Reflection 5 & 6

Last week was the first class teaching performance. Actually, on Tuesday, we still had half class teaching performance but I choose not to talk about that since the critics for the performers on Tuesday were more or less the same with the previous performers.

Thus, I would talk about the Thursday performance now. The atmosphere of the class teaching performance was slightly different with half class teaching performance. I felt more focused and more involved in the class teaching performance. The two first performers in the first class teaching performance were Gilang and Siwi. From both of them, I learnt many things last week.

From Gilang performance, I learnt how important the clarity of instruction is. In my opinion, Gilang performed a good way to give instruction to students. Even though a teacher masters the material, the students would difficultly absorb the material if the instruction is not clear.

Nevertheless, material mastery is something not less important than instruction mastery. In my opinion, Gilang also had good material mastery. However, his material was a bit difficult for Senior High School students. It caused him explaining small things and took most of his time to explain them. The standard competence was only given less time in the end of his class. This made him get nervous in the end of the class. He spoke faster in the end of the class when he needed to explain the generic structure of the procedure text. He spoke faster when he needed to explain the most important material.

From Siwi’s performance I learnt how important confidence is. Siwi had a good way of teaching. Generally, I think I understood the material because of her explanation. However, she was not confident sometimes. It affected her body movement. ‘She stood on one point only’ was one of the example.

Actually, generally, Siwi had good questioning skills but there were some moments when the students were not involved in the class when Siwi explained something by questioning. However Siwi has an appropriate closing. She could conclude the material well and involve the students on that.

Generally, Siwi and Gilang had good ‘answering skills’. Instead answering directly what the students ask, they prefer to guide the students to the answer they needed.

Reflection 4

Generally, this third reflection consists of technical matters related to teaching. From Deta’s performance, I learned to be careful with ‘reading aloud’ instruction in reading comprehension class. It is because basically the point of reading comprehension is different with reading aloud. Generally, it is important to know the meaning we want to convince to students from our instruction.

From Tia’s performance, I learned that: instead directly explained the material to the students, it was important to guide the students to the material by asking the students guiding questions.

Overall, from all of my friends’ performance, I learned that creativity (using media, giving appropriate guiding questions) was important in teaching process.

What Is the Most Interesting Thing You Saw On Your Way to Class? (Reflection 3)

On Thursday last week, we have begun teaching the half class. I got the third turn. That was my first performance in front of big numbers of people in Micro Teaching Class. I felt nervous that day even though I ever taught bigger class before. I am not really sure why. Probably it was caused by the setting of the room which was too formal. Probably it was because I had to teach people who had learned teaching method for months thus those people I taught might be sensitive of the mistakes I made. Probably it was however the first time I had to teach a class in English.

I admit that I only set one day of preparation (two times simulation) for my performance. It was usually enough for public speaking class. But I don’t think it’s enough for the first teaching performance in Micro Teaching Class. In the beginning of my performance, even though I remembered the steps of my teaching, I suddenly forgot the grammar of the sentences I had to say. I turned to speak very fast because of that.

The worst thing happened when I gave my ‘students’ introduction questions. None of them got what I meant. In order to guide the students to the material (describing things), I asked them ‘the most interesting thing they saw on their way to the class’. After the class, I realized that that question I gave them was not interesting (although there is ‘interesting’ word in my question) and difficult. It was difficult because people rarely observe around when they walk or drive. It is thus logical if someone finds it difficult to tell you the most interesting thing they saw on their way. In other words, it is logical if my ‘students’ couldn’t answer my question. Fortunately I had other introduction question.

I agree with Bayu’s comment about my-not-good-management of time. Actually not all of my material had been conveyed. Not all of activities I planned had been done. I also had no time to explain the mistakes in error sentence made by one of my ‘students’.

In my opinion, my material was not really difficult for the second semester students. Honestly, the material I taught was the material given by my lecturer in the second semester. It was probably my method which was not appropriate.

I joined this Micro Teaching Class because (of course) this is the material recommended in sixth semester. So far, in my opinion, I need to join this Micro Teaching Class because this class is important as a training place before I jump to the education world.

I know that I want ‘this’ (to be a teacher). But I also want to learn other areas before or in the process of becoming an educator. I had big crush on journalism, music, and literature and I wish I could combine my interests in my process of becoming an educator so that I could give something useful and meaningful for my students later.