided blanks spaces about the generic structures of that text and asked my students to answer the generic structures. In my opinion, it worked. After that, I asked them to work in pairs and brainstormed any idea that came in their mind about certain topics. In my opinion, it was the step which is called joint-construction while students brainstorm any idea about a topic. However, it seemed that I misunderstood what actually joint-construction meant. Next, I asked my students to write a simple descriptive text based on the topic they had chosen and brainstormed individually. After they finished writing a descriptive text, I asked them to exchange their work to their pair and analyzed whether their friends’ writing used correct generic structures and other characteristics of a descriptive text. Here, I also could check how far and deep my students had understood descriptive text that they expressed in their writings. In my opinion, I have accomplished the goals of my lesson. However, I still need to improve my grammar and pronunciation. I also realized that my way in teaching was still teacher-centered since I spoke too much during the lesson. One unusual thing that occurred during the lesson was that I did whistling to attract students’ attention. Hehe… I learned it from a guest from the United Kingdom which came to one of my class just several hours before I had Micro Teaching Class. I should not do whistling since for Indonesian students it might be impolite, but for students in the United Kingdom it might be fine. I would not do whistling anymore while teaching. Finally, it was done. I was very happy that I could practice teaching in Micro Teaching Class. Hopefully my friends and I can apply everything good that we get from Micro Teaching Class while we are teaching later on, especially when we have our PPL.

Reflection of My First Mid-Term Test

This week was the chance for me to have first mid-term test.

My first mid-term test 1 was conducted in Micro Teaching Laboratory. At that time, I taught ten grade students of senior high school and reading skill became the focus of my teaching. I had to explain about news item text. I was happy that I had to teach reading skill since I thought teaching reading is the easiest skill to teach compared to the other language skills. However, I found some difficulties in teaching reading at that time. I only prepared one reading passage. At first, I thought that it would help me to really focus on one text only so that I could explain deeper about news item text. Unfortunately, it did not really work. It made me difficult to decide what to do next if my students had already finished doing the exercises related to the first reading passage. I learned that it would be better if I prepared another reading passage to help me in case my students had finished doing the exercises related to the first reading passage. Luckily, I could find other activities such as making jokes, asking some impromptu questions to my students, so that I would not lack of material to teach at that time. In my opinion, preparing more than one reading passage can also be used to make sure that my students really understand the topic.  I can use the first reading passage as the model or as the example to explain the material and then I use my second reading passage for the drill activity. That is one thing that I have learned from my first mid-term test.

At that time, I only wrote down the title of the reading passage in the whiteboard as the set induction. After that, I asked my students to share their opinion whenever they read that kind of title. I wrote many things that my students said on the whiteboard. Luckily, my set induction worked well.  I learned it from one senior who was practicing class teaching in below semester. At that time, she taught in Intensive Reading 2 Class. It really worked well at that time. Therefore, I used this method for my set induction. Then, I asked my students to read fast. I limited the time so that my students could really learn how to read a text to get the main idea. One mistake that I did was that I only said “OK, class. Now, let’s read the reading passage fast. I will give you SEVERAL TIMES for that!” Mr.Prast suggested me that it would be better if I gave exact time for doing that activity such as 5 minutes, 30 seconds, etc rather than saying ‘several minutes’. Then, I made questions which included 5W & 1H questions since it was a news item text. It would make my students have better understanding, then. It also worked, anyway. Then, I should also improve my grammar and pronunciation. There were still many grammatical mistakes and mispronounced words during my teaching practice. I will improve them later on. All in all, I was very happy today that I have done my best in my first mid-term test so my teaching goals could be accomplished. Thank God, I could make it!

I also learned many things from my friends’ performances in this week. First, I learned to be more enthusiastic in teaching my students later on since my friends who were very enthusiastic (in their own style) could raise students’ enthusiasm to study  too compared to those who were not really enthusiastic in teaching the students. Then, I also learned not to be the center of the activity when I was teaching my students. It should be my students who become the center of the activity. I should be able to encourage students’ willingness to be active during the lesson. My friends and I have done our best that day. It was really a great experience we had!

