Creative, Innovative and Flexible: Ideal Traits of Teachers

Like mentioned in my previous post, some things come to an end but they can still be beautiful. Our free day has come to an end but it only means we will again meet with our lovely little brothers and sisters or younger friends otherwise known as our students.

               Referring to our itinerary, this would be our last week to closely be with the children and so we want to make the best use of our remaining time together.

               My day commenced with one class and the new topic was all about Adjectives.

               The students aren’t really used to being called randomly as per the experiences they shared themselves. Consequently, employing this technique made them want to pay more attention to our discussion.

               The second class had the same topic and the motivational level was challenging since it’s almost lunchtime and I can feel that the students are excited to go home, end the day and have their lunch.

               I had to put more energy and perkiness in my gestures and tone of voice to cater their current mode.

               The students later on participated and enjoyed the class with the activities that compel them to move around and stand up going forth the board and back to their seats.

               My cooperating teachers are really helpful in terms of translating at times when students aren’t able to completely understand and comprehend.

               Overall, the day ended productive and I was again immersed to the Indonesian classroom and school setting.

Meeting the UNISDA’s President

Since it’s our free day today, my co-exchange student and I woke up about noontime, savoring the free time spending it for sleep which we think we are deprived of during the weekdays. We would spend our time after classes on weekdays talking about our different experiences as my co-exchange student and I wasn’t assigned in the same school. Also, we write blogs and lesson plans during the weekdays which is why today our day started late.

               We’ve heard that Bu Ainul Masruroh has come back from a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia and that we thought she, the President of UNISDA, would be delighted to welcome as, students from University of Mindanao, Philippines.

               The day progressed well and fast and we found ourselves eating lunch at Bu Ainul’s house while we talked about our experiences for the past two weeks that we were in their country. She collated concerns that we might have with regards to our stay and luckily we were not able to give any as there was none so far.

               We told her how we got accustomed to the environment, the food, temperature and everything in Lamongan. “We are more comfortable now than we were compared to our first week of stay here,” we told her.

               Bu Ainul has been very accommodating to all three of us, my co-exchange student and to our student buddy, Mr. Alwi. She even offered us Roasted Nuts to bring home and gave each of us “Sarung”, a traditional garment of Indonesia for men.

Sunset Watching

               Furthermore, she had us borrow one of her motorcycles, for us to use to visit places we want to go and see.

               Bu Ainul remarkably painted smiles into our faces.

               Having no other agenda for the day and with the motorcycle at hand, we decided to go sunset watching at TPI Campurejo which all of us enjoyed. Mr. Alwi and one of the teachers of SMK NU 1 Karanggeneng drove the motorcyles for us and watch after our safety to which we are very thankful for.

               We enjoyed the sunset that set the sky ablaze amidst dark clouds – it always makes me say “Alhamdullilah!”. One thing I realized watching the sunset was that things can end and still be beautiful.

Localization, Contextualization and Integration: A Way to Learner’s Heart

This day, the first class that I will be teaching at were students I have never introduced myself to before. Considering this, I felt the need to integrate myself during my introduction and build that personal connection which I believe is the thin line between successful teaching-learning process and an ineffective one.

               During the motivation, since my topic was all about Recount Text, I asked four tourist spots in or around Lamongan City to which they answered:

• WBL
• PP
• WG
• Alon-alon

               This way, I was able to localize and contextualize the topic at hand. Students were able to share a lot of things about the places as most of them have already visited the places for at least once at one point in the past. Having the students share their experiences, I lead them to the topic of Recount Text.

               I was able to reflect on how very important it is to localize instructions during this class.

               Even if I am not familiar with the places, I kind of have to accommodate those differences from their experiences to mine, in order to have students better interest hence understanding and retention of the topic.

               I used their examples during the motivation to further elaborate how to go about doing Recounting Text be it in written or spoken manner.

               Also, I gave them an assignment which I will be collecting this September 21. It’s about their most unforgettable experience which would stipulate details included in recounting text.

               For my second class of the same day, the topic is a little technical as opposed to the previous class. This day, we discussed grammar: Simple Tenses and Perfect Tenses in particular.

               Discussing this to them one by one caused an unusual and awkward silence which to me signals lack of understanding or interest to the lesson.

               I showed them a table that summarizes the four tenses and ask for examples from them following the pattern on the table.

               This made my life easier, I thought. I’m assuming now that most of the students are visual learners since most of them at this point were able to get the gist of how the different tenses are formed better than the first approach which is discussion.

