First Time to Come to MMSU LES: Good morning, Teacher!

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            This is our third day in the Philippines and we started to do “The Real Agenda” of Teacher Training, that was visiting the receiving schools for the first time. On the night before, we were informed that Ma’am Jeanette and Ma’am Luis would see us at 9 a.m and send us to the schools. Before going to the schools, we were sepatared into two groups which a group belonged to teach primary school and another one to teach secondary school. Me and Salsa preferred to teach primary school as English for the subject of teaching. 

          We went to school with Ma’am Luis, whereas the other group went to school with Ma’am Janette. I was so nervous to come to the school since I did not had much experience in teaching elementary students. I was afraid the children would ignore me and could not accept me as their student teacher that would teach them even in a very short time. I encouraged myself to be brave to face this and thought that this was my chance so I have to do my best.

Going to school with Ma'am Estrella Luis

            When we arrived at the school, we were starred by everyone. I felt like I was an odd strangers to them. I just looked, smiled, and greeted to everyone of them. They smiled and did the same things too. So did the students. They came to us, waved, and started to make conversation with us by asking name, origin, what subject to teach and what class would we teach. I did not expected the enthusiasm of Filipinos to the foreigners like this, so my nervousness was slowly gone.

            We were divided into groups according to the subject and what level to teach. Each group had its own TTI (Teacher Training and Instructor) or mentor and the buddies. Me and Ninda were in a same group whose the TTI was Ma’am Philistia Mercuria P. Bagayas or Ma’am Lis. Mam Lis also introduced the buddies to us who were also having their teaching practice at the school. They were Ariel, Hazel, Jea, Hanzley, Frayle, and Haivy. Our mentor and buddies were so lovely. We were well-welcomed by the school.

            Our first meeting started with talking about the school’s schedule and the regularities of the school. Some of points noted from the first meeting were:

·         Student teacher would do the observation from February 29th – February 31st.

·         Student teacher would do the teaching practice and teaching assistant from February 6th – February 14th.

•          There would be Valentine’s Day on February 14th, so there would be no learning activities on that day.
•          School would start at 07.30 a.m. on Monday and Friday because there would be flag ceremony on Monday and flag retreat on Friday.
•          Every subject only has one hour of learning time.
•          The rest of the day would start at 08.00. therefore, we had to come beofre the time.
•        The break time would start at 11.00 a.m until 01.00 p.m. Since we did not have a place to pray and we could not bring our lunch to the school, we were allowed to go home at 11.00 a.m. and go back before 01.00 p.m.
•     I was given the opportunity to teach English for grade 5. Ninda was given the opportunity to teach Mathematics for grade 5
•      We would be given some examples of lesson plans and topics of teaching.

            When the meeting was over, Ma’am Lis offered us to come and see her class. While I was walking to the class, I looked some aspects around the school. The school just had four classes from grade 3, 4, 5, and 6. Each class was mentioned as groups of the best students. the rest classes were in Laoag City. The school had 1 office, 1 comfort room, 1 library, 4 classes,and 1 canteen. The shool was very clean.

             We were invited to Mathematic 4 and Mathematic 5. The class started at 10.00 a.m and 01.00 p.m. according to what I had been observed, the systemathic of teaching of both class  were similar. Ma’am Lis sit at the back teacher’s table and the teacher was the student teacher. The class started when the student teacher greeted the students and the students responded it back. It was reviewing class from the previous meeting. The learning activities were well-structured. The students were very active to volunteer. They did not hesitate of making mistakes. The whole learning activities even the books were using English. They were clever than I expected. The student teacher established a good learning situation. Because it was a reviewing lesson, the student teacher activated the students’ memories about the previous lesson. The student teacher always asked the students participation to contribute the learning activities such as asking the students to solve the math problems. During the lesson, Ma’am Lis always helped the student teacher when she have problems in delivering the lesson. The student teacher made the students into groups and gave them group work with some cases to solve for 10 minutes. After they finished their work, it was submitted to the student teacher. And then they were given individual sheet work at the end of the lesson for 10 minutes. According to some aspects that had been observed, the tacher not only make the students learning by themselves, but also learning when they were in groups. The teacher also used the strategy to activate students during the lesson so they can process the knowledge for longterm memory.

Math 4 Class

Math 5 Class

            Both class condition were good enough for the students to establish good situation during the lesson. Each class had 4 fans,  stand fan, 1 board, 1 air conditioner, decorating pictures, 4 windows, 2 doors, 2 mirrors, 2 teacher tables, 1 infocus, and book shelves. The students sit in pairs and the class was attended by 26 – 30 students.  The school residents wore casual outfits on Wednesday only. That was why the students wore casual outfits today.

            After the class ended, me and Ninda were invited to come to small welcoming party made by Ma’am Lis and the buddies. We were having good conversation and good meals. They bought cokes and snacks for us. We were also having “languange exchange” during our conversation. Ma’am Lis also gave her comments and suggestion on the student teachers’ performance today. It was so fun to have nice mentor, buddies, and students like them. I hoped everything would be fine because we were well-handed by them.

 

Small welcoming party with my TTI and buddies