Structure + Real Students = *?@#$%^&* (Reflection 11)

Several weeks ago, I finally taught lower semester students. I felt really nervous. I even can’t sleep well on the night before I teach. But I didn’t want to be honest to my self. I kept saying this to my self, ”Come on! It’s not a big deal.” Of course it didn’t help because it WAS a big deal. My head kept asking these questions: What if the students do not understand what I’m saying? These students are the real students. They are different from my friends who pretended to be students. They wouldn’t tolerate me if I made mistakes or if I couldn’t make them understand. And I couldn’t make up my teaching because this is the only chance I have. I haven’t known this class, what style should I use when I teach? And honestly, I felt a bit sorry to choose Structure for my final test in Micro Teaching. How dare I do that!

Preparing teaching with those questions in my head was not easy. When I prepared the material, sometimes I stopped, not to have a rest, but to get over my fear from me.

My turn to teach finally came. The students’ expression motivated me, but I sweat a lot when I taught them. I felt so glad when the students said that they didn’t have any questions after I explained several sub-chapters. They seemed understand but I would prove my speculation from the exercises and quiz they would do.

When we did the exercise, actually, sometimes I was doubt whether some answers they stated were correct or not. Sometimes they mentioned unexpected answer and because I didn’t prepare my self for that unexpected answer, I usually would ask them, ”what do you think about that?”, to give my self time to think of why the student’s answer was/was not correct. Before I found the explanation, usually other students would mention the expected answers and I would just say ,”yes, this answer is more appropriate” without really explaining why this answer is more appropriate than the answer he/she mentioned. But they usually would nod their head, acted like they understood and showed me that they thought I understood better than them (and because of that they didn’t debate me). I felt glad and also bad about this. Glad because I didn’t have to add my nervouseness by dealing with their argument, but bad because I didn’t really do my best to explain the answers to them.

After the class was over, most of the students stated that they understood. They had good result on their quiz. I felt so glad about it. My mother is a teacher and she ever said: the most special reward for her as a teacher is when the students understand what she taught. I started to know what she means, I guess. And I felt a bit sorry that I ever felt a bit sorry to choose Structure for my final test in Micro Teaching. Structure wasn’t that bad. (^.^)

Dilemma (Reflection 10)

Teaching deals with this one: dilemma. Many things do, but how do they relate? In order to improve students’ ability, we must select the best method which could build the most effective way of teaching. However, based on my experience in teaching micro class and junior class, picking the best method was not easy. I was always faced with dilemma. For example, when I chose an A method instead of B method for such lesson, in the end of the lesson I would regret my choice because the class condition was more appropriate to be handled with the B method. I realized that this kind of thing happened because so far I was always faced with new class, or in other words, the class I hadn’t known before. My not knowing to this class brought me to the speculation about the most effective method which should be implemented in certain class.

One of my experiences below could probably bring a better picture about this dilemma I meant. When I prepared my final test in micro teaching class, I was confused with this problem: in 30 minutes, should I give the students the materials which are based on all of the indicators which – actually – should be given in 60 minutes? What if my students could not finish all the material? Should I write all the materials in my lesson plan, or should I reduce them? I chose to give the students all the materials because in my opinion, my material would not be too difficult for them. I was a bit surprised then, to see that my class reacted differently. Most of my friends pretended to be beginner learners. They misspelled many words and most of my time was finally used to correct their misspelling words. Because of this, I could not finish all the materials. This situation showed that my prediction was not correct. But at least, that lesson taught me something: improvisation is really important in class. Yes, that day my friends gave me something to learn: improvisation. If I kept continuing finish all the material, I don’t think the students would understand the material because the lesson would be delivered fast. However, I’m not that successful in doing improvisation. I didn’t recognize that actually my students could not catch my delivery well because I spoke English to them. Just like what Mr. Prass said, I should have considered using Bahasa if most of the students did not understand English well.

Various Tastes of Teaching (Reflection 8 & 9)

Wow. It’s been so long since I posted my last reflection. This reflection would discuss about the performance of six of my friends last week. They are Delis, Tia, Siwi, Rei, Yosi, and Rian. Delis, Tia, and Siwi performed on Tuesday, while Rei, Yosi, and Rian performed and Thursday. All of them have created rich tastes of teaching.

From Delis performance, I learned (how to listen to) expressions of giving sympathy. In my opinion, Delis material was good. All of the dialogues in the recording were related to expression of giving sympathy. In his performance, Delis also pointed at inactive students. The students who were inactive finally joined the class activity. However, in my opinion, Delis’ instruction before the listening activity was not really clear. The time given to answer the questions was also not long enough. For Senior High School students, especially if they did not really have excellent ability in listening, the questions were going to be difficult to be done. Delis was also not really careful in checking students’ answers. Often when the students miss one or two words in answering the questions, Delis did not correct them. Despite Delis teaching performance, students coming late disturbed the teaching activity. I think all of us need to come on time so that our friends’ performance won’t be disturbed.

From Tia’s performance, I learned (how to express) expressions of giving sympathy. Power point used was a good idea, especially because Tia also communicated to the students by using the power point. Compared to her previous performances, her last performance was so much better. She had imporoved a lot. However, there were something needed to be improved still, in my opinion. Even though Tia was communicative when she used power point, the same thing didn’t happened when she explained the material. Tia tended to explain the definition by reading the text herself. I think it was going to be better if she asked the students the definition first then explained the definition herself. Beside that communication issue, another thing needed to be improved were the situations given to the students as the trigger of the students’ making dialogue. The situations are not really relevant to Senior High School context.

From Siwi’s performance, I learned (how to listen to) narrative story titled Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In my opinion, her performance was really attractive. The story, which was funny with the interesting pictures in it, was relevant to Senior High School students, even though it was so much better to be implemented in Elementary Students. Her performance was also motivating the students (at least I felt motivated). She was also fluent. The instructions given were also clear and helpful for the process of listening. However, Siwi also had some ambiguous questions in her handout which made me confused to answer.

From Rei’s performance, I learned (how to write) narrative text. In my opinion, Rei didn’t move around when she taught. She tended to stand in the middle of the front class. Just like me, I think Rei’s management of time was not really good. Like I did, she spent most of her time for game. The game was good, though. It really helped the students understand the material (generic structure of narrative text-I my self felt that the game really helped me to understand) and finally helped the students to write a narrative text with good generic structure.

From Yosi’s performance, I learned (how to listen to) expressions of giving direction. In my opinion, Yosi’s material was good. It was comprehensive and challenging. In the same time, the questions of the material was also too many and too complicated, especially for 30 minutes class of Senior High School. It was getting more difficult because Yosi’s instruction was not really clear. The difficult material and unclear instruction was not balanced with enough time to digest the written instruction by the students themselves. I my self found it really difficult to answer the questions given in the handout.

From Rian’s performance, I learned (how to express) expressions of giving instruction. Rian’s performance was really amusing. In my opinion, RIan himself didn’t really plan to joke in his performance, but some of his actions made all of us laugh. His material is also good and comprehensive, but the way he delivered them didn’t make me understand that good material. Beside the way to deliver, I think Rian also need to prepare more appropriate examples in his teaching activity, because some of the examples he made himself turned to be really funny that all of us laugh because of that. Rian’s instruction was not really clear too. I sometimes didn’t know what I should do in the learning activity.

Running After 'Time' (Reflection 7)

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).

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.