SUMMARY AND
SUGGESTION

1.1 Purposes of Practicum

Being selected as one of the participants in SEA-teacher is an honor. I am delighted to be given this once in a lifetime opportunity that I will truly cherish. This program not only aim to immerse ourselves in educational landscape in Southeast Asia or to have teaching experience, but also to experience the culture, traditions, beliefs, and learn their ways of life. Through this program, it potentially improves our teaching skills and discover the diverse educational pedagogy of the school we are staying in.

SEA-Teacher encourages me to continuously practice English as it improves my English-speaking skills. This program also encourages me to be a logical thinker, as we may encounter different problems in our journey. SEA-Teacher allows me to gain insights and to have a broader perspective in teaching internationally. It fosters the value of flexibility in teaching students with diverse culture and different language spoken.

1.2 Procedures of Practicum

1.3 Outcomes of Practicum

The SEA-Teacher program allows me to understand and experience the feeling of teaching a set of students that have completely different race and religion. It is an enriching experience to foster educational and cultural diversity. Enhances my speaking skills and broadens my global perspective. This gives me opportunity to meet new people and build strong camaraderie, I was able to adapt the ways of living, adapt to their foods, and customs. Ultimately, it is a transformative experience that broadens my horizon and improve my teaching skills.

1.4 The Challenges of Practicum

My whole practicum journey was worthwhile and rewarding experience, but it also comes with different challenges. Here are the challenges I faced being an exchange student:

The School Expectation

One of the challenges is the school expectation, Kesatuan Bangsa Bilingual School consist of competitive students that excel both national and international in academic pursuit, the sections I handled is where the geniuses at. The school and students might have big expectation of me as a Pre-service teacher, that is why I always make sure that I equipped myself with knowledge if I enter the four corners of the classroom.

Curriculum and Teaching System

Another challenge is adapting to their variation of curriculum, Kesatuan Bangsa Bilingual Boarding School use a diverse curriculum coming from National and International standardized curriculum- particularly the Cambridge Curriculum. The school has different educational standard, that is why I make sure that I study their curriculum and ways of teaching before I proceed to actual teaching.

Adapting to Dress Code

Kesatuan Bangsa Bilingual School is very particular with it comes to what you wear. The majority of the school population is Islam, it is part of their culture to wear clothes that completely cover their whole body and hair. If you are a teacher or a student, you are not allowed to wear any shirt or uniform not unless it’s long sleeve or below the elbow. While you are not also allowed to wear skirts, not unless below the knee or fit pants or slacks, everything must be proper and cover. At first, dressing is a huge problem to me as I only bring two sets of coat, gladly with the help of my buddies from Univertas Mercu Buana, they lend me a clothes that fit to the dress code and standard of their culture.

1.5 Overall Impression

This program is one of a lifetime opportunity for me to develop my horizon and improve my teaching skills as a student and in the future. I am honored to discover and contribute to the diverse educational landscape of Indonesia. In 28 days of stay, we were given a lot of opportunity to explore the different cultures of Indonesia especial in the Special Region of Yogyakarta. We learned their different teaching styles, methods, and pedagogies which will significantly contribute to our growth.

1.6 Suggestion for Future Improvements

I am aware that this program is well-organized and examined. These are my observations that I though much needed to further improvement:

The educational and cultural visits that the partner University offered must focus more on the cultural exploration and educative rather than promoting and making local products.
The duration of SEA-Teacher program must not only limit to 1 month, rather it must be expanded so that the experience in classroom teaching will be the opportunity to further learn the nature of teaching, explore the school area, and have enough time to deeply know the culture and language they use.