Last week was my first performance of teaching one class of Micro Teaching. My basic competences were ‘menyetujui ajakan/undangan/tawaran’ (accepting request, invitation, and offer). Firstly, I thought that I had to teach three of them (accepting request, accepting invitation, and accepting offer). I had prepared a lesson plan to teach those three competences, but after I asked Mr. Pras, my Micro Teaching lecturer, I found that I could pick one of those three. Because Carolina – presenter who would perform before I did – had chosen ‘accepting request’ competence, I chose ‘accepting invitation’ competence.
In the lesson plan I made, I planned the students to be able to: express sentences containing ‘accepting invitation’ expression, create sentences/dialogue containing ‘accepting invitation’ expression, and practice sentences/dialogue they would make.
Issue of easiness/difficulty of the lesson was something haunted me mostly before I perform. In my opinion, my material was quite easy. What I was afraid of was if I could not teach that easy material. I found many cases like that: the material was easy, but the students could not understand because the teacher did not teach the students well.
To teach the material to the students, I used Communicative Language Teaching Method. I think that method was appropriate for speaking class. It emphasizes communication between both students-students and students-teacher. Communication is really important in speaking class. That was why I chose this method.
Before teaching, I also prepared some anticipation. I realized, before I taught, that I did not have good management time preparation. I tried, though. I tried to count the minutes I spent for every activity I planned but it didn’t really work. It didn’t until my performance time came.
My opening activity consists of game. I allocated 10 minutes for this activity. Actually I didn’t plan to have game when I wrote my first lesson plan, but because Riska and Rian suggested me to have that, I planned game too in my lesson plan.
Before discussing my lesson plan with Riska and Rian, I only planned to have question and answer activity as an introduction. My consideration was actually: time management. Thus, I was a bit doubtful whether I should have had game or not. I finally decided to have one. After the class was over, I didn’t think that (the game) was a good idea for 30 minutes class. I realized that I spent too many times on game. Unfortunately, I realized that in the middle of my teaching performance. I couldn’t run from what I have begun. I kept moving on with the game, the running time, and the nervousness.
Before I begun the game, I tried to connect the material I taught with the previous material and with what the students might have had known by asking them some questions such as: ‘What did you learn in your previous meeting?’, ‘What do you know about invitation?’, ‘What are the differences between invitation and request?’, ‘When should we use invitation?’, ‘How would you respond to invitation?’. Some of them could answer most of the questions well. It meant that they had something in their mind and I was a bit glad because it meant that I didn’t have to work very hard to make them understand the material.
Those two activities (game and questioning-answering) were the opening activity. For the main activity, I planned to explain the material first to the students. Then the students should have created sentences and dialogue containing ‘accepting invitation’ expression. They also had to practice what they would have created by expressing them.
The ‘explaining material’ activity run well, but the rest activities didn’t. It was very bad that, in the middle of my performance, I forgot when I exactly begun my teaching. Because of that, I didn’t really pay attention to the time I spent for each activity I planned. What I had in mind if the worst happened was: when the last 5 minutes came and I haven’t done the student-student communication (ask them to create sentences with the partner and practice them), I should not have asked them to do the last main activity (create dialogue with partner and practice them). I don’t think that was a good anticipation, though. Just like what Mr. Pras wrote to my comment paper, 5 minutes wasn’t enough for student-student activity and closing activity. I felt that I hurried in the last 5 minutes of my teaching. It was especially because the activities I planned (that were left) had not done yet.
Even though I hurried when I did the set closure, I think I had asked what I should have asked the students. Most of them could answer my questions well. I was glad to know that, even though I hurried, the set closure could be done and it showed a good result.
To control and assess the students and to make sure that all of the students understood and was able to express ‘accepting invitation’(even though they have different ability), I did some strategies. They were: had them group discussion, asked their difficulties in creating the sentences, and asked them to practice the sentences they made. By presenting the sentences they made, I could find out the level of their understanding. If they didn’t say something with good pronunciation or grammar, I could tell them the mistakes they might have made.
Overall, I think what run well in my class was that the assessment showed that the students understand the material. What didn’t run well was the student-student activity. Because there was something didn’t run well, if I had chance to teach the same or similar material again, I would like to each again, with different teaching strategy. If there is a follow up for the lesson, what needs to be done in the follow up is the student-student activity (especially creating dialogue and practicing them).
