Selamat Datang
My Journey
Being alone to travel was quite hard, no one accompanies you, no one can help you just yourself. Traveling to a place that new to you is quite strange because you didn’t know yet their culture and the place itself.
Before I made out of the most of my internship in Indonesia, I experienced a lot of difficulties from grabbing the opportunities, from buts and ifs of the questions in my mind, from preparing everything, it challenge me a lot. When the day came to leave my place, and travel to Butuan at 3:00 a.m., I knew to myself that this was it, no looking back and there’s no way to back out. August 4, 6:00 a.m. at Bancasi Airport Butuan, we fill in the line to check in my luggage and to get my ticket, I’ve been waiting for almost two hours when our plane from Butuan to Manila got arrived. It was quite hard to leave them for a while, it was my first time to be far away from them, but I knew, that this opportunity gives me a lot of learning and experiences.
From the two hours of flight from Butuan, I arrived at Manila Ninoy Aquino International Airport, I’m counting on that this was the second step of my journey. I got my luggage fastly and went to Mall of Asia to bought some universal charger and wait for my next flight to Bali, Indonesia. At 6 in the evening, I check in my luggage and fill up a sheet of paper as per requirements of Philippine Immigration, they asked me some question and I answered it directly. My flight was delayed for 1 hour and when I got into the airplane the flight took 5 hours, due to the heavy turbulence. When I arrived at Bali Airport at 12:20 dawn and went to Indonesia Immigration to put a stamp in my passport and fill up again another sheet for the requirements of their Bureau of Customs and slept in Ibis Bali Kuta Hotel, I had a lot of doubts to myself, if I can take all the challenges that I’ve been facing in the future, but I give myself a courage to pursue what I want.
August 8 at 11:20 in the midnight I arrived at Yogyakarta, Mr. Herman, my buddies, my co-sea teacher fetched me up at the airport, they give us some food as a dinner and brought us back to the dorm and get some rest.
August 9 at 9 in the morning Mr. Herman together with his wife, fetched me up and move me to the other house in Banguntapan Bantul. During that time I question myself, why I got transferred in the other house, but I go with the flow. After that, my coordinator sent me to my school and I asked myself again,I’am secondary education student, why am I here in primary school, but I don’t have a choice, I need to accept this situation as a challenge.
After some orientation, they give me some schedule of all the classes good for one week and at the same time at that day, I started my observation and assisting to my cooperating teacher, it was a relief to knew that my cooperating teacher were good in terms of communicating using English but some teacher knew only little English and they talked to me sometimes only not that quite often just like my coordinator. They are warm, smiling people, they give me a tour at school and reminds me, some rules and regulations at school. From the 2 days of my observation and assisting my coordinator in her class, I learned and observed that their educational set up and system had a difference and at the same time similarities in the Philippine setting, as of classroom management and giving some tasked to the students. Even though the problem was language barrier, they treat me as one of them and as a guest. The children were all respectful and always do the Salem, every time they saw me. I was worried at that time because I just got transfer in Yogyakarta. I just started my internship, very late and I always think, how can I supposed to complete the 20 hours of teaching as one of the requirements of Seameo, to the fact that Indonesia has a lot of holiday’s for the next week, but in God’s providence, I taught grades 1 to 6 sections a and b and for 7 days of teaching, I asked for guidance from my coordinator and do my way in teaching good for 35 minutes only. I do an extra mile to translate everything, so that my students will understand me in discussing my lesson.
August 5 at 9 a.m., I check out in the hotel and went to the airport to got my domestic flight to Lombok, I wait for almost 3 hours because of the delayed flight and fly at 1 pm, I arrived at Lombok Airport at 2:00 p.m. and my coordinator together with my buddy fetched me up and took me to my dorm to have some rest, I meet Mynt my co-sea teachers and we talked something and get some rest.
At 6:43 in the evening, I asked my buddy to accompany me to buy some personal stuff at the mall and took some dinner. When we went to the cashier to pay my stuff, the big challenge occurred, the magnitude 7 earthquake happened in Lombok, my buddy , I and Mynt run towards the exit of the mall crying and shaking, the electricity were off, our batteries in the cellphone are all drained and Indonesian people got panic due to the tsunami. I was worried, pray asked for God’s grace to help me and other Indonesian people to survived in the calamity, many people die, crying and seeking for help but at that moment you have an eager to help but at the same time you think how I will survived, I need to stay alive for my family. Fast forward, for the 5 days that I’ve stayed in Lombok, I learned a lot, how to survived with no clean water, no food just some donations from the villagers, no slept, because anytime the aftershocks occurred again, though the electricity got back and I can contact my coordinator and update her about my situation, still I guess it’s quite really hard to survive but UNRAM staff gives us supply after the earthquake happened two days ago. I was thankful to them because they are kind, carrying and accommodating, they were respectful but sad to say I can’t start my observation at their university, so I told Mr. Telly, my coordinator, about the thought of transferring from other universities within Indonesia that, that was safer than in Lombok. They book our flight from Lombok to Jakarta at 4pm and arrived in Jakarta at 7 in the evening, it was really tiring because I didn’t have a good slept in Lombok, due to the aftershocks.
