Summary & Suggestions

PURPOSES OF PRACTICUM

The purposes of the practicum meet my needs. For the details:

Improving the Pre-Service Teacher's English skills

On the practicum of SEA-Teacher, I improve my English skills. In this program, we must use English as our daily language. It's not just about the speaking and communicate with English, but also on the content like the lesson plan, learning media, and others.

During my college, I already practice how to use English in the terms of teaching because the Department of Science Education, Sebelas Maret University, having bilingual class program that very useful to improve English Skill in the terms of teaching. But, I never facing a real situation with real students that I must use English to teach. This program giving opportunity to feel that experience.

Improving the knowledges and skills to become the teacher

On this program, I met a lot of Pre-Service Teacher's that made us exchange the knowledge of teaching. It's both on the pedagogical and content. It's give me inspiration how to apply lesson in different way.

Another than that, the feedback and suggestions from the supervising teacher, Ma'am Baltazar, also very useful. She pointing my strengths and weaknesses on teaching, so I can improve it on the future. The challenge from Ma'am Baltazar to use traditional media for learning also improving my skills that made me teach not depending on the technology.

Learning another curriculum

The Philippines having different curriculum compared to Indonesia. It's different on the field of grading system, competencies, the hour arrangements. The different curriculum made me having the different perspective for education in the both countries. It also made me adapting to teach in the different system that new to me.

Learning another culture

Indonesia and the Philippines having different culture. During the program, I can experiencing to become a Filipino for one month. It got me understand few words of Filipino language, tasting delicious cuisine like Tuna Sisig and Bulalo Soup, knowing the tradition in the Philippines and several iconic place in the Metro Manila, like Makati, Quiapo, Kubao, and others.

PROCEDURES OF PRACTICUM

The procedures:

Orientation: Orientation is the time that we introduced to the new environment, knowing the basic knowledge.
Classroom Observation: Classroom observation conducted to learn how the teaching system in the class. During the observation, I observed how the PST teaching, the characteristics of the students, grading systems, and others.
Co-Teaching Assistantship: Co-teaching assistantship is when the SEA-Teacher delegates become the assistant for the teacher to conduct learning. It giving opportunity to collaborating, exchanging the opinion of teaching, and get the knowledge from the teacher.
Demo Teaching: Demo teaching is when the SEA-Teacher delegates teach alone in front of class. It takes a courage and bravery to teach in the new environment, facing the problem alone when the learning occurs.
Evaluation: Evaluation happened after the last demo teaching (Grand Demonstration). On this stage, the supervising teacher will evaluate, giving feedback about the learning that already conducted. Another than that, the supervising teacher also give the grade.

OUTCOMES OF THE PRACTICUM

I learn a lot of new knowledge during the program, in English skills and teaching skills. I learn a lot from the other PSTs to conduct learning in Filipino class, giving me different perspectives to teach. I also improved my skills to made a learning media that my supervising lecture challenge me to also use traditional media, because it still needed to give students' understanding on the lesson. Besides on the education and English skills, I also learnt about culture in the Philippines. I understand few words of Filipino language, trying some Filipino's cuisine, experiencing to life as Thomasian, adapting to new nationality and culture.

THE CHALLENGES OF PRACTICUM

There are several challenges that I face during the program:

Class suspension because typhoon; it's happen two times. Luckily, I still can conduct the teaching practice for my Grand Demonstration with offline class.
Adapting to new curriculum; The Philippines curriculum really different with Indonesia, in the terms of lesson plan, materials arrangements, time for learning, and others. After I study the curriculum and having class observation, I can implemented the lesson based on the Filipino curriculum.
Students with different characteristics; the students that I taught it's different from Indonesian students. Compared to Indonesian students that I ever met, students on Grade 7 - Patriotism having more energy. The observation and co-teaching assistantship phase is really useful to me. When the demo time came, I already prepared the type of lesson that match with students characteristics, made the students active during the lesson and not wasting their energy on unnecessary activities.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

It's not an easy program, but it's really fun. I gained a lot experience that I never expected to got and I will not get it in Indonesia. It's my experience to go abroad, and I never expected it will be that great. I learn a lot about the education in another country, also the culture and how they life there. Besides conducting learning, I have an opportunity to travel around Metro Manila that's unexpectedly very exquisite to explore. Another than that, I also met a kind and generous people, great friends there. The challenges that I face cannot be compared to the overall experiences that I got.

If you still have a doubt to join this program, I encourage you to join on the next batch!

SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE IMPROVEMENT

Overall, the SEA-Teacher program that conducted at UST is great. The facilities is very good, the people is really kind and helpful, made me easier to adapt to the new environment. My suggestion just to creating the group between delegates for different batch so we can exchange and share the useful informations, with the older batches or the next batches. It maybe also can help the next delegates to adapting on the UST. I hope the program continue and accept more delegates.

Maraming Salamat Po, UST and SEAMEO!

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