Reflection 2

Teaching Remote Students

 

Aziza Restu Febrianto

This is a story I’ve got from my teaching experiences in a village located in Ende – Flores, East Nusa Tenggara. There, I taught seven and eight grade students of Junior High School. As a professional teacher, I always prepared myself a lot some days before teaching. At the first time in class, I was so happy to see my new students. I thought I was very lucky to have a chance of teaching like this at the time.  They also seemed very happy for getting to know that I would be their English teacher for a semester left. 

Firstly, I introduced myself and shared my life and experiences to them. I was also trying to get their attention by telling them about my family, my hobbies, my dreams, etc. And well, it was successful. Then, most of them got interested in me and began to ask some questions. I was so glad that I could give a first impression like this to them. I did it over and over again in all classes on that day. And it was the first day of my teaching activities in the village. Self introducing was considered to be enough. There was no need to deal with the main lesson.

The following day, as I entered the class, I was quite surprised knowing that all my students were screaming aloud calling me and welcoming me back to their class. I knew that that was their expression of happiness to have a new English teacher like me in their class. As best as they can, they were trying to get my attention.

It was actually my second day of teaching in the village. It was of course impossible to have a lesson at the beginning. I had to try to motivate them and make them interested in the subject at first. I thought that telling a story would be an effective start. What I was trying to do was telling them about why I like English and why we should learn English. This was to show how important English language is. I was also telling them about the history of English and how it is finally used by many different people on the globe till today. It was actually not easy anyway. I had got to try too hard to make my explanation much convincing and impressive in order that they wouldn’t fall asleep. Joke must also have been included here. Sometimes, I acted like an actor of the story I told hoping that they would pay more attention to me. Thanks God, it was eventually successful again. 

I was so happy that all my students finally followed my instruction after listening to my story. But it unfortunately happened for a minute. When they got bored of the lesson, they always asked me to tell a story again. Some even screamed and said, “Please, story again, sir! Story again!.” It honestly made me feel confused enough. I didn’t know how to do then. If I just told them a story again, when would I explain the materials? There were so many materials that they had to learn in the week. But if I just focused on the lesson seriously, the students would not even listen. And it wouldn’t be effective at all. I was thinking so hard and eventually decided to use a game. Well, game did it successfully.

This is actually hard to find a method or approach to use in a chaotic class. As a teacher, we are responsible to get our students encouraged by using certain methods like game and inspiring stories. However, the lessons to learn must be completed as well according to the time schedule. A teacher should be very skillful in this case. He/ she has to understand when to use encouraging and inspiring approaches and when the lessons should be given. 

For me, probably, it is concluded that all teachers must be creative enough in using approaches which are integrated with the lesson at the same time. So, teaching is definitely not easy, isn’t it?