Teacher Assistant in Second Week

By Ira Ernawati

I have already passed my second week in teacher assistant. Here I am going to share everything that I got from my second week in teaching assistant. At the first, I hoped I would get chance to observe class in this week because my mentor teacher did not want to give me the opportunity to do observe. She just asked me to teach and teach. She said more practice would make my teaching skill better. Ya .. I see what she said was not wrong. But In the fact, I needed to observe to get and learn new thing from my observation.

          This condition did not make me hopeless. I tried to persuade my mentor teacher. I asked one chance to observe her learning and teaching process in class. Finally, she gave me chance. I was really glad. Hence in the first day, I observed her class. From my observation, I saw the way she taught students.  Her teaching was organized well. She started the class by greeting to the students, checking students’ attendance and it was continued by discussing homework and reviewing previous material. Then she applied lecture method. Here she explained the material of lesson by giving lecture. Then student was silent and listened to her. The media which she used was only English book which was provided by the school. I saw some students felt bored but she could cover this condition and made those students felt comfort in her teaching. She was really good at mastering class. Even she did not use loud voice in teaching but she could catch students’ attention by her voice.

            After doing observation, as like usual she invited me and my friend to discuss. She asked my opinion about her teaching. Then she said that her teaching was not as good as my teaching. Wow.. I was surprised hearing her statement.  Then, she realized that the way her teaching was old and it had to change with new way as like my way in teaching.  It was really nice discussion. Here we could share and give feedback each other. One thing that I liked from my mentor teacher, she was really welcome.

            In other day, I was really busy to prepare my lesson plan for teaching in other class. I provided some videos and also some games in my teaching and she agreed with that. In this week I taught three classes with different material hence I had to make different lesson plan. From three classes, I got many experiences and lessons to be a real teacher.

            One thing that I remembered from my teaching there was one student who was angry in the class because she did not want to practice in front the class. She said in rude way and loudly to me. I was really shocked. Then directly class became noisy because her friend complained her attitude which was not polite. I tried to control my self to not getting angry to that girl. Then I tried control the class and it was quitter than before. I did not force that student to do my instruction. So I asked the other student to do it and let that student felt calm again. You know what happened to that student? After finishing class she met me and asked apologize. She said that she did not mean to do it to me. Sure, without she asked me I already give apologize. It was challenging experience.

            Teacher assistant program really help me for preparing my future in real teaching. It did not only help in preparing the way to teach but also how to face with students who have various characteristic.