Teaching Practice

In this session, I’m going to deliver about my experience in teaching practicum. I had to teach General English and also ESP class. In this case, I had my peers teaching under our supervisor, Ms. Thanh Hang. There are 3 periods in one meeting and we had to teach one period per each. So it meant I had to teach 50 minutes. During this program, there are several procedures of teaching which need to be done with my peers.
    One of them is making lesson plan and media. Before teaching, I had to make lesson plan and also media to be used in teaching process. When the supervisor gave me the material, she was divided it into 3 periods. In the first teaching, I had to teach speaking skill. Second teaching was reading skill. Third teaching was grammar, and last teaching was about ESP material. After making lesson plan and media, as usual me and my peers would do consultation  about the lesson plan and power point to our supervisor. This was done in order to make our lesson plan better. Moreover, we were received feedback in terms of comments and suggestions from my supervisor, whether or not the activities are appropriate for students.
Then, the supervisor asked me and my peers to revise the lesson plan and also the media used. I had to revise it and make it better although I have to make start from the beginning. I mean the activities and etc. however, I could revise it and give it back to my supervisor. Last but not the least is I had to teach it according to the lesson. I had to teach 4 times.
  In teaching procedures, the time is classified into 3 parts. Mostly, there are:

Procedure Time
Warm-up: in this part, the activity is aimed to brainstorm students’ knowledge and attract students’ attention to the topic. 10 minutes
Whilst: in this part, the activities are designed to make students learn about the topic and also practice their skills and ability. 40 minutes
Post: in this part, the activity is done to check students’ understanding and conclude about the lesson. 10 minutes

   When conducting teaching practicum, I faced several problems in the classroom. One of them is technical problem when I could not plug in the HDMI cable to my computer because my computer does not match with the cable. Thus, the solution was I use my peer’s computer and transferred my power point to my peer’s computer. In the next teaching, I would use my peer’s computer continuously. Next, in teaching grammar, the students looked like not understand about the material. Then, I decided to explain more and give them task to make them understand.
   In addition, I needed to speak not too fast, my instructions also needed to be shortened and using creative power point slides. I had to listen to students answers more and also to use take-back questions in checkin students’ understanding. Then, I needed to manage my time better. When teaching grammar, I could use simple example of sentences and use it to explain the material. I needed to teach based on the context. In addition, I delivered unclear instruction for students. Furthermore, I am going to improve myself in giving clear instruction and explanation based on the context that students can use in everyday life. I would like to use simple questions and sentences in order to make it clearer for them. I also needed to learn different types of teaching approaches and styles in teaching grammar.            
To make the students easier to move around, I asked students to work in group or pairs. However, the bench is very difficult to be arranged because it was being one (the chair and also the table). So that, the activities would take more time for students to move. When I was teaching, I usually went around in the classroom to control the classroom’ atmosphere. Also, I spoke loudly in the classroom. Besides, I always asked students to participate in learning process by asking questions or conducting game. In order to make students active, I used reinforcement. Both verbal and non-verbal reinforcement. Verbal reinforcement e.g. “good”,“amazing”, “great”, and etc. While non-verbal reinforcement such as giving Balinese souvenirs, and candy. Those could make them more active and engage to follow the lesson.