My Micro Teaching Practice Reflection

This is my reflection about micro teaching practice that I’ve done. First, I want to reflect about my group. We got a role to teach writing. The teacher gave us freedom to decide anything for the micro teaching, so we tried our best to dig our creativity deeper. We chose to teach writing for senior high school students. Our language target is writing a narrative story. Our reason for choosing this topic was because students often find this kind of text in newspapers, magazines, television and especially in their school exam. So they must understand the concept of narrative text.

Yet, we tried to make a different approach in our class activities. The difference is in the writing narrative activity. We gave students an example of narrative story first. After that we asked them to write a narrative story based on the character exist in the story. Through this way we hope the students wouldn’t get bored in writing, since I myself confess that writing is boring. They could express their imagination from the story, and the result could be very far from the original story. After they wrote their own version, we asked them to read their story in front of the class. We even asked them to act out what characters in the story do. It is in line with what Ur said “most people feel pride in their work and want it to be read.” (Harmer, 2007). We wanted the students’ works to be heard, so they would feel praised. By this activity, we hope that their self-confidence to write is rised. Meanwhile, I couldn’t imagine how noisy the class that we made, but I think this kind of situation needed to be actualized in order to make class more ‘alive’. I liked this part very much, because in this time both teacher and students had a good quality of interaction. This interaction enables students to acquire the knowledge more effectively.

However, I still found some ineffective part in my group’s performance. The first one is the each member’s role in the simulation. We didn’t arrange the role for each member clearly, so when we were performing there was a misunderstanding among us. It affected on the class activity, the students sometimes got confused in responsing our instructions. The second is our time management. We often went over time in one phase, but fortunately we could cover all what we wanted to do. Perhaps in the real class it cannot be tolerated since the time is often very limited.

From the simulation sessions I also learnt many things from other groups. They showed various ways in teaching and also different approaches. One group that I learnt most is the Yosea’s group. His team also taught writing and the target language is also narrative. I liked the activity that students were asked to make a poster. Each poster contained the story made by the students, and students had to draw some pictures to describe the story. It was very good because this session could vary the writing activity without being boring. Students presented their works, and each works had different characteristics. The class ran very fun and interesting, so students could enjoy the lesson.

Unfortunately, I noticed some ineffective parts through the session. The first is when teacher explained the structure of narrative text in powerpoint presentation. The slides were very good, but the delivery from the teachers seemed a little bit boring. So students’ eyes only looked at the glass board but their mind were not there. Perhaps teacher could deliver the materials more attractive by not taking it too serious. He or she could make some jokes during the class. The second one is the group system. This was less effective I think, because not all students took part in writing a narative. It could be only one or two students in the group who made the story. The rest could only do nothing, so that each students’ writing and understanding could not be detected. Perhaps it’s better to give the writing task to each student so teacher would be able to know the personal ability of the students in writing.

Finally, we are still learning to teach language. I hope that by the time I can always improve my skills in teaching, not only in particular skills but all skills. This is a good start for me. It’s just how I keep my development on the right track.

Rejuvenate Your Mind!

Last Friday I took Multimedia Production class with Pak Jefry as the lecturer. He is one of inspiring lecturer (since in SSE all lecturers are inspiring :D) for me. He always has new innovations for the students. In the course I came little bit late, but the class hadn’t started yet. Pak Jefry wanted to motivate us first by sharing his experiences & thought.

He talked about leadership. He said that everybody has a potency to be a leader. It’s how we dig it deeper & utilize it. One of the leader task is always being creative. I’m really interested in his way to keep creative. He always has a special time to “rejuvenate” his mind. what does it mean?

Well, everyone certainly has his ‘boring’ or ‘stuck’ time. It’s very human because there will be always problems we must face. Then, we’ll get bad mood. So how will we create some innovations while our mind burdened? That’s why we got to refresh our mind. That’s called rejuvenate. It can be done in various ways. Pak Jeff likes to to rejuvenate his mind by going to coffee shop and spending time there. Through this way, he often acquires many fresh ideas. He said that this rejuvenation helps him very much in creating many concepts, even he can be more productive.