August 29 my last class in SDIT and that’s the time I felt mixed emotions, the next day I went together with my co- sea teacher to UII for the farewell party and for giving of certificate of participation, but before that, I and my co-sea teacher present some cultural presentation representing our own culture, country and school, after the ceremony, we give some message to the host university for taking care of us during our stay, for all the kindness and warm welcome that we’ve been experienced for the past weeks, we said farewell but it was a new start of good relationship between Indonesia and Philippines. The next day, we report to SDIT again to finish our reports and say farewell for the last time to the students and teachers. I cried a lot, they hug me, give me gifts, foods and other stuff. The school gives me present, also my coordinator, we hug and do the biso-biso thing, they felt sorry for me, for all their mistakes and lack but I told them no Ma’am/Sir you didn’t need to felt sorry to me, you didn’t done any wrong and we took a groupie. Every free time of ours the UII gives us tour in Yogyakarta, they pay for all the expenses.
SECOND WEEK: INNATING AND DOING THE FIELD OF TEACHING EXPERIENCED
Monday the 13th, this was my first day of having a preliminary class. I got so many questions and doubts in my mind, on how I can discussed English towards my students. I prepared a lot from the video presentation to the PowerPoint presentation and demonstration. My coordinator help me to bring the extension wire and LCD projector, she help me to set up everything. When I started teaching, I felt very confident even though it’s really hard because of the thought of language barrier, all I do since they didn’t understand me, I just point some words and point it on the board and have some drawing, I’ll showed also some video clips to further understand by them. I asked them some questions but they respond me on bahasa and my coordinator are the ones who translated everything to me, so at that moment I conclude that I need to do an extra mile to translate everything for them. My activity or topic for that day was all about an orientation of my culture in the Philippines. The students and the teacher gives me a positive comment despite from the language barrier that barriers my teaching.
I taught Grade 5 A and B with the topic Personal Interest, so the focused of my topic in this day was focusing, valuing, knowing oneself. I started my class with a daily routine, attendance, motivation, review of the past lesson before proceeding to the new topic. I used a cartolina to draw a mind map as an instructional materials for my teaching to be showed to the students. I found out as I observed the class, they are good in taking up some instructions and they listen carefully. As I continue to demonstrate, I call some random students in my class to answer the blank spaces and some students to read the ones that are written in the board, they are all participative. As I done demonstrating my topic, I gave them an activity that, that was the same just like in my example and they fill in all, with the appropriate information (dream job, name, age, address and etc.)
Grade 1 A and B, I taught them about the topic Food, as always before proceeding to the new topic, I done first my daily routine in class, I prepared a lot this day and strived more ,money and patience to edit my instructional material in laptop and print it colored using by my own expenses, as I printed and the pictures as a set of instructional materials, I discussed about the different and common food found in Indonesia, as I present my topic, o pasted my instructional materials and some students say the word or the terminology of the food in bahasa and I do my part as a teacher, I point the picture by saying “ini”and asked them some questions and they respond to it actively. My students in this class was so smart, as I gave them activity they didn’t even wait for my examples and instructions, thought I put already the instruction in the activity sheet and translated it already in bahasa, they just answered directly, I found out that some students do the group learning which was by sharing their answers to their peers. What I learned in this lesson, the students learned more if they share their ideas to their classmates or peers.
Teaching at Grade 6-A and Grade 6-B in SDIT with the topic Goldilocks and the three bears, gives me more challenged. I followed my lesson plan, and do the checking of the attendance by asking my students who was absent for today, have some motivation and review the past lesson before proceeding to the next lesson. I learned that every students has its own peculiarity and ways in learning he lesson, some are in ways of singing, dancing, making some art, showing pictures and video clips. I tried my best to used technology as an aid of my teaching at this moment, because I have a video clips to be shown to them and since singing was my passion, I sing them a song. I was really amazed to them because they are all behave in my class. They respond to me when I got some questions and smile if they heard me to spoke bahasa. They’re all attention was on me as I demonstrate and present everything. After I present my topic, I give some instruction to them for the activity and the students do their part. As the students answered the activity I and my coordinator roam around to observed and guide the students to do their activity. I always focus on developing their four domains of learning such as reading, writing, speaking and listening and search for the alternative ways in using instructional materials.