Reflection of My Second Mid-Term Test

This time, I would like to reflect my performance when I was teaching my junior in semester 4. I taught Public Speaking 1 Class and Miss Mega Wulandari, S.Pd was the lecturer of that class. I chose Public Speaking 1 Class because I knew that one topic in that class was about debate. I like debate, anyway. Thank God, Miss Mega asked me to teach debate in her class. It was the first luck that I got. Two weeks before teaching, I observed the students and the classroom so that I could prepare everything well before teaching. I had known many students in that class since we had cooperated together in many events held by English Education Study Program such as English Action Days and English Welcoming Days. That was the next luck that I got.

The “D” day to teach came. I had consulted my lesson plan to Miss Mega and she also gave me feedback one day before teaching so that I could revise it to be better. I entered the class 15 minutes before the class began to set up everything. Honestly, I was really nervous at that time because I had to teach my juniors when I had not done my first mid-term test in Micro Teaching Class. I was optimistic that I could give my best becoming a professional English teacher. I began the lesson by giving my sincere smile and warm greeting. It was to overcome my nervousness and to be friendlier to my students. It worked, anyway! Then, I showed them some words which were related to debate and asked them to guess today’s topic. They could guess today’s topic easily. I was still safe. lol… Next, I explained everything about debate using PowerPoint slides. In my opinion, using PowerPoint slides would help them to have better understanding about the lesson. Besides, the slides also helped me to explain about debate. I now realized that explaining about debate was not easy. Some of the students looked so confused but they did not ask anything to me. I continued my teaching. They seemed more confused. Looking that condition, I asked them to work in groups to practice debate. It was really true that practice made perfect. Through practice, my students could raise some questions related to debate. It made me easier to explain the materials. After that, they practiced debate again still in their groups. I moved around from one group to the other group and checked if they really understood. Some groups could do debate very well but some groups were still shy to speak and they did not really understand how to do debate. After all of them had turn to speak in groups, I asked one representative of each group to deliver her/his arguments and to give rebuttal to the other groups’ arguments. Some students were shy to speak and some students could speak fluently with good arguments and rebuttals. It was normal, anyway! After that, I asked the students about what they had learned that day as the conclusion of the lesson and to make sure that the students really understood what I had explained. Finally, I asked them to give me some comments for the sake of my improvement to be a professional teacher. From that comments, I should improve my grammar and pronunciation. Then, I also found out that some students were jealous that I asked their friends that I had known before to answer my questions or to give opinions about debate. Actually, I chose those students not because I wanted to give different treatment but those students were quite passive during the lesson. I learned to give opportunity for active students to share their opinion or answer my questions later on. Miss Mega also gave me suggestion that I should not read the slides while I was explaining. I should face my students. It was a good suggestion. I was very happy that I could give my best while I was teaching my juniors at that day. Thank God!

The Third Week of Mid-Term Test 1

The teachers of this week were Phe, Susan, Mei, Seto, Ayu, and Ardi. From them, I learned to be friendly when I am teaching my students as Ardi did. Ardi was quite friendly while teaching so that it could create stress-free environment. While some teachers in this week had “expensive smile” which made the students tend not to appreciate the teacher. It does not mean that sharing smile always creates stress-free environment in a classroom but mostly teachers who are friendly help students enjoy the lesson. However, we should control our sense of being friendly so that we still have “authority” in the classroom. The next thing that I could learn from the teachers was that we should manage our time well. Some teachers did not manage their time well, for example there was too long set induction or they taught more than the time given (30 minutes). Anyway, I thought that some teachers misunderstood the competence standard and basic competence. As the result, they prepared the materials which were not matched with the standard competence and basic competence. In this case, I learned to really understand any standard competence and basic competence before I prepare materials and teach my students. However, I would like to congratulate the teachers in this week that they had done their best!

