PROS Eko Winarsih Anne I Timotius Teaching English in Secondary full text

(1)

Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 368

TEACHING ENGLISH IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS:

HOW DO I DO THAT?

Eko Winarsih

ekkawinna@gmail.com

Satya Wacana Christian University

Anne Indrayanti Timotius anne@staff.uksw.edu

Satya Wacana Christian University

Abstract

This paper will share about the experience on how Teaching Practice (TP) students learn and obtain the knowledge about teaching English to students in several secondary schools in Salatiga (Junior High Schools and Senior High Schools). TP, as a compulsory subject in the English Department of Satya Wacana Christian University, is the time where the students can apply the learning theories they have learnt before. However, for many of

them, TP was their first experience to teach „real‟ students in a formal academic institution. As a result, there might be many things that were still new when they started to do the TP.

Because of this issue, the research attempted to answer the question: How do student teachers acquire pedagogical knowledge in their Teaching Practice? To answer the research question, a qualitative research was done through some interviews with ten ED students who have done TP in some secondary schools. The result of this paper shows that the participants develop their pedagogical knowledge during their TP program in some ways, like by learning from mentor teachers, doing observation, interacting with other student teachers, imitating their mentor teacher and other student teachers, and learning from their teaching reflection.

Keywords: pedagogical knowledge, Teaching Practice

Introduction

Faculties in the field of education in Indonesia must be having the teaching practice subject in the curriculum. The writers of this paper also experience TP as one of the requirements to graduate from the faculty or department. However, there were some requirements before taking TP and we must have passed it before we were allowed to take TP. Those requirements were subjects related to learning theories so that the students will obtain pedagogical knowledge through the materials and mini practice in the class.

Teaching Practicum (TP) is the process where the students can apply the learning theories and also to teach other students from gaining pedagogical knowledge while they do TP. TP is also the time when students learn how to manage classroom or manage students in certain schools. As Nasa (2002) stated, TP is a process when the student who is doing TP will have some experiences in their teaching, to have classroom experiences, or how they manage

(2)

Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 369 the students in the classroom. During TP, the students will gain pedagogical knowledge related to the way they teach the students and know about teaching. TP seems to be a tool to

build the student‟s pedagogical knowledge and to explore their ability and creativity to teach and handle the students while teaching in some schools or institutes.

It seems that TP helped the student teacher to socialize with others. In other words, the student teachers who are doing TP would interact with the other TP students in the schools where they taught, and also with the mentor teachers, and other teachers in the schools. Throughout the program, the student teachers may also interact with other student teachers, to share about their experience while teaching the students or to share some problems and try solving them with each others. Since TP was the first time for many of the student teachers to teach the students in a formal school, it may be a little bit difficult for the student teachers to know how to teach the students well or to manage the classroom well. This is probably because some of the student teachers had no teaching experience before. Therefore, it is while doing TP when the student teachers may get or acquire pedagogical knowledge to help them to teach the students in schools.

Based on the above reason, we wanted to investigate how TP students gain the pedagogical knowledge to teach English during TP. Therefore, the study attempted to answer the question: how do TP students acquire pedagogical knowledge in their Teaching Practice? This study tried to analyze how the student teachers (Teaching Practicum students) gain the pedagogical knowledge in their TP. We hope that this study will be very useful for the students in education faculties, especially those who are going to do or doing TP in secondary schools. The study will help them to acquire the pedagogical knowledge in their teaching and learning theories through TP in several and certain schools.

Literature Review

In this part of the paper, some basic theories that become the foundation of the research will be presented. They are related to pedagogical knowledge and community of practice.

Pedagogical Knowledge

Billet (2001, p.xv1) stated the term of the word pedagogy as “the science and art of

teaching, but often used to describe an approach to how learning should proceed and the

consequences of that approach.” So, the term pedagogical knowledge may be described as the

knowledge about the way or strategies on how to teach effectively and also as the knowledge about teaching approaches (Timotius, 2011, p.182). Pollard (2010) also describes pedagogy

(3)

Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 370 as “the practice of teaching framed and informed by a shared and structured body of knowledge”. According to Timotius (2011), pedagogical knowledge highlights on the „teaching skills‟ and the teaching content that contain of “knowledge of lesson structure” and “knowledge of subject matter” (Leinhardt and Smith, 1985, in Timotius, 2011).

