Students' perception on teaching practice

To prepare a professional English teacher, English Education Study Program (EESP) of Faculty of Teacher Training and Education (FTTE) of Widya Mandala Catholic University (WMCUS) have made a compulsory program which is called Teaching Practice (TP). The writer was interested to find out the students’ perception on Teaching Practice program. The researcher came up with the two research questions, they were: 1) What are the students’ perception on Teaching Practice before joining Teaching Practice? 2) What are the students’ perception on Teaching Practice after joining Teaching Practice? The purposes of this study were to find out the students’ perception before and after they joined and passed Teaching Practice. The research was of a descriptive qualitative research. To gather the data, the researcher used questionnaire with and closed-ended questions, 50 statements, and semi-structured interview. The participants of this study were 26 students who have joined and passed Teaching Practice in the odd semester of 2015/2016. The result of this study showed that the students’ perception before joining Teaching Practice was different from their perception after joining Teaching Practice. At the beginning, before they joined Teaching Practice, their perception on Teaching Practice was good enough. When it was confirmed, their perception changed and became much better after joining Teaching Practice. It included their perception on the pre-registration and registration and the placement. To sum up, the students’ perception on Teaching Practice changed before they joined Teaching Practice and after they joined Teaching Practice. This study revealed that Teaching Practice was a scary program for the students before joined Teaching Practice and it became a memorable program after they joined and passed Teaching Practice. Besides, it became a great experience to the students. Even though their perception on Teaching Practice was already good, there are some suggestions addressed by the researcher. First, Teaching Practice advisor should spare their time to guide the student-teachers. Second, the school placement should be done randomly to make it fairer for all the students. However, this random placement should take into account the students needs. Third, the further study on the similar topic should distribute questionnaire to the students sometime before they join Teaching Practice to collect their perceptions before joining Teaching Practice