7 From the journals that I got from the students, the following became the biggest problems with
classroom management. There were four problems that the students encountered
a. Pre-service teachers’ inner problems: anxiety, confidence and feelings
Several student teachers who did their teaching practice at Lab SHS Semester II 2012-2013 Academic year experienced some inner problems like anxiety, lack of confidence, and other
negative feelings like fear and worries. Student A, for example, in her second teaching, she still felt worried and nervous, she was afraid if she could not deliver the materials well to the
students. Besides this inner problem, Student A also mentioned that the class was too crowded. As mentioned by Lewis 2002:43, large, multilevel classes with fixed furniture can be
constraints for students to talk. Another participant who encountered this problem was Student C. The feeling that pre-service teachers at this school were underestimated by students in the
high school heightened his feeling. “
When I entered the classroom, the students were looking at us
Student C and his partner during pair-teaching
as if they were looking at aliens. I was very nervous at the first time.
” Student D also experienced a similar problem; just like Student C, students‟ lack of interest also made her down. The difference was that she could overcome this
problem when she tried to build communication with the students. But, she thought that once she showed her anxiety to the class, the students would not respect her. To her surprise, she
found the students nice, smart, and creative. The following is Student D‟s statement in her first teaching reflection.
“Those things having disinterested students
made me down and I became more frustrated. However, I had to stay calm in front of them the students
because once I show my anxiety, they won’t respect me. But, my anxiety was gone when I tried to communicate with them…they were not like what I thought,
they were nice, smart, and creative. They were cooperative enough, so I can
create a good atmosphere in the class and made the activity become fun.” Student D‟s first teaching reflection
Another problem that Student D encountered was her shyness. She admitted that she was a very shy person, and she did not talk much. She had average communication skills. Similar
problems dealing with nervousness and fear of not being able to handle the class well, especially in the first teaching, was also experienced by Student E, F, G, and J.
In my observation, Student E had a problem with his self-confidence and he did not have any assurance that what he did
would be successful. He was one of two students from the oldest class year 2006. There were only two students who never felt nervous in their teaching; they were Student H and I. In my
observation, they could be considered as students with high confidence level. All in all, I can conclude that being pre-service teachers whom students might not fully respect, and teaching for
the first time made most of my participants feel nervous, worried, and afraid. Self-assurance was among other things that they could do to calm themselves down.
b. Time problems