The student teacher taking TP may gain Pedagogical knowledge from some sources that in the end will help them teaching the students in the schools. The first source may be the

mentor teacher. The mentor teachers‟ guidance could be very helpful for the student teachers

to get some teaching strategies or to help them to improve their skill in teaching the students

in class. As Little and Nelson (1990) explained, “By establishing teacher mentoring

programs, the district serves two important purposes: novice teachers are given a strong start at the beginning of their careers, and experienced classroom teachers serving as mentors

receive recognition and incentives”. In other words, the mentor teachers helped the student

teachers to teach the well. They would always monitor the student teachers while teaching the students in class. The mentor teachers function not only as the mentor, but also as motivators,

to improve the student teachers‟ skill and to help them to face and handle the students in the

real situation in the formal schools.

Pedagogical knowledge can also be acquired from observation – that is by observing

the other student teachers or their mentor teacher. The term “observation” means “looking at something without influencing it and simultaneously recording it for later analysis” (True,

1983). From observation, the student teacher will be able to know the situation in the class

and the students‟ characteristics. By doing observation, the student teachers will be able to

recognize the situation in the class or the characteristics of the students before they teach. By observation, the student teachers may think of some strategies to teach the students and it will simultaneously help the student teachers to obtain the pedagogical knowledge they need to teach a certain class.

Community of Practice

It cannot be denied that while the student teachers are doing their TP, they are being in a community of practice (CoP), that is the TP CoP. According to Wenger (1998):

A community of practice (CoP) is any group of people whose members have a common interest in a subject, problem or goal; through collaboration, negotiation and sharing of ideas, they find solutions and new ideas.

(4)

Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 371 Therefore, TP can be defined as a community of student teachers who teach the students in certain schools. In TP site, they would do interaction, sharing ideas, information, or strategy in teaching and learning process in the class. They also might have some feedback or evaluation to each others by the CoP members.

Ali (2001) argued that CoP is very important to create development in informal learning and working groups in some organizations. The student teachers are the member of CoP itself that worked together in the same TP site. The student teachers might have group discussions for each member in TP sites. In fact, TP helps the student teacher to cooperate with each other by helping each other in problem solving to manage the class or the students, for example by sharing their ideas to each other to get some strategies to teach the students in the class. CoP has also been introduced as a new organizational form, which according to its

proponents „promises to complement existing structures and radically galvanize knowledge sharing, learning, and change‟ (Wenger & Snyder, 2000, p.139). Through CoP, the students

can share and transfer knowledge to other people in some institutions or schools, formally or informally.

The Study

Context of the study

The setting of the study was the Faculty of Language and Literature or English Department (ED) of Satya Wacana Christian University where located in a small town of Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia. English Department was chosen because it offers the TP programs with various TP sites. Like other education faculties in Satya Wacana Christian University, TP must be done by the students because it is the one of the requirements to graduate. So, the students must teach in certain schools for fulfilling the requirements. Through TP, the students are supposed to teach their students in certain schools. TP also

helps the student‟s teacher to acquire their pedagogical knowledge in their Communities of Practice (CoP) from their socialization in the certain schools or institutes.

Participants of the Study

The subject of the study was the ED students who have done in TP in certain secondary schools located in Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia. There were ten (10) ED students who have done in teaching practicum. Ten participants were chosen because we hope to get enough data within the limited time we had to collect the data. A purposive

(5)

Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 372 participants. The participants were I selected to meet the criteria:. Student‟s participants had

been selected based on the following criteria:

 The ED students who are in the 2nd semester at the end of the academic year (2011/2012) who have done TP.

 The students have done and passed the TP course.

 They did their TP in a secondary school in Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia.

