Week 2: Team Teaching Part 1 of 2

Last September 9, 2019, Mr. Walter Jensen was the main teacher by then. The class started at 8 am. Mr. Alfin Candra (our buddy) and I sat down, observed and helped him while he was teaching the students of Grade 11-MIPA 6. Grade 11-MIPA 6 is one of the Mathematics and Science sections in SMA N2 Semarang. Before he discussed the lesson, he made a short introduction first about himself and the place where he was raised and grew up so students can be able to know and trust him more. Overall, the way he taught the students was good based on the positive reactions from his students.

September 10, 2019: It is finally the day when I am going to become the main teacher of the day! We had to speed things up at this time because it is the final week before their midterms examination which will be held the following week on September 16-20, 2019. That is why our mentor, Pak Mat Ibnu, decided that we should have a team teaching this week. Today, our class started at 6:30 am.

Going back, it is finally my turn to be the main teacher at Grade 11-IPS 2. Grade 11-IPS 2 is one of the Social Sciences sections. At first, it was nerve-wracking. I was about to face a class that I am not used to. More than that, I am feeling a bit worried if they could really understand me considering that I know very little about Bahasa Indonesia. It’s a good reassurance though to have Mr. Alfin Candra, our buddy, to help us when translations need to be done.

In the beginning, I greeted the students, checked their attendance and asked them to sing their national anthem as suggested by our mentor. As soon as it was finished, I also set some class rules which I usually do at the first meeting. I call it my 3 R’s: Respect, Raise your hands, and Reinforce E.O.P. (English Only Policy). The students agreed to follow the rules when I asked them. Afterward, I showed some PowerPoint slides to introduce myself and my country. In this way, students would have background knowledge of where I came from and what culture we have in the Philippines. It is sort of a cultural exchange process where students shared their insights as well. To end the preliminary activities, I also gave them the learning objectives or “today’s agenda” as I would call it.

Next, I started to give a motivational activity to unlock their prior knowledge about conditionals. I asked them to define it and to give the types and forms of Zero and First Conditionals. Impressively, the students are smart and can remember their past lessons that’s why the review went smoothly. Then, I also asked them to read a simple dialogue. They identified the sentences and the type of conditional that was used in that particular sentence.

The approach that I used was the Cooperative Learning method. Instead of discussing the lesson through a lecture, I chose to have a student-centered activity for them. I call the activity “Conditional Chain” where students are asked to give a word one by one that will soon construct a conditional sentence based on the given question. So, I grouped them into six and I began giving the instructions as soon as they settled. To give them a little bit of excitement, I made it a competition where one or more groups may be eliminated after each round. Surprisingly, they were able to follow the instructions and played the game quite well. Most students even provided well-constructed sentences. At that moment, I was very proud of what they have achieved because the purpose of why I employed this kind of activity is to see if they can apply what they have learned about the lesson.

As for their final activity, the students have grouped again into four. The evaluation part was a gap-filling activity with pictures where students need to fill in the blanks with appropriate main and if-clauses based on the pictures. After the activity, 5 out of 6 groups passed and reached the learning objective that I was hoping for. I was satisfied with the results and with their performance as well.

Lastly, I generalized summarized and valued the importance of learning conditionals. I told them that in life, they will encounter some situations that have certain requirements or conditions that need to be met. If ever they engage in such conversations, conditional statements should be used effectively. The class ended at 8 am.

Overall, the experience was satisfying and the results made me fall in love with teaching even more. I still have one more meeting with this class on Thursday and I couldn’t wait to continue teaching them English. I am really hoping for more fun and active class by then! That's all. Terima Kasih!

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