               Overall, I had an interesting and fun class fully packed with lessons not just for the students but also for me as a future educator. Assessments on the next meeting will tell me how much they have learned.

What Can I do to Help?

Growing up, I have been exposed to the use of English language as a medium of instruction at school rather than it being a single subject of the entire school curriculum as in the case of Indonesian education. I felt saddened seeing students wanting to express themselves, their thoughts and ideas but can’t due to linguistic limitations. I asked myself, “What can I do to help?” This day, I would spend my time with two classes from the Multimedia Program.

               Even with the first class I had with them, I can tell they are having hard time making themselves understood using the English language. This is where I started talking to them that more than the things they learn within the four corners of the classroom, like grammar and vocabulary or pronunciation, the true essence of communication lies beyond those things. It is when you go out there and talk to people, you should be able to understand and make yourself understood. I let them feel that it is okay to make mistakes in the class, and that they don’t have to be afraid to answer my questions or they don’t have to be shy whenever they have an idea to share in the class or ask questions. And no one starts off being excellent. As the famous saying goes…

Allow yourself to be a beginner.

Anonymous

I keep on inflecting some affective values in between my lessons. I would tell them that they need not to become the best English speakers, but they just have to be confident when they speak. Through learning some of the lessons part by part and practicing consistently can they see improvements in their speaking skills.

               All of them really showed willingness to learn and that starts with loving the subject or loving learning.

               For a very short span of time that I can be with them, I wouldn’t be able to teach them all the facets of English language but I can help them to love learning and coming to school by enjoying all English class we will have from here on out.

The “Motivation” Challenge

If you have been following this blog series, you would have known by now that I prepared lesson plans assimilating Philippines’ and Indonesia’s educational stucture. That alone is already a challenge for me as an intern. Moreover, the language nuance, as was previously mentioned, is another roadblock in a successful teaching and learning process. Having all of these difficulties at hand, I couldn’t afford to have myself teach a lesson with minimal preparation.

But, you know, things happen. I wasn’t paying much attention to the schedule I was given. For some reason, I thought one lesson plan is good for a week on all programs as I may have heard that some of them only meet once a week. However, that doesn’t apply to all classes. To cut the story short, I have to meet again with students I already have met for the week and that we should have a new lesson to discuss for this meeting. Following their textbook, this day’s lesson should be all about Adjectives. I asked help from my Cooperating Teacher Mrs. Emy to print out some pictures with which I had the students describe their observation of and write it on the board as part of my motivation to the topic.

As a future educator, I should know that situations like this arise but it’s how you improvise and think fast that can help you patch up little hiccups like this. After the motivation, we checked the sentences they wrote on the board and process it with questions for analysis. How did you describe the pictures? What are the things that you say about the pictures? Do they help you identify which picture someone is talking about? What do you call the words that we use to describe a person, place, object, etc.? Then I revealed today’s topic and reviewed the eight parts of speech with the students. The discussion went on about adjectives and sentence structures in creating descriptive statements. The class participation rate was overwhelming as most of them are eager to learn and are very enthusiastic during the interaction. For my next class, I had the previous lesson plan I prepared the last time which talks about the Simple Future Tense. It may be a different topic for the new class but both the previous class and this one have the same amount of energy and level of motivation.

Taking a break…

Teaching Practicum Journey Continues

This time was a whole new environment for me since this is an all-male class. I was expecting a noisier classroom over the all-female ones since boys are known to be very playful and have challenges in containing themselves. To my surprie, the all-male class actively took part of the lesson discussion. I started it similarly as with the all-female class the day before. This day, this section I was teaching is under Automotive Program. I had a little conversation with them about motorcycles and machines with the help of transalation. I thought it helped me connect to the students and it made them lower down their walls in learning new things with me in return.

Another class for today was a mixed section of male and female. It was also my first time to handle such kind of gender mixture. I had the same topic and so the way the class was carried out was how it has always been with the last 3 classes. This time I had a little trouble in dividing them into groups where males are not mixed with the boys in respect to the proximity of each gender based on their religion and culture. I had to devise a strategy where the boys, regardless of their number has to come up with the same number of answers as with the girls even if the girls are in majority in number. The class is under Multimedia Program.