Data Collection Instrument

In attempting to answer the research question, the data was collected through interviews to have data by asking the participants with a purpose (Burgess, 1984). Semi-structured interview was conducted for collecting data to allow the participants to answer the questions flexibly. The flexibility provides the sub questions that would provide follow-up

questions (Patton, 1990). The questions for interviews focused on the TP students‟

pedagogical knowledge in their teaching practice to teach English in certain schools or institutions. From the interview, richer data from the participants was hoped to be gathered, because we could ask and explore the answer or data that we need to know to help the data collection.

For the study, qualitative data was gathered. According to McKay (2006, p.6) qualitative study begin with the assumption that the research topic must be understood

“holistically”. The study is done by taking into account a variety of factors that might affect

the participants. For the data collection, ten ED students who have done their TP were interviewed. The interview took about 20-30 minutes and it was recorded and transcribed to

get the participants‟ comment on their pedagogical knowledge to teach English (Brown & Rodgers, 2002; Nunan, 1989). The interview focused on how the students‟ teacher acquires

their pedagogical knowledge in their TP to teach English.

Discussion

This part of the paper will describe the data that was gathered from the interview. Below are the ways the student teachers that became the participants of the study gained their pedagogical knowledge while doing their TP.

(6)

Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 373 1. Teaching Reflection

During the TP program, student teachers must write reflections after each teaching. The refection reflected on how they teach the students in the class, and to know the strengths and weaknesses in teaching in certain classes. From reflection, they are able to measure their knowledge about they way they to teach the students. The reflection may also help the student teachers to improve their teaching skills and strategies for the next teaching. Below were the statements from student teachers who stated that by making reflection, it would help them to improve their teaching skills:

I think by reflecting my experience it made me know what mistakes I made, the lack of my teaching, the good of my teaching, so I believe that by doing reflection on my teaching it makes me better in teaching skill. (Sabat, SMP Lab)

I wrote reflections after teaching the students. By making the reflection, the problems that I‟ve made in

the previous teaching will not appear again in my next teaching. (Mocca, SMP Lab)

2. Errors

As the new teacher in formal schools, it is inevitable for student teachers to make errors. This is true especially for those who have not known about the school situation and

about the students‟ characteristics yet. One of the participants explained a little bit about her experience in making errors while teaching:

I have ever experienced that. I miss pronounced one word. Well, after that my partner said that my

pronunciation was a little bit wrong, but my partner didn‟t correct me directly in front of the class, my partner just corrected me after I have finished my teaching. So, for the next teaching I have to speak carefully and correctly. (Dewi, SMA Lab)

All the participants reported that they experienced making errors or mistakes while teaching. Since it was the first time to teach the students in schools, so maybe the student teachers felt nervous then they made mistakes in their teaching. According to Dewi (SMA Lab), errors actually helped to make better teaching for the next teaching. By doing errors, the student teachers would realize their mistake and weaknesses during doing TP. Errors also

could improve the student teachers‟ awareness for not to make the same mistake in their

teaching. That was one of the ways for student teachers to gain pedagogical knowledge from their errors during doing TP.

3. Interaction

During their TP program, the student teachers inevitably socialize or interact with other teachers or student teachers. Interaction here means that the student teachers meet and talk with others by sharing their experiences in teaching or just to talk about what they have

(7)

Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 374 done in class. One of the benefits of doing this is to learn from each other about the way they can teach or manage classrooms well.

The result of the interview shows that 9 of 10 participants interacted with other student teachers to share their ideas during their TP program. For example, one of the participants, Gabriel (SMP Lab) stated that:

Sometimes when I do not any idea about the material that I need to give to the students, I had a discussion with my friend and with my mentor teacher. Then, I could learn what materials are suitable for the students or if I have the material then I just asked if it was enough for the students or was it too difficult or too easy.

So, basically the participants admitted that interaction with other student teachers or mentor teachers helped them to teach the students in the next teaching. During the TP program, student teachers usually have office hours to have consultation with mentor teachers or just being on duty to stay in the office as other teachers in the school do. It is usually during the office hour when the student teachers are able talk to each other about their materials or their experiences in TP. As a result, they can discuss about some ideas to teach the students.

