Students’ Voice On Their Teaching In Real Classes At School: What Does It Reveal?

This descriptive study has its main concern on revealing how Teaching Parctice in real classes at school is perceived by student teachers. More particularly this particular study is intended to document the extent the student teachers think they have been assisted in their teaching in real classes at school. The minor objectives are: 1. to reveal the extent to which pre-activities of Teaching Practice are useful for student teachers in their teaching in real classes, 2. to reveal the extent to which post-activities of Teaching Practice are useful for student teachers in their teaching in real classes, 3. to reveal the extent to which teaching demonstration in Micro Teaching is advantageous, 4. to reveal the extent to which Micro Teaching assists student teachers in their Teaching Practice with regard to Lesson Plan making, 5. to reveal the extent to which Micro Teaching assists student teachers in their Teaching Practice with regard to Lesson Plan implementation, 6. to reveal the extent to which Micro Teaching is perceived different from Teaching Practice by student teachers, 7. to reveal the extent to which the difference between Micro Teaching and TP causes problem to student teachers, and 8. to reveal the extent to which Micro Teaching assists student teachers in their Teaching Practice with regard to the knowledge and teaching skills in real classroom instruction. This study engaged 38 student teachers studying at the English Department of a university in Surabaya. They were the students who programmed Teaching Practice in the odd semester of 2011/2012 academic year. They just finished their Teaching Practice at school a semester ago for it was the even semester of 2011/2012 academic year when this study was conducted. A set of questionnaire was devised to obtain the data. Two types of questions – open and closed ones – were formulated in such a way to gather information concerning the student teachers’ awareness indicating the extent the knowledge and skills they got in Micro Teaching were transferred in real classroom implementation at school. The closed questions in the questionnaire asked respondents to indicate on a Likert scale of 1 to 4 how much they agreed to the statement provided. Items to reveal suggestions and comments with regard to the contribution of Micro Teaching for their Teaching Practice were also included. Another instrument employed was semi structured interview and stimulated recall taken from the collection of their Lesson Plans developed both in Micro Teaching and Teaching Practice. The data from the interview and stimulated recall were, however, not analysed as the main data. The study finds that the majority of the student teachers thought the pre-evaluation activities – observing the school’s tutor teaching, consulting the lesson plan to the school tutor and the lecturer – are useful for them. It is also found that the majority of the student teachers thought that the post-evaluation activities – getting the feedback from the school tutor and the lecturer – are beneficial to them. Teaching demonstration is perceived to be advantageous owing to some factors covering (1) the student teachers’ own teaching, (2) the student teachers’ self-reflection, (3) the peer comments, (4) the student teacher’s being a student, (5) the student teacher’s being a student, (6) the student teacher’s being a private teacher and (6) the student teacher’s joining other subjects like TEFl and TEYL. Lesson Plan making experience is considered useful. The implementation of the Lesson Plan is perceived positively by the majority of the student teachers. Student teachers’ steady answers indicated positively that they experienced a very big gap teaching in two different settings – the number of the students, classroom management, experience to teach in real class, different characteristics of students, and Lesson Plan issue. A situation resulting from such a disparity in experience between Micro Teaching and Teaching Practice is deemed problematic by almost 55% student teachers. The student teachers in this study showed high perception on the extent to which Micro Teaching assists them in real classroom instruction with regard to the knowledge and teaching skills. In general this study finds that Teaching Practice in real classes at school has been positively perceived. The student teachers have voiced quite confidently that their Teaching Practice is assisted to a large extent by on-campus teaching demonstration. Accordingly, the good practice of teaching demonstration is not to be underestimated