Observation

DAY 1

August, 13th 2018

Dr. Rita May P. Tagalog, EdD (left), 2 practicumers from UNILA and me and Putri Mayasari from UNRAM, and Ms. Mariter Malonjao

first picture in the campus :)

First day here Dr. Rita May P. Tagalog, EdD - ISRM Dean, School of Education as our coordinator here, introduced us to the Chair Teacher Education Department and Student Teaching Coordinator for the local practicumers, Ms. Mariter Malonjao, then later on we are introduced to our mentors, I have Mrs. Robie Postrano. She is the English teacher for grade ten.  Grade ten is divided into 8 sections which five of them are handled by Mrs. Postrano and the rest is handled by Ms. Hazel Enad. The period of each meeting for English subject is 60 minutes. Each class has English subject every day. It means that Mrs. Postrano has to teach in the classroom 5 hours per day and 25 hours per week which is a lot in my opinion and so busy. Each class that she has consists of around 40 students.

For the first day here I attended two classes that are in forth and fifth period. Mrs. Postrano is the advisory for 10BMHS class so she has to check her students at the beginning and at the end of the school every single day. She has to make sure that her students behave well and leave the class in the clean situation. I was introduced to the students of three of her classes and they were all so nice and welcoming.

Students of 10FJJ

My first day attending the class is actually their first meeting as well in English class for this semester, therefore, their first meetings consists of introducing themselves in front of the class. It is quite unique for me and unusual because firstly they have to tell their inspirational lines then full name, age, residence, school attended last year, rank in the family, to whom they are living with, talents and ambitions, and their hobbies. Mrs. Postrano said she designed it to be like this to spice it up so that the students will not find it boring and again they are already so good in speaking in English.

The fact that I get the opportunity to observe the classroom in ESL situation is really something that I definitely will treasure for a life time because looking at the situation there is a big difference between the classroom situation in EFL and ESL. As we all know, Indonesia is in the third circle which means it is EFL situation. This is quite a challenge for me since I learn English as the foreign language and looking at how good the students in using English here kind of intimidating for me I mean at their age I barely could introduce my self properly!

Since this is catholic school there are things that I found so interesting here like their rituals for example, there is 3 o’clock prayer that when you have to stop walking and just stand when you hear the prayer from the speaker. At first I didn’t understand and kept walking but then Dr. Rita stopped us and told about the 3 o’clock prayer.  To say that I was really surprised was an understatement because we were suddenly stopped at the hallway and everyone did the same.

New things always left me confused yet amazed and there are some that I found in my first day here. But so far it had been interesting and I am dying to find out more about this place and culture!

DAY 2 (curriculum, school system, etc)

August, 14th 2018

With Mrs. Postrano

My second day started with Mrs. Postrano told me that they were about to have flag ceremony, and again it confused me because usually in Indonesia or any other countries they have it on Monday. Later on, she explained to me that this school has tried years to have the ceremony on Monday but still there were so many students came late because of the traffic and the schools here mostly have it on Monday too so after some considerations USC has the flag ceremony on Tuesday. And lucky me to having witnessed their cultural day here that they usually have once a month at the first week of school and it was so amazing! Students performed dance, singing and so on I was like in awe the whole time.

Learning Materials

For the first period, Mrs. Postrano teaches in 10BMHS. The activity for the second day is the election of class offices and since she is their advisory she has to lead the election. The class officers consist of mayor, vice mayor, secretary, treasurer and PIO. After they voted and the class officers already decided. Mrs. Postrano explained their duties and responsibilities in the classroom. After that, Mrs. Postrano told the class the books that will be used in the English class. There are 2 books used one is the novel about Greek mythology by Edith Hamilton which is about the gods and goddesses and the other is a textbook called FACETS. She said that their English class here is more into learning about the English literature than English in general and the fact that in Indonesia we don’t learn English literature in specific ways like in here, we learn English more about the structure and how to communicate with it so this is quite a big deal for me since my knowledge in literature let’s just say so poor. It seems like I have to do some more readings about English literature otherwise I will get lost in their discussion in the classroom. This is the sample of the lesson plan: 
Sample of Lesson Plan and also the curriculum design for grade 10: Curriculum Design

Moving on, so since Mrs. Postrano announced to the class what things they need for her class including the notebook and other stuff because there will be some crafting project they will do later on, everyone is expected to bring the stuff next week .

Mrs. Postrano's Teaching schedule

It goes the same for other 4 classes that she teaches since they are in the same level of grade but I’m only going to three classes which is one is in the morning (10BMHS) and 2 others are in the afternoon (10FJK and 10FJJ). We have talked about my schedule since I feel 5 classes are too heavy for me so she gave me a way out to choose which classes I want to join. And it was decided so, and it gives me more time to work on other things such as report and this blog. So here I am having the time of my life here :) 

one of the students' timetable

What amazes me the most about the culture here is how good the manners of the students and everyone here. We will greet and smile to each other in the hallway or wherever even though we do not know each other. The act of politeness is literally everywhere, and the students are so discipline academically and non-academically. Those are two things that I admire the most about this place.