At Thursday, I got two classes with two sections A and B, Grades 3 and 2. I usually do my routine in my class and proceed to the new lesson. In Grade 2 A and Grade 2 B, the center or the core of my lesson was about being responsible in using time, the students must be alert in all their routines daily. I prepared some of the drawings like clock, showing a time on it and the students will respond to my questions, I saw the students jutting down some important details as I presented some examples on the board, as I done explaining everything to their class, I give them some activity to do and most of them got perfect . In Grade 3 A and 3 B it’s hard for me to let my topic under stable by the students because the topic was quite hard to distinguished, but I tried my very best to simplify all the lesson in the basic terms, because the topic was, what was the usage of come from to comes from, my goal to this topic was letting my students be more knowledgeable about their the difference, when will we used come from to comes from, so I prepared instructional materials like chart ad some examples to understand further by the students, after my discussion I asked them as a group to distinguish which one will be use and if they got it perfectly, I proceed by giving my students a set of activities.
In this juncture, I taught again Grade 6 A and 6 B, my topic was only the continuation to the last week’s topic: Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I do my routine and prepared very well for my instructional materials, I created visual aids, and downloaded video clips for the sake of the learning transmission. After I’ve done doing my lesson, I give some instruction and examples for the sake of their activity and as I roam around they kept asking me, if their answer was correct or not but it was good sign that they take the activity seriously
This was my last day in teaching in SDIT and my topic was all about Giving Directions. I prepared in advanced for my instructional materials to be presented and used in my class Grade 5 A and B, like printed pictures, games, visual aids, charts and song for the last time. The students listen very well as I discussed the lesson and as I spoke trying hard in bahasa, I knew to myself that they are happy to hear me trying hard to spoke their language. As I distinguished the difference between besides, opposite and between, the students pay attention and happy as I asked them one by one. As I finished my discussion, I give them printed activity to be answered and fill in the blanks. This was the hardest part of being a teacher..
3rd week: POINTS OF MEMORY
Though I have my class on Monday the 20th, but sad to say I can’t go to school due to my illness (fever, cough, and colds) and I don’t know the reason why I got sick. This 3rd week of August was so memorable even though, I got sick and need to recover, I always see myself positively look high and do more. As this week starts, I am grateful that there’s a long holiday as an Indonesian celebrates their feast Koran, I used this long holiday to took some rest and do my teaching reports at home, though we report at school on the 23rd of the month, I learned a lot from this celebration, they just conserved their culture and passed this on their offspring, so that they preserved the importance of Mecca( a holy land for Muslim’s) and this celebration also taught me, to share your blessings to the needy ones, I saw many games led by teacher’s and later on I experienced also the chopping of cows meat and this meat serves us service or a charity to the needy ones, who can’t afford to bought cows meat. Though I spoke in English all the time but only to hear the word terimakasih it means a lot to us.
4th Week: A Farewell But not a Goodbye
This was the last week that I’ve been stayed in Indonesia, the last week of my teaching and at the same time, the hardest part of my journey as a sea teacher. This week was a farewell but not a goodbye week. When I think that the day, that I need to go back to the Philippines, I felt sad to leave my students and SDIT but I knew that very soon I will back there. I conducted three classes for this week Grades 1, 6, and 5, section A and B per grade level, as usual I prepared my instructional materials and discussion to be discussed in their class and give them some activity to test if they learned something from my discussion. August 30, 2018, I, together with my co-sea teacher, we went to UII to have a farewell ceremony, the stuff of the education department was there to support and give some inspirational message to us future educator to boost our dedication to be a role model to our future students, they are thankful to us because they learned something from us, they welcome us, accommodate us and we give some messages to express our deepest thoughts and feeling towards UII, we presented our cultural dance and song and at the same time listen to the message of Mr. Herman as he gives his positive comments to us. After the message of Mr. Herman, this was the time that they give us our fruit if hardships which was the certificate of participation, as an accomplishment of our internship in Indonesia, we took some selfie and group picture, we are quite emotional at that moment because from all of our efforts and hardships in the way to became a sea teacher was bearing a fruitful success, an innovative learning to my part as I understand the diverse