What he shared makes me aware of this thing. I often got stuck, especially when problems come repeatedly. So hard to concentrate in this situation. Then I realize that all my saturations will go away if I move my body, especially doing some sport. I love to do jogging and swimming very much. It’s like I remove all my burdens in my head. So guys, I’ve found my way to rejuvenate my mind. How about you? This video can represent my way. So find yours and let your mind rejuvenated! 😀

Assessment Reflection

In the last Friday I got a make-up class for PETA course. Unfortunately I came late to the course due to another event that I had to handle. Yet, I still could attend the class and get some new information.

In the day I learnt about assessment. It’s good news for me because although I came late, I have learnt the concept in Language Teaching Methodologies class so I didn’t get confused. Firstly I got the article from Ms.Tika, my lecturer. Then she asked us to answer some questions related to the assessment topic. Based on my understanding, I underlined the three phrases: diagnostic assessment, formative assessment & summative assessment. Diagnostic assessment is a form of assessment done before teaching and learning process. It provides teacher with an understanding of the prior knowledge and skills a student brings to a lesson. Formative assessment is an assessment to inform and improve the learning process. Summative assessment is an assessment that is used to get report on learners’ achievement. These are the main factors of assessment. Then I found something interesting in the class. Ms.Tika gave the analogy of formative and summative like an iceberg below:

The summative is in the upper while the formative is in the down side. The analogy is the summative assessment only covers a little part of whole learning process. The formative decides more on students’ level of understanding. Ironically, that’s what happens in our country. The graduation relies more on the summative test, where the process of learning itself is less assessed. In my opinion, I regard it as unfairness to the students. It is because they have learnt a lot of things but only few are assessed. I know everyone can say it and it’s not an easy thing to actualize. All I have to do now is keep working hard and always be an innovative teacher. Talk less, do more.

Language Teaching Methodologies Observation Report

Learning twelve principles of teaching makes me more curious about education’s world. It is because these principles widen my knowledge about teaching. Talking about these principles is also talking about ideal language teaching. When the principles appear in a language teaching, it means that the teaching process has covered all the students’ need. The principles are:

1. Automaticity
2. Meaningful Learning
3. Anticipation of Reward
4. Intrinsic Motivation
5. Strategic Investment
6. Language Ego
7. Self-Confidence
8. Risk Taking
9. Language-Culture Connection
10. Native Language Effect
11. Interlanguage
12. Communicative Competence

But is it to possible to bring out all of the principles to the classroom activity? I want to see the real condition in the class that I observe for Teaching Assistant Program. I was placed in St.Theresia Senior High School. The classes’ constructions are quite unique since they are only half-walled so both people outside and the students can see each other. The learning activity itself ran very well and strict.

Then, based on my observation and interview with some students, I found some principles that appear in the teaching language activities. The methods for acquiring the data are not only observation but also interview. I did the interview to some students because we were only given one chance to observe the master teacher’s class. After that I combine the data. The first principle appeared was automaticity. I could see it from the student’s opinion. He said that he seldom overanalyzes the English language. He would rather be brave to speak English than thinking too much about its forms. The second principle appeared is intrinsic motivation. Student said that he learns language because he wants to study abroad, so he keeps improving his English skills. No body drives him to learn English except himself. The third is strategic investment. Student stated that he often takes some effort in order to master the language. For example he always does his English tasks well and seriously. He also ever took conversation course outside so that he would be more trained to speak English. He thinks that joining the course will counterbalance the materials given in the school since they are mostly about grammar. The fourth is self-confidence. It can be seen in the class although it wasn’t clear enough. When the teacher asked the students to raise their hands if they could answer the question, no body raised. But when the teacher pointed out randomly, the chosen student did not get ashamed and started to speak confidently. It happened several times in a session. The fifth is risk taking. The student I interviewed said that he often chooses to “gamble” in speaking English than thinks whether the grammar is true or not. He explained that if he never tried to just speak, he would never speak English fluently. The sixth is language-culture connection. He said that he needs to not only learn about the grammar or speaking skill, but he also needs to learn the culture of English native speakers. He assumed that if he understands their culture, it will be easier to have communication with them. The seventh is the native language effect. In the classroom it could be seen as the students use English to speak. They still use their native language manner (Bahasa) to communicate in English. They also found some terms in Bahasa that they do not know the English version of the terms, so they mixed them. The last is interlanguage. The interviewed student told that he would be able to know his weaknesses when he learns English. He is not very good at grammar and writing according to himself.

