My Practicum

To apply theories into real practice is very significant for learners. Through the practice, they will be able to know their strengths and weaknesses and the solutions to deal with the problem. Going to the same way, learning to be an English Language Teacher, it is important for learners to have chance to apply what they have learned from classroom into the real world teaching. By doing so, it gives a great opportunity for them to experience and adapt themselves in real teaching practice. As a good example, at the Institute of Foreign Language (IFL), all the year four students are obliged to do the practicum before their graduation. It helps the learners as well as me a lot to do this practicum for the future career as an English Language Teacher.

It allowed me to know my weaknesses. Throughout my teaching experience, I have faced a few problems occurring in my class. First, I couldn’t find good data and interesting techniques for my students. Because it was my first time teaching, I decided to use the data from the textbook. However, the data was not fit with the students’ ability because the level of the course-book was lower than their’ abilities. According to my supervisor, he said that my technique was not interesting, thus the students seemed not to be involved and learned a lot from my class. His comment was correct but it was very tough for me to find the interesting techniques in teaching writing class. Second, I got the problem with my English proficiency. I was told by both of my supervisor and associate lecturer that my speaking ability was a bit low. I produced several mistakes in grammar and pronunciation. More than that, my supervisor says “You give unclear instruction and it makes students confused and don’t know actually what they are supposed to do”. I confess that my voice projection was soft and low, that was why the students found it hard to follow up my explanation and instruction. Yet, how can I change my natural voice? It was quite hard for me. Finally, I didn’t have good rapport with my students. My associate lecturer commented on the evaluation sheet saying that I didn’t have good rapport with the students. Honestly speaking, I neither remembered most of my students ‘names nor their faces. It is because I did only two sessions observing before started my real teaching.

On the other hand, it helped me to know my strength during my teaching. Personally, I think I was confident in teaching. “You look confident in your teaching”, my supervisor said. Actually, I was a bit nervous for my first time teaching, but I tried to hide it. If the students had known that I was nervous and shaky, the students would have thought that I couldn’t teach them well. Second, my time management was good. Every session I could manage my time and finish it on time. To illustrate, when I assigned students to exercise, I set the time for the students and I always reminded them how much time they left so that they could increase their speed to complete the exercise on time. Finally, I was approachable. Whenever the students asked questions or got problems with their learning, I was always there and willing to help them, for instance.

In conclusion, doing the practicum was very valuable experience for me. It allowed me to judge my ability in real teaching, helped me to be aware of my weakness and the way to improve my teaching in the near future. I would recommend the future teacher trainees to be aware of a few important things before their practicum. First, if they can find time working as part time teacher, it is really helpful for them because through my observation many trainee teachers looked nervous and shaky while they were teaching. Second, it is good for teacher trainees to do a lot of observations before starting their real teaching because they can take out good techniques from their classmates to apply in their teaching. Finally, they should talk to their supervisor and associate lecturer before their teaching. Either the supervisor or associate lecturer is really helpful for them because they will give them good advices and suggestions to improve their teaching. More importantly, the teacher trainees should do what they are told because they will get good score if the supervisor and associate lecturer like and satisfy with their teaching.

By HIM Sokunthea
IFL graduate