SELF-REFLECTION OF THE PRE-SERVICE ENGLISH TEACHERS IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO THAI’S STUDENTS

ABSTRACT Safitri, Wahyu Nia. Student Registered Number. 3213113028. 2015. Self-Reflection of the Pre-service English Teachers in Teaching English to Thai Students. Sarjana Thesis. English Education Department. Faculty of Tarbiyah and Teacher Training. State Islamic Institute (IAIN) of Tulungagung. Advisor: H. Nursamsu, S.Pd.I., M.Pd. Keywords: Self-reflection, pre-service teacher, English teaching This research was motored by the chance opened by IAIN Tulungagung for its graduation candidates from any major to follow the integrated KKN-PPL in Thailand. This program constituted the endeavor of IAIN Tulungagung to improve its integrity and capability after its changing status from State Islamic College to State Islamic Institute in 2013. Since it was the first time for IAIN Tulungagung to send its college students to conduct teaching practice and community service in Thailand, the researcher who was in English major got interest to investigate how the English Education Department students conducted the teaching practice in Thailand. At this concern, the researcher focused on investigating self-reflection of the pre-service English teachers to reflect their teaching experience. The problem of this research was “How do the pre-service English teachers reflect their teaching experience?” Meanwhile, the objective of this research was to know how the pre-service English teachers reflected and took meanings from their teaching experience in Thailand. Research design in this study was qualitative descriptive. Subjects of this study were three pre-service English teachers who were assigned in the province of Pattani, Thailand. Techniques of data collection in this study were 1) semi-structured interview by using self designed interview guideline and 2) documents analysis. Model of data analysis in this study followed the model of Miles and Huberman which involved the activities of reducing and displaying the data, and drawing the conclusion. Findings of this research were mainly about two processes which elaborated how the pre-service English teachers reflected their teaching experience; those were 1) the process of recognizing the problem in which the pre-service English teachers recognized the factors which caused the unsuccessful teaching and learning process and 2) the process of determining the solution in which the pre-service English teachers determined the appropriate way to teach the students by trying out the selected teaching methods considered relevant to the need and the interest of the students. In this case, the findings of this research strengthened the theory of self-reflection which said that the opportunity in doing reflective practice was mainly propelled by the practical problems thereby self-reflection was seen as a process of solving a problem. In conclusion, findings of this research were categorized into 1) theoretical findings including a) self-reflection was a process of solving a problem, b) the role of self-reflection was to improve teachers’ expertise, and c) TEFL methods were served based on the nature of language and language learning and 2) empirical findings covering 1) self-reflection consisted of two processes and 2) TEFL methods were employed incompletely in relation to the need and the interest of the students