Time to be Taught

Half of the day was spent in teaching. It was now 4:00 in the afternoon and Dr. Irmayani picked us up for dinner. We had a conversation as to what transpired to our classes for this week. We shared our challenges and successes to the dean to which she consequently gave us pieces of advice on how to address the roadblocks we mentioned. She shared her experiences in teaching language and how it is very dangerous to teach grammar in isolation. We had dinner at a nearby shopping center and got to meet her mother we call “Nenek” and her brother Mr. Irfan. Over dinner, she mentioned few things regarding our itinerary during the entire program which includes the international forum. A big challenge there is that we will be the resource speakers ourselves. Along with the challenge is the promising reward of being able to talk in front of the students and share our experiences in understanding culture and teaching-learning experience of English language. We are looking forward to that day to come.

Language Barrier Posing Threat to the Overall Learning Experience

Today was the very first day to teach a class with an actual lesson plan. The format used was an integration of Philippines’ 4As specialized lesson plan and Indonesia’s lesson plan Dr. Irmayani sent us in advance prior to flying here in their country. Fortunately, the lesson went as planned. I also received a compliment from my Cooperating Teacher Mrs. Emy Widya Sari that the lesson was implemented well, and that I was being procedural and organized and the students cooperated to the best of their ability. I also realized that the students are really excited and happy about the activities I had them do in the class.

As this was the first time that I meet these students, I started the class with the Indonesian way of greeting and introduced myself casually to make them feel comfortable. The class was an all-female banking section. Also, I added translation to my introduction to manifest my intention of being open to learning their culture. After which, I started the lesson proper with a review of the verbs where students look for the action words in the given sentences.

               They were all being attentive in the class as I used a randomizer calling-a-student strategy. So far, the students called were able to identify the verbs and I then proceeded to the motivation of the lesson proper. I showed them pictures of scenes or events which I asked their forethought as to what could possibly happen next after the scene depicted in the pictures. This is where the roadblocks of learning started to get in the picture when I asked them the questions for analysis. Their eyes looked blank. Bodies and heads are stiffly glued towards me but I can tell that there was a little hindrance of the messages I was trying to get across my students. It struck me that I may have been talking in a pace they can’t keep up. So that’s where I decided to have my Google Translator up and from then on everything went smoother than before I did. Sometimes, I have my student buddy Mr. Alwi to translate some words for me. Also, Mrs. Emy proactively helped me in translation to students. The language used as the medium of instruction may pose a threat in the teaching-learning process but it is how you try to understand your students and make yourself understood that makes up the true essence of communication thus fostering learning. Some videos in the class are taken for references.

Introduction to SMK NU 1 Faculty

If you have been reading my blogs, you would agree that this day has been one of the most awaited days of my stay here in Indonesia. It’s about time for me to introduce myself in front of the faculty of education and embark on a whole new field of teaching experience. We were gathered in the faculty room and were seated in front of the SMK NU 1 teachers, along with the UNISDA dean, Dr. Hj Irmayani M.Pd, the assistant headmaster of SMK Mr. Besar Handoko who works under Mr. Hafidh Nushrallah, three of the English teachers Mrs. Emy Widya Sari and Mrs. Uswatun Hasanah, Mr. Masbuhin and the rest of the faculty members.

My co-exchange student and I tried to speak in Bahasa in introducing ourselves. Kuddos to Dr. Irmayani for translating for us. I can tell from the looks of their faces that the faculty are really happy that we tried to assimilate into their language.

First Ever Encounter with the Students

Although this was the second time I entered a classroom, this was my first ever close and interactive encounter with them. The first time I entered was only to say “Hi!” but this time aside from introducing myself, I took 80 minutes to get to know the students I will be learning English with soon. The very first time I opened my mouth, all of them really looked interested and were very attentive in responding with the Bahasa Indonesian translation that I was doing every after greeting. This was an all-girl class, as I may have mentioned in my previous blog, most people separate boys from girls in their culture.

               I started introducing myself and then eventually asked them one by one in a random order. I made use of the white board while talking to compensate with the student who may be inclined to visual learning. We talked about their interests and hobbies which I thought was a good start to get them to open up and be comfortable with me as a foreign teacher. Then, I moved the conversation around their course or program and their future plans. This is the part where I lead them to understand how important learning English is in their program, banking and how English is the lingua franca in the business world. We had a good time getting to know each other and we are ready to start our new class next meeting.

The Day Goes on: Commemorating the Past

After the long day of talking, Dr. Hj Irmayani invited us over to show us around the town. Fortunately, it was also a day to commemorate the old times of Lamongan hence Lamongan Tempo Doeloe. Dr. Irmayani wanted us to taste the Soto Ayam Lamongan, an Indonesian traditional food but with the customize taste and style of Lamongan. It was actually flavorsome and tasty, I thought.