The Second Week of Mid-Term Test 1

Nia, Galih, Lucia, and Yovita a.k.a. Eyik got their turn to do their first mid-term test 1. They also have done their best as two previous teachers. I learned some things from their performances. Nia was a funny teacher. She made some jokes during the lesson. It was good to create stress-free environment to learn the lesson. However, she made jokes for unclear purpose. I meant that her jokes were not related to the lesson being taught. Besides, I thought that she did not really master the material since she could not answer some questions asked by the students. I learned to be able to create stress-free environment but I also should keep my “authority” (wibawa) in front of my students by mastering the material well. Then, from Galih performance I learned that we should give suitable material for the students based on the level of the students. In my opinion, the recording that Galih used to teach listening was quite difficult for senior high school students. However, one good thing that I could learn from Galih was that she shared her smile to the students so that the students will fell so comfortable joining the lesson. Next, from Lucia’s performance, I learned how to find a creative teaching technique. Lucia used new technique that I thought it was really creative. Being creative is important in order to be a professional English teacher. However, Lucia’s voice was not loud. It learned to make sure that my voice can be clear when I am teaching later on. The last one was Eyik. Eyik looked nervous when she taught the students although she had prepared very good materials. Perhaps, we should make some jokes in order to create stress-free environment and also to help us overcome nervousness.

The First Week of Mid-Term Test 1

Finally, the day to begin the mid-term test 1 came. It seemed that many students had waited for that day. Wendy became the lucky number one to have teaching practice. From his performance, I learned that as teacher I should be confident standing and explaining the lesson in front of my students later on. Wendy was also very confident in teaching the students. It was great point that he had. Besides, Wendy also produced clear voice with amazing pronunciation. His grammar was good also. I thought it was a great starting point that he could be a good model for my friends and I who have not had turn to practice. Then, Nidya became the next teacher at that day. It should be Ebo as the second teacher but he dropped Micro Teaching Class, I guessed. Nidya also did nice teaching practice. Both Wendy and Nidya taught Recount text and they made good set induction by relating previous lesson with that day lesson. Nidya was very enthusiastic in teaching the students. In my opinion, it really helped the students enjoyed the class. Unfortunately, Nidya looked so stress as if she had very huge burden to hold although she had been enthusiastic. Hehe… However, I am sure that Nidya and Wendy had done their best.

Meeting Eleven

This meeting was the last meeting for me and my classmates to have class practice before we haveour first progress test in Micro Teaching Class. In this meeting, every student seemed ready to take this golden opportunity to do class teaching practice. Phe was the lucky person who took that opportunity. From Phe’s performance, I learned to have clear and correct pronounciation while teaching. Phe had very good pronunciation. It made the students understood the lesson. It was one point that worked well in Phe’s performance. Besides, Phe has also moved around the class to control the students. It is very important to do to make sure that all students follow the lesson well, especially for those who sit in the back. Unfortunately, there was one thing that did not work well in Phe’s performance. She had prepared some pieces of materials and then gave them all to the students. However, she only discussed the first page. It was better to select important materials rather than to give all of the materials to the students without any explanation and discussion. All on all, Phe had practiced well.

Meeting Ten

What I have said in the last reflection was proven…

I said and believed that experience is the best teacher. Because Mr.Prast was disappointed in the last meeting, my friends and I have prepared the material to have a class teaching practice. It seemed that everyone at that time were ready to volunteer themselves to have a class teaching practice. Wendy was bravely to be the volunteer to practice teaching. It was a good progress that we have. CONGRATULATIONS!

Then, from Wendy’s performance, I learned many things. One thing that did not work well was Wendy’s method in teaching the students. Whether he realized it or not, he has applied teacher-centered teaching method while he was teaching the students. In my opinion, the students were supposed to be active in the class, not the teacher. The teacher’s role is only to motivate the students to be active to find the knowledge by themselves. For example, the students may create their own term to indicate the generic structure of a text. It will help them to get complete knowledge rather than using common terms of a text but they do not understand what the terms are. However, over all, Wendy has practiced well. One good thing that worked well on Wendy’s performance was he only made few grammatical mistakes and mispronounced words. It is important for an English teacher to have good grammar knowledge and pronunciation.