By the end of the program, I’ve had a good deal of experience working as a teacher. However that does not make me a teacher as I’ve had no formal training. Below is a summary of what a non-education major views the SEA TEACHER internship.
Procedures of Practicum
The procedures of Practicum started with a week of observations where we could watch an Indonesian teacher conduct his/her class. This is so student teachers could observe any cultural differences that affect how the student-teacher dynamic is run, or what kinds of interactions are prevalent. Then, 2 weeks of Practicum are given, generally giving teachers 4-10 classes to teach, varying by program, subject, and individual teacher. A supervising teacher observes once, and then a second sit-in final exam to gauge the student teacher’s performance.
Purpose of Practicum
Because this is a streamlined approach, education majors will quickly be able to implement their knowledge into practice. Then, adjusting for cultural differences, student teachers will find this useful. However, as a non-education major, the idea of teaching felt very rushed and we found ourselves in the middle of the class with only our observations and our own experiences. This, while not meeting my requirements for learning how to teach, was a great way to understand education through direct participation.
Outcomes of Practicum
Gauging the outcomes in terms of my objective performance can only be seen from the evaluations given to me by the mentor and supervising teacher. Although I cannot see the evaluation form, from their general response to my teaching I can assume that I have gained a considerable amount of teaching ability from my short time here. From the students, a few specific reactions that I found significant are the following:
1. More students appeared to be engaged and happier to speak up in class
2. More students seem to have the ability to break down larger concepts into smaller ones for analysis
3. More students were not afraid to speak to me outside of class in English
I cannot gauge the effectiveness of my teaching, but I can at least take pride that students felt more confident and safer to speak English after my involvement.
As for myself, I am happy to say that I feel more confident standing in front of a room of students. I am also more aware of how to notice the struggling students from the high-achieving ones in order to focus my efforts more efficiently. Finally, I find that I have more self-esteem when it comes to teaching, compared to having none before.
The Challenges of Practicum
Teaching is always a challenge, let alone teaching in a foreign country where the classrooms and teaching styles are extremely different from what one has experienced before. The first issue was always finding a middle ground between local teaching styles and your own teaching style. For that, Observation was crucial, but as was simply interacting with the students. However, since the internet has boomed and caused a rise in western pop culture, it was much easier to find similarities between students here and myself.
Other issues were simply that of how to create an effective teaching plan to use for every class that was structured to the needs of all students. I taught 6 different class all of varying levels of English ability, and my challenge was to create a general lesson flow that could be used with all by changing only approaches that would make it understood by the children of high and low achievement. This usually had to be done on the spot as it was impossible to predict the abilities without seeing them first. Where one student may be good at reading comprehension for descriptive text, he/she may also fair poorly on personality descriptions. Thus, being vigilant on the tones and faces of students was a big challenge.
Last was the language barrier. English, as ubiquitous as it already is, still holds more strongly to students of higher-economic class in Indonesia. Thus, this again becomes an issue where I have to pay attention to each student in class. Although, those who come up to me outside of class and those who can talk more about Western culture during class are easily marked as high achieving students, so they can be set aside with less personal attention. The issue is how to make them talk to me so I can find these differences.
Overall Impression and Suggestions for Future Improvement
My overall impression of the SEA TEACHER program is a good one, but my impression of the UPI Junior High Lab School is lower than I expected. The Sea Teacher program was a great experience in cross cultural communication, as well as a great place to spend a month in the summer. The program could definitely be improved with more information provided earlier to prospective students. I did not get to know where my school is, or my teaching subject until less than a month before going. It would also be a major improvement for students to choose their lodging. Southeast Asian countries would not fit most western and Japanese students for simple hygiene and facility differences. All this should and must be disclosed beforehand.
The UPI Lab School was also a disappointment in terms of services for students. I recognized multiple children with learning disabilities and physical disabilities (albeit slight) that would benefit greatly from an on campus team. However, none were available. In fact, it seems that most teachers have never had the proper training to recognize and give support to these students in the classroom (mostly being ADHD students). This is a problem and should quickly be solved, especially since this Junior High is a Lab School under the jurisdiction of UPI. In my eyes, this is a shame and a testimony to poor practices.
Brian's Indonesia SEAMEO 