As I finish my exchange program...
The purpose of this program is to make our teaching globalize by looking at the different context, culture and and teaching techniques of different countries. I had a great opportunity to learn about different things and this is something that we can't find it in google but you have to experience by your own.
There are so many things that I learned about teaching, but it was not only teaching that I learned, but I got so many things in Indonesia besides learning. My first week was observation so I had to observe different classes of English subject in both junior and senior high school and learning about the cultures of the Indonesia school. Meeting of mentors, teachers and our buddies happened during my first week and I loved their hospitality very much. They literally fetched us to school and home almost everyday and stayed with us knowing that we can’t speak Bahasa.
Second week was more on learning myself more about school since I started teaching. I handled two classes in grade 8 and I actually loved teaching there. The culture of greeting in Indonesia where you have to kiss the hand of teacher are so lovely that I admire the most and I could see the teachers are acting as a second parents not just by words but showing care for the students. I envied those intimate relationship with the students.
Third week, some of our sea teacher’s last day of leaving. Since we lived in one guest house, we got so close with each other cooking dinner and eating together. thus, I didn’t only learn cultures of Indonesia, but I got to know more about Thailand. We acted as colleagues where they observe each other’s teaching first and gather together and give suggestions and feedback with each other to improve the teaching.
Fourth week was finalizing everything I did in Indonesia. I also received a gift from a student and it was so touching. We also had time to hang out with students to watch movie together in the mall and I got to love this city and people so much that I didn’t want to go back to the Philippines. They gave me a feedback on how to make my teaching better and learned how to teach in different context.
I have got lots of knowledge, experiences, and techniques from this practicum. I observe and learn behavior of students more closely, knowing the different of students in class and know how to improve behavior of personality for being a good teacher. My mentor taught me how to improve my lesson plan, teaching in class and classroom management. And I improved and developed my English skills for teaching and communication.
The biggest challenge that I had was language barrier since they just start learning about English at grade 7. There were time our buddies had to translate what we taught in Bahasa because they don't fully understand what I explained.
This program is really wonderful. It gives us chance to see the bigger world and dream a broader picture about our future. It make us how to change the way of our teaching depending on different cultures and context and it was not just about practicum itself, but so many different things that we can't just explain in words are learned from this program. This became one of the best memories that I got in my life.
One thing if there is a need for improvement is that classroom environment. There were so many classrooms that air condition is broken so they have to open their doors. It makes the classroom noisy and not concentrated so it is not a good environment for students to learn better. Sometimes, the classroom is hotter than outside so they had to do their class outside. Also, one month of teaching is not really enough for us to deeply know the cultures and context of the learning.
But it is worth joining this program.