A Practical Practicum

During PST the Peace Corps requires us to do a practicum at a local school close to our village, which is good for many reasons. Whether a trainee has taught or not it is important

to be familiar with how Indonesian schools run. They are certainly not identical to schools in the US. This experience also helped trainees like me, who have not yet been in a classroom before, become acquainted with the responsibilities that come with being an Indonesian teacher. Some trainees find this experience more valuable than others do. A lot also depends on the attitude of your counterparts and school. I personally gleamed a lot from my experience. It did into teach me everything I needed to knows but it certainly got my feet wet.

My village did our practicum at an SMK school. This is an Indonesian vocational high school. Ours focused on broadcasting, multi-media, and animation. While there we worked with only grade 10 students because the 11th grade students were off campus for their apprenticeships. The school itself was pretty small (smaller than what we are told to expect) and only had about 300 students for grades 10-12. The English teaching staff consisted of only 3 teachers; one teaches conversation classes and the other two teach more traditional classes that prep students for the National Exam. One of the two teachers is strictly a 12th grade teacher so we didn't work with her since we will only teach grades 10 and ll.

Practicum consisted of 3 weeks at the same school. Our first week was spent observing four counterparts' classes. Mr. Er is classes are 3 "hours" long (but really 3x 45 min periods) and his focus on the national curriculum. This usually means a heavy focus on reading and writing, however Mr. Er does try to get speaking and listening in as much as possible. These classes aren't too large. Most are around 25-30 students with the exception of one that only has 12 students. Later in the week we did have to opportunity to also visit Mrs. Ik's class, which is the conversational class. Because it consists of speaking, which is naturally more noisy than the other three skills, the class was a bit more hectic. Overall, however, during our first week we found classrooms to be much louder than what we are used to coming from an American school system. The students are much more prone to having side conversations and uncontrollable fits of laughter here and it is such a normal practice that It can be difficult to control.

During our second and third weeks we worked with our counterparts to lesson plan. Our classroom participation was increased week by week so in week 2 we did 20-30 min activities and in week 3 we taught a full lesson. Although it was useful to get experience standing in front of a class, I don't really get nervous in that situation because of all experiences at camp and OHM (Open House Ministries). What I enjoyed and valued most about my practicum experience was working with our counterparts, especially Mr. Er.

After our first observation with Mr. Er's class he was already asking for feedback. We gave him a few suggestions on ways we might have approached the lesson and by the end of our second day, one of my village mates, Ti, and myself had already sat down with him to revise his lessons for the week. At first it was a little awkward because he has had 4 years of teaching experience and Ti and I haven't ever worked in a school. We knew we didn't have all the answers, but we also knew that we wouldn't choose to teach the lesson in the same way. Mr. E. was equally as nervous, but it was because he wanted new ideas, but didn't want to feel like a nuisance. We had our moment where we recognized where each party was coming from and realized that we were on the same page. Ti and I were excited about starting to lesson plan and Mr. Er was excited about getting new ideas. That experience really laid down the groundwork for a good partnership with him for the remaining weeks.

The experience with our other counterpart wasn't quite as smooth. Mrs. Ik has a very different teaching style than Mr. Er. She was more interested in turning the class over to us. This seems like a pretty common response to having American teachers show up. In the end though she did see what we were trying to do and when some of my village mates co-taught with her she was willing to participate in their lesson plans. Their was progress, but she was not as interested in our presence as Mr. Er was. I didn’t feel hurt by this reaction (especially at our practicum site) because we were only there for a limited time. Although it was good for us, I can understand why it could be simply seen as an intrusion to them. Overall though it was a good experience with both ends of the spectrum.