Also, this was the first time we meet Dr. Irmayani’s husband, Mr. Khoirul Anam who is the headmaster of SMP 1 Lamongan. After dinner, we dropped by to his school to get his traditional Indonesian attire and was surprised to witness what seemed like a promising and triumphant institution:

Mr. Anam has been the headmaster for about 10 years in his school and we learned from him that it takes a lot of love and dedication and passion to what you’re doing to be able to serve your purpose for that very long span of time. As soon as he got his own Indonesian attire from his office, Dr. Irmayani bought us the outfit and she gave it to us as souvenirs from their country. It was the outfit we wore for the whole night activity. We got a good feel of the culture through their clothing styles, food and with the people we had interaction with.

We had a good time understanding their culture and receiving bright and warm smiles from the Indonesian people who are celebrating around. I tried to copy the Javanese characters written on the board just to have a feel of how they write their language.

Some of the photos are shown below.

The Supermarket Affair

It was about half past six in the morning when one of the teachers in Ma. Matholi’ul Anwar by the name of Mr. Hilmi came around knocking and calling out in the doorstep of our homestay. We almost forgot that the day before, we actually arranged a plan to go to the market with him. It was fortunate that we woke up a little early today so we went with Mr. Hilmi right away and walk east towards the supermarket.

We bought what we need for the day as we can’t stock up on raw and fresh goods as much as we want to due to some reasons i.e. the country’s temperature, irregular cooking schedule as sometimes we are invited to eat over someone’s house. I noticed that the way they weigh the goods you buy here is still the traditional way. I have never seen like it back in my country. I was really surprised and amused with this mathematical application. The preweighed objects on one side of the weighing balance should be equal to the weight of the goods or product you are buying, you can tell they have the same weight if the weighing equipment is balance. However the preweighed object weighs will be the weight of the goods you buy. It’s a wonderful experience to get to talk to the locals with the help of Mr. Hilmi in translating and us saying some Bahasa words every now and then.

Sunset Watching in the “Diamond along the Equator Line”

Since Indonesia lies along the equatorial zone, both the sunset and sunrise look stunning here especially for people who aren’t used to seeing the view like the one above. I personally was not able to get over the beauty of the sunset until it was totally devoured by the darkness. We had a great time walking around Mr. Hilmi’s house which heads west as oppose to the direction of the supermarket we went to earlier of the same day. Mr. Hilmi talked to us about the primary livelihood of the local dwellers. Fishing and farming are the two main source of income here which has something to do with its geographic features and climate. Although it was rumored that Indonesia has undiscovered riches like diamonds hence its nickname Diamond along the Equatorial Line, mining is not really a thing here in their country in comparison to other countries who are making mining a primary source of the country’s finances.

After the talk, we went to Mr. Hilmi’s house and had our dinner. We met his family and his 10-month old baby whose name is Aura. She’s a very sweet little girl as is her mother and father. We had a great time today meeting new people and knowing Indonesia deeper and deeper.

Getting to Know the SMK NU 1 Karanggeneng Headmaster

One of the many ways Indonesian people show their hospitality and kindness is inviting guests over their home for a meal. This day, the headmaster of SMK NU 1 Karanggeneng by the name of Mr. Hafidh Nashrullah invited us over dinner to which my co-exchange student and I felt very honored to receive such hospitality.

We had satay or lamb meat, tofu which can be considered a staple food here in Indonesia, smoked fish and hot tea for a drink. But beyond these sultry and sumptuous dinner, it was the experiences of the SMK Headmaster that we enjoyed savoring the most. We were seated on the carpeted floor of the male living room. Yes, male and female have separate living room for each gender unless of course if the guests are relatives or family. And yes too, they don’t usually have table and chairs for accepting guests. There, we talked about the headmaster’s experiences, himself.

Mr. Nushrallah has been through several countries in Asia and so he had a lot of immersions in terms of cultural differences. He mentioned an American volunteer who used to teach here in Lamongan, whom he has seen the struggle with adapting to the rural lifestyle. He started the conversation from then that we may be experiencing the same struggle as with that American volunteer. He mentioned that later on, that American volunteer was acculturated to the environment, food and lifestyle. I reflect on these words and realized that the way we feel now maybe just a result of the differences of what we have back in the Philippines and here in Indonesia and that maybe we would feel differently as time goes by. I realized we just have to be patient and be thankful and contented of what we were offered to the best of the capabilities of the people around as part of the cultural immersion.

I am greatly overwhelmed and honored to personally meet Mr. Hafidh Nushrallah. It was such a once in a lifetime experience to be able to exchange conversations with someone who came before us in the field of education.