After I read again my findings, a question passed my mind. Do we need to rise all of the principles appear in the language teaching activities in order to gain maximal result? In my opinion, yes we do. Those principles have already covered all of the teaching skills that I need. So the students will not only learn the outer parts of language learning, but also the whole cores. I certainly hope that with these principles the students will be better than me as the teacher in the future. Of course it is almost impossible to bring them all into real condition, but I believe that they are like ‘my reminder’. For example, when I have taught the students about a material with some teaching techniques, perhaps I’ll feel satisfied. But then when I see the principles, I will directly realize that I am still far from the perfection. So I will always chase it. Moreover, there are still many aspects that I must learn. I will be very curious to meet other new things.

TLL Observation Paper in Teaching Assistant Program

It has been many years that people still debate the effectiveness of new technology in language learning activities. According to Davies & Hewer, the teachers got it very difficult to measure it because it doesn’t have specific measurement. However, ICT, as a kind of new technology really affects the language learning activities. According to Davies & Hewer, the teachers got it very difficult to measure it because it doesn’t have specific measurement. However, ICT, as a kind of new technology really affects the language learning practitioners either teachers or students. For example, with ICT language teachers can find many resources only in few seconds. While the students themselves can imporve their skills by browsing many materials and courses (often for free).

Then, I wanted to observe to the ICT usage in senior high school. I have just done my teaching assistant program. It is such another interesting experience I think, because I got so many new things in this program. I was placed in St.Theresia High School this time, and at glancei thought that this school would be very high-tech. but then the technology usage in this school was not as high as I predicted before. In the class there were text books, whiteboard, chalkboard and LCD provided. However, based on my observation, the language teacher only used whiteboard, chalkboard and books. Every day she prefers only taking examples from books to internet (especially web 2.0 like google, youtube etc). She wants to make students able to do written test, so she gives the students many written test worksheets. From my interview with a student, he said that the teacher inly uses the LCD when they must do the presentation task (Microsoft Powerpoint software). The rest, students do worksheet and worksheet.

If I talk about the effectiveness of the teacher’s less usage of digital technology, I think it’s already effective. It is because the examination form is the written test. So the teacher makes efforts, in order to make students able to do exam well. Even though the learning process is not contextual, the final result is students get success in exam. To be honest, I still get confused if I were in her position. I don’t know the real condition that she faces, but I still don’t want to give up from the worst condition. At least, I have a plan from now. If I were her, I would still encourage them to use the digital media, especially web 2.0 including social network like Facebook or Twitter. Why would I do it? Because with these tools students will be able to learn more contextual, so they will know how to use the language features more quickly. Of course the portion of written test exercise will be more, but I’ll give “extra” tasks to browse and utilize the web 2.0 technology. I don’t mean to burden them with more assignments but I want them to be “out of the box”. I hope I can actualize my plan and create new methods perhaps.