4. Learning from mentor teachers

Mentor teachers are the teachers who teach English to the students in certain schools and when there are TP student teachers placed in their schools, they also guide the student

teachers before and during their TP. Some of the mentor teacher‟s responsibilities are to help

the student teachers to teach and suggest some strategies in teaching the students. Basically, mentor teachers guide the student teachers in doing their TP. They help the student teachers by giving advice to teach well and monitoring the student teachers while they are teaching the students. Little and Nelson (1990) explained that the mentor teachers function as the guide to monitor and help the student teacher to improve their skill in teaching the students.

From the result of interview, 8 of 10 participants stated that the mentor teacher helped them to acquire the pedagogical knowledge, because mentor teacher helped them to make good and creative materials for teaching and also helped the student teacher to have some strategies to manage the students and classroom. Two of the participants even stated that the

mentor teacher‟s guidance was very helpful for them to decide of the teaching strategies in teaching. Below was what two of the participants stated related to the help of the mentor teacher in their teaching during TP:

I learnt how to teach, how to handle the students because the context is in the real Teaching Practicum. I had to face a lot of students and their characteristics are different in some classes, there are serious

(8)

Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 375

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.com/definition/english/imitation). 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

(9)

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

To teach the students, the student teachers should design and create their own

materials. The materials should be interesting and creative so it would attract the students‟

attention to learn the materials and help the students to get the knowledge from the materials given. The mentor teacher usually demand the student teacher to make their own materials based on the topics given from mentor teachers.

Most of the participants stated that they looked for idea from the Internet to design the materials or to create the activities to teach the students by modifying it. Moreover, some of them also use books or students handouts to help them to make activities in their teaching. These were what some participants mentioned related to material development:

“I look for some book or from the Internet about material” (Dewi, SMA Lab)

“I used electronic book and printed book provided in the library in that school and also I tried to find additional material from the Internet.” (Dudu, SMPN2)

Conclusion

This paper tried to investigate the way student teachers develop their pedagogical knowledge during their TP program. Ten ED students who have done their TP in several secondary schools were interviewed. The result shows that during TP, the student teachers acquired pedagogical knowledge in some ways, like learning from the guidance of the

mentor teacher, by observing their mentor teacher or other student teachers‟ teaching, and

also imitation.

The student teachers mostly gain their pedagogical knowledge by learning from their mentor teachers‟ guidance. By having consultations with mentor teachers, the student teachers learned about how to make a good lesson plan and materials for teaching. Another way to acquire pedagogical knowledge was by doing observation to the mentor teachers and the other student teachers while they were teaching. Through observation, the student teachers prepared themselves before teaching the students and to learn teaching a particular class. Also from observations they did, the students teachers could imitate how their mentor teacher or the other student teachers taught the students, like the way they teach, the way they speak, or the way they explain the material to the students in the class.

(10)

Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 377 Pedagogical knowledge also gained by writing teaching reflections after teaching the students. From reflection, the student teacher knew their strengths and weaknesses in teaching. By reflection, the student teachers were able to know the errors that they made during teaching the students in the class. So, from the errors they have made, the student teachers could improve their teaching skills in the next teaching.

TP actually helped the student teachers to learn to design and create materials for the

students. To catch the students‟ attention, the student teachers had to design and create good and creative materials for the students. By making materials, the student teachers gained some pedagogical knowledge on how to make appropriate and interesting materials for their students. Pedagogical knowledge also can be gained from interaction. It means that by interaction to other student teachers. The student teachers could share their experiences, ideas or strategies of teaching. Through interaction, the student teachers could learn about problem solving to manage the classroom and the students in the class.

(11)

Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 378 REFERENCES

Ali, S. (2011). Communities of practice and teacher development – lessons learnt from an educational innovation in Pakistan. Journal of Research and Reflections in Education, 5 (2), 70 -82.

