Summary and Suggestion

The only source of knowledge is experience.

The SEA Teacher Exchange is a program that provides student teachers with cultural, educational, and teaching experiences in other countries. The purpose of this practicum is to develop student teachers skills, such as teaching, pedagogy, and English for communicate, to allow student teachers to gain new insight about broader regional and world view, and to expose student teachers with diversity of teaching and learning situations and opportunity that they could take it as a new knowledge to teach in their home country.

For me, this SEA Teacher student exchange program has meet my need. I learned many things about Philippines, starts with the way of living as a Pinoy, socialize and communicate with people, about their cultures, foods, lifestyle, events and activities, and of course education and the way of teaching. All of this was packaged well by the SEA Teacher program as a very valuable new experience for me.

I also had opportunity to learn how education works in other country, how do teachers teach and handle students, curriculum that they use, how to make lesson plan and other instruments, and even teach directly in class like a teacher there. All of this is new knowledge and I am very grateful for this opportunity.

The procedures of this practicum started with the first time I came to Tapaz Central Elementary School (TCES) in week one. This is the first time I met the great teachers, staffs, and students, familiarize with new atmosphere in TCES, and get to know with everyone.

In week two, I had opportunity to observe directly how teachers do their job in school. Started with making lesson plan, making all of learning materials, preparing class, and teaching students. By seeing and observing like this, I gained a lot of new knowledge which I can certainly apply when teaching in my country.

I started to practice teaching by week three. This was my opportunity to apply all of things that I have learned from class observation. I got a bunch of constructive feedback that can improve my teaching skills.

And the final week was my final demonstration. At that time, I taught while being observed by observers to be assessed and given further suggestions and feedback on my skills so far.

This practicum improves me a lot for sure. Not only developing and improving my teaching skills and pedagogy, but also my English skills. Previously, I had some teaching experience in my country, Indonesia. Of course, I have gained a lot of new knowledge. However, this practicum is different. This is my first time teaching in English. There was a feeling of insecurity and fear before. But after trying, I realized that I was capable and develop. I am grateful to SEA Teacher for providing real results for me, both pedagogy skills and English.

However, there were several challenges for me in participating in this practicum. The first is of course language. I was necessary for me to adapt to teaching with other language for the first time. The second is in handling and dealing with students. They sometimes did not focus and did not take lessons seriously. But again, students are students, they have their own characteristics and skills, and only a great teacher can bring them all together to learn in a class.

Overall, I am very grateful to have been given the opportunity to study in another country. I really enjoyed every second of my time in the Philippines. From the warm welcome that people gave to me, the comfort and hospitality they showed me, beautiful places, culture, and foods, and also the valuable stories, experience and knowledge I gained from them, it all easily leads me to say Tapaz is beautiful. I will never forget my SEA Teacher journey at Tapaz.

Suggestions for Future Improvement

In my opinion, 1 month is not enough to blend into a new environment abroad. Perhaps, the next SEA Teachers can further extend the length of practicum in their program, such as 2 months. Besides that, everything was perfect.