My Reflection About Artwork Presentation

On the last Thursday, my class had a presentation session in Humanistic Studies class. In this session, each group had to present an artwork they had chosen. They would explore more about the multiculturalism core in the artwork. It can be about stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination or conflict. The artwork itself could be a song, poem, movie etc. Then, the performances of each group were very amazing. Each group had its own way to present what they had analyzed from the artwork. For example, a group presented a poem written by a local humanist. They played the video and gave their analysis. While another group showed a song that contained a deep core in multiculturalism.

Then, my group brought a song titled “Wind of Change” that performed by Scorpion. The reason why we chose this song is because this song tells about the conflict among West & East Germany. This conflict at the time had existed for years until in 1991 the Berlin Wall was destroyed.   From this song, we tried to explore the conflict from the song and also the concept of conflict itself. After we finished the presentation that only lasted for 5 minutes (that’s the maximal duration :D), we got the feedback from our lecturer. Ms.Nisa, one of our “awesome” lecturers in SSE said that she was very happy having Scorpion’s song in our presentation. It was because she felt that there is no a long generation gap between her and us :D.

Feedback from her was about our exploration. We got less in exposing the song. We too much focused on the theory about conflict and left the song itself. So the song was just like an attribute, whereas the song itself has many values that are worthy to explore. But the presentation itself had been very scientific since we included the basic theories. Then she also said that all groups’ presentations were similar with research. Why? Because we had to find all facts behind the artwork and the theories that became basis of our argument. I like this session very much because I can learn from any kind of media, even from art. Ms.Nisa & other lecturers give me spaces to accommodate my creativity wider and wider. I’m so lucky. 😀

My Reflection about Theories of Teaching

First time I learned about theories of language teaching, I felt like I open a new window. It is because I just knew about some conceptions in teaching languages. They are science-research conceptions, theory-philosophy conceptions, value-based conception & art-craft conceptions. It is said that all of them are old theories for transferring the language knowledge to the students. Then a voice came from my heart surprising me “so why should I learn this? These are old fashion theories, aren’t they?” I got confused, but then another voice answered that question “Yes you should, because it’s not about their out-of-dated but it’s all about the conceptions. You should learn them for your prior knowledge.” Then I started to learn them unhesitatingly.

After I read all of the theories, I was interested in the art –craft conception. This theory requires teachers’ individual skills and personality. I saw that through this theory the learning can be very fun, because teachers can explore their creativity more to develop their teaching so that students will be encouraged more to learn. I would not say that other conceptions are not good, but art-craft gives teachers more chances to use their sense of “art”. What I mean about “art” is the various way of teaching, so teachers here act as artists. Artists never do their work in the same way every time, they always add or modify something so the results will always be fresher than their previous. While the others do not give enough spaces to be as creative as teachers can be. They stick to the research results too much. Of course they are not wrong, but as human students also need personal touch from the teachers.

However, this art-craft theory is not actually such an easy thing to apply. Even though the learning activities can be very fun, but teachers still have some targets to be achieved by the students. If the teachers enjoyed creating fun learning too much, students will learn less effective. Besides, the time allocated often does not suffice. This is another challenge for the teachers. Yet I am not afraid to use this theory, because I want to make a difference. So I will keep creating my teaching methods with my creativity.

 

Our Group First Podcast

Podcast. What crosses your mind when you hear this word? For myself, I started to think that podcast is something sophisticated when I heard it for the first time. After I joint the multimedia production, I finally knew that podcast is kind of radio program. The word itself starts from ‘pod’ and ‘cast’. ‘pod’ means personal on demand, while ‘cast’ is for broadcasting. So imagine that a radio program you want to listen to is able to access anytime, anywhere!

Then in the class My friends and I learned how to make a podcast for learning. The making process is not as difficult as I imagined before. We can use a special software named audacity, which can combine some different sound become a new product. Then, my group tried to conduct a podcast for English learning. We made it contextual, means we try to make the situation in the learning process same with in our country. Wanna take a look? Just download and check our podcast below! 😀

Ojek Setan

Arti Sebuah Nama

Banyak yang mengira saya perempuan saat mendengar nama saya. Namun begitu melihat sosok aslinya, ternyata  pemilik nama tersebut adalah laki-laki yang cukup tampan :D. Sebenarnya nama saya ini artinya cukup netral, tapi entah mengapa yang sering memakai nama ini adalah perempuan. Tak apalah, justru nama saya menjadi tidak pasaran.

