Teaching Practice
SD Muhammadiyah Kleco is a very hospitable school and it was very easy for me to adjust as they were open for student teachers like me even though I am not originally from Indonesia.
During our welcoming session with the school, our supervisors, let us personally meet the principal and also the teacher of the school. Our supervisors handed us to their care and wished that the teaching personnel will take care of us during our stay in their school.
After the welcoming, we then were assigned to our cooperating teachers. Since I am to teach English subject, I was assigned to Miss Layli, an English teacher.
After getting to know each other, Miss Layli decided to to bring me to one of her classes.
During my observation in her class, she was teaching about the names of animals such as buffalo, rooster, hen, dog, cat, etc. The students were all very active while she was teaching. However, while Miss Layli was talking, some of her students were very noisy. But, when Miss Layli asks them a question, they can answer it correctly. At that time, I was amazed because I thought the children were not listening to Miss Layli.
While teaching, Miss Layli uses the language English as her medium of communication with her students. But when her students doesn't understand what she was saying, she then translate it to Bahasa.
In SD Muhammadiyah Kleco, English subject is only once a week with a 35-minute duration. Considering that I am to teach English and its 35-minute teaching time, I was shocked because to teach in that time limit is very hard. However, I accepted the challenge and made a lesson plan for only 35 minutes.
My lesson plan was solely based on the table of lesson that Miss Layli gave to me. Thankfully, the list that she gave me was very specific. It gave me an idea o which part I am going to give focus and that gave me an advantage to create a lesson plan that is suitable for my students needs.
During my practice teaching, my procedure is to check first the lesson on the guide that Miss layli gave to me. Next is to create a lesson plan for the students' needs with the needed topic to be taught, activities to be done and evaluation to check the learning of each child. After that is to pass my lesson plan to cooperating teacher so that she can check if there are mistakes to be corrected. Then, if my lesson plan has been checked and approved, I will now execute it to the class I was assigned to. Inside my classroom, I always start my lesson with a short exercise so that it can energize and loosen the stress of each student. Next is that I start it with a motivational that is related to the topic given during that day. After the motivation is I start to discuss my lesson and I try to ask them questions of what they know of the topics at hand during that day. Luckily I have Miss Layli with me to translate the words I say to Bahasa if the students doesn't understand what I was saying. Lastly is I give I them a worksheet so that I can evaluate them and to check if they have learned something new about English.
Procedures of Teaching
Time Management and Organizing Activities
Going to school at 7:00 am and going home at 2:00 pm in the afternoon makes the teachers in the Philippines and me jealous. Because when I was practice teaching in the Philippines, we usually go to school at 7:30 am and go home at 5:00 pm. During my stay in SD Muhammadiyah Kleco, I get to prepare my lesson properly because I have many hours of preparation. I also get to search different activities that is suitable for my students' needs. Since I have 3-4 sections everyday, with a 35-minute duration of each class, I really need to up my game in teaching. Thankfully, teachers go home with a lot of hours to prepare for tomorrow's lesson.
Problem-Solving and Classroom Management
Since students at SD Muhammadiyah Kleco are respectful and active during discussion, there are only little problems that I have encountered. Such as getting excited and getting rowdy when I show them a picture, video or presentation. During this time, I will just pause the video and ask them to go back to their seats. After that, I won't play the video when they are still noisy and rowdy. Another problem I have encountered inside the classroom is language barrier. Since all of the sections I'm handling was in primary grades and some of them are not speaking in English, Miss Layli would just translate it or another solution to it was using body language; I would just point to things and use actions.