Beck, S. (2008). The teacher‟s role and approaches in a knowledge society. Cambridge Journal of Education, 38 (4), 465–481.

Blackledge, A. (2001). Complex positioning: Women negotiating identity and power in a minority urban setting. In A. Pavlenko, A. Blackledge, I. Piller & M. Teutsch-Dwyer (Eds.), Multilingualism, second language learning, and gender. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Billet, S. (2001). Learning in the workplace: Strategies for effective practice. Crows Nest, N.S.W.:Allen & Unwin.

Brown, J. D., & Rodgers, T. S. (2002). Doing second language research. New York: Oxford University Press.

Burgess, R. G. (1984). In the field. London: Allen and Unwin.

Little, J., & Nelson, L. (1990). Aleader‟s guide to mentor training. Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development.

McKay, S. L. (2006). Researching second language classrooms. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Olson, M. H., & Hergenhahn, B. R. (2009). An introduction to theories of learning (Eight ed.). Pearson Education.

Patton, M . Q. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage

Pollard, A. (ed) (2010) Professionalism and Pedagogy: A contemporary opportunity A Commentary by TLRP and GTCE. London: TLRP.

Timotius, A.I. (2011, November 21-22). teachers' social pedagogical knowledge acquisition in a workplace: A knowledge management perspective. Teacher Education in Era of World Englishes , 181-193.

True, J. (1983). Finding out: Conducting and evaluating social research. Belmont.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Wenger, E. C., & Synder, W. M. (2000). Communities of practice: The organizational frontier. Harvard Business Review, 78 (1), 139-145.

Wilson, S. M., Shulman, L. S., & Richert, A. E. (1987). '150 different ways' of knowing: Representations of knowledge in teaching. In J. Calderhead (Ed.), Exploring teachers' thinking (pp. 104-124). London: Cassell.

(1)

Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 373

1. Teaching Reflection

I wrote reflections after teaching the students. By making the reflection, the problems that I‟ve made in the previous teaching will not appear again in my next teaching. (Mocca, SMP Lab)

2. Errors

As the new teacher in formal schools, it is inevitable for student teachers to make errors. This is true especially for those who have not known about the school situation and

about the students‟ characteristics yet. One of the participants explained a little bit about her experience in making errors while teaching:

I have ever experienced that. I miss pronounced one word. Well, after that my partner said that my pronunciation was a little bit wrong, but my partner didn‟t correct me directly in front of the class, my partner just corrected me after I have finished my teaching. So, for the next teaching I have to speak carefully and correctly. (Dewi, SMA Lab)

could improve the student teachers‟ awareness for not to make the same mistake in their

teaching. That was one of the ways for student teachers to gain pedagogical knowledge from their errors during doing TP.

3. Interaction

(2)

4. Learning from mentor teachers

Mentor teachers are the teachers who teach English to the students in certain schools and when there are TP student teachers placed in their schools, they also guide the student

teachers before and during their TP. Some of the mentor teacher‟s responsibilities are to help

(3)

Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 375 students and then there are calm students. So, I know a lot from my mentor teacher, actually. (Mocca, SMP Lab)

5. Observation

“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

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‟

(4)

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

To teach the students, the student teachers should design and create their own

materials. The materials should be interesting and creative so it would attract the students‟

“I look for some book or from the Internet about material” (Dewi, SMA Lab)

“I used electronic book and printed book provided in the library in that school and also I tried to find additional material from the Internet.” (Dudu, SMPN2)

Conclusion

mentor teacher, by observing their mentor teacher or other student teachers‟ teaching, and

also imitation.

(5)

TP actually helped the student teachers to learn to design and create materials for the

(6)

Research in Teacher Education : What, How, and Why?, November 21-22, 2012, UKSW 378

REFERENCES

Ali, S. (2011). Communities of practice and teacher development – lessons learnt from an educational innovation in Pakistan. Journal of Research and Reflections in

Education, 5 (2), 70 -82.

Beck, S. (2008). The teacher‟s role and approaches in a knowledge society. Cambridge

Journal of Education, 38 (4), 465–481.