sea teacher pilot batch

Azahra Hana Fadila Bastamman

The SEA Teacher Project or the “Pre-Service Student Teacher Exchange in Southeast Asia” is a project that aims to provide opportunity for pre-service student teachers from universities in Southeast Asia to have teaching experiences (practicum) in schools in other countries in Southeast Asia.

Final Practice Teaching

Luckily, I have a supportive core teacher, Ma’am Gemma. She’s the homeroom teacher of kinder-green. In my first week she let me to observed the classes, the pupils, and the way she teaching and control the pupils. She gave me a lot of information about kindergarten in Philippines. I was told to choose between math or English lesson for my final practice teaching. I choose English because I want to improve my English and I feel comfortable with the lesson. After discussing, Ma’am Gemma let me to teach English about animal and their young, this theme was chosen because its fit with the lesson she teaches for the pupils on that time.

In the second and third week, I have an opportunity to try to take over on the circle time. I was pretty nervous that time, because the pupils ware so active and I don’t have a loud voice to control their noise. And also, I found that the pupils don’t really understand my English, maybe because I have different accent. They just understand the half of what am I say, because I didn’t use bilingual English-Tagalog language. They used to listen in two language in the lesson every day. Because of that, they understand more how to do the lesson and they also learn new English words in the same time.

In my final practice teaching, I teach about animal and their young. I teach the name of the baby animals using a song and play hide and seek to find where the mother of the baby animal around the class. It was fun and exhausting, the kids ware so interested knowing the name of the baby animal, they said it was really cute to have a baby animal as a pet. And there was a funny moment, I ask the pupils to walk like the animal that I mention, and they were exciting to do crawling, hopping, flying and swimming. Kids will always be kids. I didn’t find any difficult in my final practice teaching. The pupils still not rally understand with my English but I improvised to use body language and face expression to communicate. And I use Power Point and video to deliver my lesson, and the pupils were understood me after all.

I was so grateful to have Ma’am Gemma as my core teacher and she also become my mentor for my final practice teaching. She always supports me and gives me a suggestion in my preparation for teaching. And I was so thankful to have another practice teacher as my Filipino buddies that time. They were so nice and kind. They gave me a lot of information about the school and what I need. They also the big part of my final practice teaching. If I don’t have them, I’m sure I can’t made it my best that time.

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Daily Schedule

*teaching related activities

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Central Luzon State University

Central Luzon State University or as known as CLSU is a public University who located in Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija. This university have specialty in agriculture and education. CLSU have 658-hectare wide campus, it’s very large because they have several buildings for faculty and other facility such as sport gymnasium, museum, lab. School, and others to support the education. The things that catch my eye was, they have a really wide rice field and farm for study agriculture. And there is a lot of huge trees inside the campus because CLSU was established in 1907, it’s already 107 years old, and they still maintain the old building and the old trees which is really good for the environment. Beside from Wikipedia, CLSU is one of the most beautiful school campuses in the Philippines due to its expansive and rural-inspired forest and rice field landscapes and architectures, which focus on sustainability and ecological balance with rural and modern architectures. I feel so grateful that ever visit this university.

CLSU Kindergarten

CLSU Kindergarten is a public school under CLSU institution. This school is located inside the CLSU district and also have the same building with CLSU elementary school. There is two class for kindergarten, one is kinder-yellow and one is kinder-green which is my class for my observation and practice teaching. There is a lot of parents who interest to send their child to this school, but unfortunately the space of the class and the number of the classes is not enough, so the school divide the class into two classes, first it’s the morning class which held from 7.30 to 11.30 am and the afternoon class that held from 1.00 to 4.30 pm. The system of the classes it was really exhausted for me, because I never work a class from 7 am to 5 pm and it’s dissimilar from Indonesian classes system, we only have classes from 8 to 11.30 am and prepare for the next day lesson from 1 to 3 pm. Furthermore, the children are required to start their study from kindergarten in Philippines. They only need one year of kindergarten and it’s start from 4 years old until 6 years old. What so interesting here are the language they use for studying, they use Tagalog as their main language and almost all the student use Tagalog, and they use English as their second language for studying and there is child that only understand English even, they’re Filipinos. So the teacher use bilingual language to teaching.

