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! đ
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 âklikâ 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 âkesempurnaanâ. 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 âreminderâ 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. đ
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! đ
Teaching with Total Physical Response
used to think that teaching English is a piece of cake. We just tell them the formula, and give the examples. Problem has been solved. But then, I realized that my opinion was totally wrong. On the first day having lectures after vacation, I was directly faced with theories of language teaching. I didnât expect that it would be so complicated only to teach english. Then, i started to read about the theories one by one. I found an interesting theory, that was Total Physical Response (TPR). The theory said that children must be relax and fun when theyâre learning language. So how do we make them fun and relax? TPR says that teaching language must use physical movement to react to verbal input in order to reduce student inhibitions and lower their affective filter. By using this, children will react to language without thinking too much, facilitates long term retention, and reduces student anxiety and stress. Hmm.. i became very curious to see how this theory implemented.
Then I opened youtube and find the video about TPR until I got one. When I watched the video, I enjoyed very much. There was a 50 year-old man teaching ten children with TPR theory. I could see the children lose their stress in learning English. The teacher just said some commands, and they had to do the commands. Sometimes the command was humourous. Of course they lose it because the learning activities were very fun and didnât need to think too much. I would be like them too if I were them 
.
One thing that I still donât understand is how to deliver it if I canât deliver some jokes. I myself still find it difficult to make children laugh (easier to make adults laugh ). So my next task is learn how to make children laugh if I want to apply this theory. It probably takes time, but I believe I will be able. As a professional teacher candidate I have to!
My First Learning Blog
Hello everybody! This is my first learning blog. This blog will contain my reflections about language teaching. My purpose is to know what I’ve learned so far in language teaching, because I’m a teacher candidate. I hope it also can be parts of your learning. So please have a look in my postings and thank you very much! đ
My Learning Blog 