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students and then there are calm students. So, I know a lot from my mentor teacher, actually. Mocca, SMP Lab
Yes, he gives me explanation about the situation of the students, the type of students that I was going to teach and he told me about some useful strategies that I might use in my teaching. Leba, SMA Lab
5. Observation
At the beginning of their TP program, the student teachers must observe their mentor teacher. They also need to observe the other student teachers teaching at the same school
throughout the program. The student teachers must observe their mentor teacher to get some information about the class situation and obtain some characteristics of the students in the
class so that they handle the students based on their characteristics. Observation is basically done to help the student to prepare their selves before teaching the students and to learn
teaching a particular class. From the interview,
8 of the 10 participants admitted that by observing their friends or other student teachers while teaching had helped them to improve their strategies to teach
and to handle the students in the class, not only to teach the students. From observation, the student teachers also get some teaching knowledge about how to create a good material for
the students or to improve their skill in teaching. For example, Ila SMP Lab stated that “from observation to my friends, I learned about their experience to teach and their strategy
in class to manage the classroom”. She admitted that observation was helpful to know the
characteristics of the students before she was teaching the class.
6. Imitation
Imitation can be defined as “the action of using someone or something as a model” http:oxforddictionaries.comdefinitionenglishimitation. For some of the student teachers,
TP is the time when they first teach real students. Therefore, some of them may imitate some strategies that are used by other student teachers. This was also evident in the research. For
example, one of the student teachers admitted that she imitated her friend‟s teaching strategy to help her to teach the students, “I imitated the way they encourage the students to get their
attention so they are focused on my voice.” Wardani, SMA Lab
Nevertheless, not all of the student teachers imitated the other student teachers‟ teaching strategy because they had their own style in teaching the students. In fact, based on
the interview result, 6 out of 10 participants chose to use their own style in teaching the students, because it will improve their ability and creativity to design materials and to know
the students‟ characteristics. For example, As Lida SMAN1 stated, “I did not really imitate
Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW
376 others. I just teach based on my own taught. So, I did not really imitate the others. My
teaching style is just explaining the material to teach the students.”
7. Teaching Materials