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• Baguio City
• Minalungao National Park
• Morong Beach

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3rd trip: Morong Beach

On our third trip we went to Morong beach. We went the on Sunday, and the next day was my final teaching practice. I was enjoyed the trip, but there is feels like I have something wedge up inside my brain. I was so nervous because of the final teaching practice (hehe). As usual, the sky was really clear blue without clouds, the ocean was in fine wave, and the sun was really shinny and it feels like I was stabbing by the sunlight. Morong beach is resort beach, they have a lot of facilities like banana boat, kayak, swimming pool, restaurant and event a room for stay. I really enjoy the sky there, it was made me relax and forgot about my final practice teaching a little bit.

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2nd trip: Minalungao National Park

On our second trip, we went to Minalungao National Park, it’s a natural area with a river, rock formations & activities such as cliff diving, fishing & raft rides. We went hiking on the hill. On the top of the hill there was cross made by glass, it was peaceful and had beautiful view of Minalungao National Park. We also went to the cave, but we were not allowed to enter the cave, because its pretty dangerous and there is no guidance. We also went to the famous river, the water was really clear and blue, it was so tempting to swim and enjoy the water but sadly I didn’t bring any change clothes that time ☹.

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1st trip: Baguio City

We went to Baguio City for our first trip. Baguio is a small city with a lot of population living there, because there were 7 major universities. Most of thee population are college student. I found this city really have good atmosphere, the sky was clear blue and the weather was chilly, it because this city located on mountains and surrounded by other mountains. I would like to visit there again sometimes, maybe for study (?). In Baguio we went to Burnham Park, it’s a local park where we can ride a bike, row a boat on lake or just chilling while enjoy strawberry taho (it’s a typical drink made by soft tofu and strawberry jam). After that, we went to the Baguio Cathedral and enjoying the scenery of the city, because the cathedral placed in the top hill. We had lunch together at the most famous restaurant in Baguio, its “Good Taste Restaurant” it was just a regular Filipino meal (rice, chicken, vegetables, and soup) with a really good pure Filipino taste, that’s why people are queuing just for have lunch in this 3 floors restaurant. At evening, we went to SM Mall, it’s a biggest shopping mall in Baguio. The cool things about this Mall is there’s no air-con inside the building, they utilize the chilly weather in their city, so there’s huge wind entrance everywhere inside the mall. The next day, we went to Mines View Park just for had a little side pic of the view and buy some souvenirs.

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summary and suggestion

Finally, I finish my sea teacher program yayy! I can’t stop feeling grateful and bless. One of my bucket lists are finally check. I always wanting to experience teaching and learn about the kids aboard. And Philippines were a good place to start. I never expect that the people there were so nice and humble. I thought it will be hard to merge there, but the truth is not. the people there love to smile and jokes (a lot). I always laughing whenever with them. No matter they old or young, they always joke and bring us laugh out loud. The kids were so lovely, they love to give a hug to express their feelings. I was so touch when the first time meet my kinder-green pupils, they greet me with attack of hugs. Also, there is another pupil from elementary school, they behave the same with a lot of hugs. I never find this kind of greetings before I come to Philippines.

Fun fact, Filipinos loves to eat! they eat five times a day, it’s because they have Marienda time, it’s a snack time between a regular meal. I never feel hungry there because of the experience of Marienda time there (and I think I gain weight a lil bit). The food there was good, the taste a slightly the same with Indonesian cuisine. They have sweet and savory taste, the only different is they don’t have spicy taste in their meal (wherever Indonesian always put spicy things in their meal). They use sour taste rather than spicy, it’s because they have a lot of fried food, and the sour taste will help the grease from the food to melt. The sour taste usually come from vinegar and tamarin.

All about the school and education already mention in my practice teaching page. I’m glad that I can be part of the practice teacher in CLSU kindergarten, is was an experience that will affect the way I’m teaching when I will become a teacher one day. There is only one suggestion for this program, it’s about the length of the time that we have. For me its not enough to practice and to learning about the country only in 30 days. Even my cooperating teacher said “I hope we still have time to spend together, it will be nice if you spend your time here for 3 months” and I agree with her. Time feels fly so fast. It feels that we only knowing, not learning even mastering the lesson.

Maraming Salamat po. It means Thankyou very much in Tagalog. I would say that to all people that means lot in this program in Philippines. Especially my cooperating teacher, Ma’am Gemma and Mr. Gaboy and Ma’am Hiyas who welcoming and take care of us. Also to all my friends who always makes me happy and makes me kind of forget that I living aboard. I’m so glad to be part of this life. Thankyou very much. Terimakasih banyak! <3

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