USC BED- South Campus

When lunch break came, we talked about the curriculum, lesson plan and common learning targets since syllabus is only used for college level here. She also told me that here in the Philippines, the school is a university when it has all levels of education from the kindergarten to college unlike in Indonesia and some other parts of the world, university refers to college level only but here, if it does not have other levels of education it can only be called college. So no wonder the buildings for school here is so big and everyone can easily get lost, first day here it took me more than 20 minutes to go back because I was not familiar with everything here and to this day I still have no idea where is where except for the faculty room where Mrs. Postrano’s office is located and the classrooms that I go into and that’s about it. On that day I found out how different the education system between Philippines and Indonesia.

Looking back at all the things I have learned that day, there are some big differences that we have. First is the education system, and the second is their curriculum. Here in Philippines, every school has its own curriculum that they design based on their school system unlike in Indonesia all schools apply the same curriculum that the ministry of education has set for all to apply and the latest curriculum there is called K13 but some schools still apply the older curriculum called KTSP since the limited facilities and teachers training to support it to be applied in their schools.

BED Campus

In USC, Mrs. Postrano told me they once applied the K to 10 program in this school but then because of some students want to go continue their school abroad and the system does not match with the schools abroad which mostly apply Kto12 program and they have to take another 2-year course elsewhere before they can go to college level. And since then USC changed it to Kto12 to adjust with the education system out there. For your information, Kto10 is the program where they only provide the classes from Kindergarten to grade 10 high school. Some schools here still apply that program in their curriculum.

To say that almost everything here confuses me at first but then I have to keep an open mind that I’m at entirely different situation so it should be expected, I mean how things work so far different here from home. Then again, they have different culture though this is in south-east Asia there must be things that we find strange yet interesting. 

DAY 3 & 4

August, 15th &16th 2018

On day 3, Mrs. Postrano started their first lesson that is about Ancient Literature and Classical Literature. Her method of teaching the lesson is first she gave pretest before giving the explanation and after that she told them to exchange their works with their pairs with square style. She told me most of the times she let her students to check their own works right away after they do it so that they know how much they got and can find out themselves where they are wrong. It is kind of a self-correction system, then she discussed with the class about the answers. She said that she seldom bring her works to the office because she believes that way is more effective to give them feedback.

After giving the lesson she also gave them homework which will be submitted the next day. They have about 8 subjects per day and English and math are the subjects they have every day. I can just imagine how hard that would be for them because lets see what if they also have other homework that will be submitted the next day and the fact that they have school from 7.40 to 5 and to top it off some of them have extra after school. pheeewww … must be so exhausting for them.

I was so shocked when Mrs. Postrano told me that all classes have English, math, Filipino and others every day like wow I just didn’t know what to say. I thought that 8 subjects per day consist of different lesson but no, almost every subject they have it every single day. I can say that I was shocked because in Indonesia, the schools in general have only 2 meetings per week for English, math and some others so it’s different everyday. And I haven’t seen their timetable yet so probably I’m gonna check about it later and find out more about the school program from there.

Alright back to the class, on the fourth day here I noticed that before their English class starts they always have this activity called “Energizer”. It is just a way to refresh the students before they begin. Every day students take turn to lead and make a fun activity. Usually the students who lose will get punished like dancing or singing in front of the class. It is quite fun to watch actually and I laughed a lot with them.

Students activity before starting the lesson called 'Energizer'

The topic for that day was Poetic Devices in Biblical Literature or Figurative Language. I noticed that Mrs. Postrano has been giving the explanation through slides. She rarely used the board or any other media, just gave the students slides and the she explained what are on it and she hasn’t used textbook yet so far. She said that she had to give explanation about what are on the slides so that the students will not get bored by reading them all by themselves. She also gave the students post test and as usual students checked their works afterward.

So far I have been enjoying the system here and also the people here have been so nice and friendly to us. The atmosphere here also not so far different from home and I’m starting to get used to it.

DAY 5 (Grading)

August, 17th 2018

Since it’s Friday, Mrs. Postrano will not give them any lecture or lesson, just quizzes of every lesson that they have learned. Usually in a week she gives them two lesson and the quiz for the second lesson. But again it depends on the students’ progress in understanding the lesson.

On Friday, the school finishes earlier at 2 pm since they only have 5 classes. She gave them the task to do oral presentation about the last lesson. While waiting for the students to finish the task, she gave the Common Learning Targets or Subject Matter Budget. It discusses about the list of the lessons that will be taught in the classroom quarterly. We also talked briefly about the grading system that she uses:

o          Written works(quizzes and practices)                          : 30%

o          Performance (presentation and participation in class) : 50%

o          Quarterly assessment                                                  : 20%

Formative assessment is taken from the written works and performance and she only recorded the score of each student only if they got high score that is why she gives many quizzes and practices. The reason why quarterly assessment does not value big is because sometimes students’ states at the time they do that influence their performance in the test. From my point of view, she values process more than the result that is why final tests do not really matter if their daily in class runs well. Every teacher has their own grading system and it depends on how they ideally want to score their students’ performance and knowledge at the end of the day.