Nama saya yang sangat saya banggakan ini merupakan hadiah terindah dari ibu saya. Beliau mendapat nama ini dari kitab suci Alquran. Saat beliau membaca Alquran, beliau langsung merasa ‘klik’ dengan nama tersebut.  Nama tersebut menunjukkan keagungan Tuhan YME. Jadilah nama tersebut menjadi depan saya. Sementara nama belakang saya yang sangat berbau Jawa ini hadiah dari almarhum eyang saya. Beliau merasa kelahiran saya adalah sesuatu yang akhirnya terlaksana. Tidak heran sih, karena saya memang cucu pertama dari almarhum eyang. Mengapa harus nama Jawa? Karena eyang saya wong jowo asli Kudus lah alasannya, meskipun saya sendiri tidak bisa bahasa Jawa he he.

Jujur saja, saya sering merasa merinding bila teringat makna dari nama saya tersebut. Sepertinya saya tidak pantas menyandang nama ini. Ini karena makna tersebut pasti adalah doa dan harapan dari orangtua saya. Mereka mungkin menginginkan saya untuk selalu taat kepada-Nya dan menjauhi larangan-Nya. Saya sering merasa bersalah, terkadang sampai menangis, mengingat saya masih jauh dari harapan mereka. Saya sering mengecewakan mereka pastinya karena biar keliatannya alim kadang-kadang saya suka nakal juga. Sempat terbersit di benak saya, apa saya pantas memiliki nama ini. Karena nama ini kelihatannya menuntut “kesempurnaan”. Apa saya ganti saja nama saya dengan yang lebih sederhana? Namun saya lantas berpikir apa ada manusia yang sempurna di dunia ini? Bukankah kesempurnaan hanyalah milik Tuhan YME?

Nama adalah sebuah doa, dan saya lah yang seharusnya memantaskan diri untuk menyandang nama tersebut. Saya pikir ini adalah hal yang baik, karena nama ini dapat menjadi semacam “reminder” bagi saya untuk tetap berusaha menjadi seperti yang orangtua saya harapkan. Maka dari itu, sekalipun memungkinkan, saya tidak akan pernah mengganti nama ini. Menurut saya ini adalah nama terbaik di dunia, karena di dalamnya terkandung sebuah doa yang tulus, yang akan selalu saya coba wujudkan. 😀

The Backward Design

Yesterday I entered the 3rd session of Principles of Effective Teaching and Assessment (PETA). Then I learned something new, about The Backward Design. I said “what kind of creature is this?”

Then I just followed the flow of that day’s class. The backward design seemed so scary for me. It’s due to the term was sooo sophisticated :(. But then by the time my lecturer explained it I became chiller because it’s not as scary as I predicted. This design is really important to make a lesson plan. As a teacher I must make the learning activities fun but has an obvious target. Well actually that is most of teachers’ problem. They make the learning activities very fun, for example: students go to the strawberry garden. They see the strawberries, take them and eat them. Then what? What did they learn from that activity? Does it have clear purpose?

So then we must make a design using the Backward Design. Here’s the diagram:

 

So all of those components above must be synchronized, and we can’t emphasize only in one component. When my lecturer asked me to make a lesson plan based on that design, I myself still found it very difficult to make it. Then I asked my lecturer “Ma’m, how to make a perfect lesson plan?” She answered that there will no such a perfect one. We must learn all the time to construct the better.

From my experience above, I realize that me as a teacher cannot stick to a theory. The world’s changing, and so is the knowledge. Keep learning hard! 😀