The Reflections

First of all I never thought that I will be an English teacher. It was started when I was in Senior High School. One of my English teacher thought me and she inspired me to teach something interesting to the students. Eventually at that time I decided to be an English teacher. Then, I chose English Education Department now known as English Language Education as my major in the university. Here, I got a lot of knowledge and experience to support my future job.

I have my own teaching style which emphasize fun and friendly teacher. My teaching style also concern to give more attention to the students. Meanwhile, there are many aspects of my teaching style which should be improved. First, I need to speak not too fast in order to make the students can catch the meaning of my explanation. Second, I need to make the instruction more clear, so students can understand easily. Then, I need to conduct more activity which makes students being attractive.

 In this teaching practicum, I had four sessions in two classes. I taught two sessions each class per weeks. There are many differences of each class I taught, such as the number of the students, the students’ characteristic and the activity I used to teach in every meeting. In this part, I want to report my experience during four sessions I had. The dates of my teaching are on March 6^th, 9^th, 13^th and 16^th.

First time I designed the lesson plan, I felt confuse in designing the appropriate activity to the students here. I got many suggestions from my supervisor and my teammates. After my first lesson plan finished, I practiced before have my teaching demo. My first teaching practice was on Wednesday, March 6^th, 2019. On that day, the topic I taught was Unit 10 (Living Your Life), Lesson A (He taught himself), Part 1 (Vocabulary). Although I already practice before I teach, I’m still felt nervous to meet new students. I think I already did my best on teaching but there are some improvements that I have to concern. For example I spoke too fast and gave unclear instruction to the students. It made the students confused with the activity they have to do. To deal with this problem, I got a suggestion to slow down my speech.

On my second teaching practice, I designed the lesson plan and I did many revisions. It is because I got some suggestions from my supervisor. My second teaching practice was on Saturday, March 9^th, 2019. The topic I taught was Unit 9 (Relationships), Lesson B (I’m Really Sorry), Part 2 (Listening). This class has different characteristics from the pervious the one. This class is more passive than Wednesday class. During my teaching I felt that I did not conduct the steps properly because most of students did not give any response to the activity, such as they did not write while the listening section. This is also caused by my instruction was not very clear and I talked too fast, so the students did not understand what I explained. To deal with this situation, I need to improve my explaining skill by talking slower than before and choose the simplest word for the instruction.

My third teaching demo was same as with the class on Wednesday class. It was on March 13^th, 2019. The topic I taught was Unit 10 (Living Your Life), Lesson B (I’ll give it some thought), Part 1 (Interaction). I already know the characteristic of the students. Until this point, I already know the appropriate activity for this kind of class. It also supported by the students already know me, so that I can adjust my teaching style for this class. In fact, I was still nervous because I have to do my best. Then this feeling affected my performance in the class. My voice was not louder than before, I was not excited as usual and I had unsmooth activity during my teaching. To deal with this situation, I need to improve my professionalism as a teacher by doing some rehearsals before I teach.

My last teaching demo was on Saturday, March 16^th, 2019. Here I tried to do my best because this is my last performance here. I prepared my lesson plan and powerpoint slides a few days before the teaching demo. I thought about the appropriate activity which makes interest to the topic. My topic was Unit 9 (Relationships), Lesson D (Getting Advice), Part 1 and 2 (Reading and listening). Since reading to a text and listening to the audio are hard to design the activity, I need to think more in planning interesting activity. I also practiced a lot before I teach. My teaching demo was the last session in this class, so I need to think for the activity which wakes them up. Overall, I did my best in conducting this teaching demo but I need to improve more about my teaching skill especially in explaining skill.

In conclusion, after I did my four teaching demos, I learnt so many from these experiences. I got many new knowledge and skills to prepare my future carrier. There are many positive values which I had for this teaching practicum that should be maintained, such as I have to maintain my personality by making friends with the students, I keep bring enjoyable environment to the students and keep making interesting activity to the lesson. Somehow, there are some improvements which I need to be concerned, such as I need to talk slower in order to make the students get my instructions, I need to make simple sentences for the instruction, and I need to more make the students discuss with group activity.