We belong in every place, to learn and teach.
You’ll never know, until you start to learn.
– Chairis
It’s a big decision to join the program. In my 4th year of being a college student, I want to apply all the things that I’ve learned. Of course, 8th Batch of SEA-Teacher is a gigantic stepped stones. I mean… teaching in foreigner language in a foreigner country? Wow. Never thought about that. But… It’s a good thing for me as a person who loves challenge.
So… let’s start?
In September, the weather was really unpredictable in Philippines. We got so many suspended class, I was so sad because we only had 2 weeks of teaching, suspended class left us only a few days of teaching. Besides the suspended class, in Camiling East District there were many competition that has been scheduled for the Elementary Level. Yap, yap… I had less time to teach in class at that time. But, I and Nissa were asked by our school teacher to joined them to see the competition where our students were competing. We got really excited with such a chance to travel Camiling East.
2 days before we had our Science Fair in Camiling East Central Elementary School, the district supervisor came to our school, I finally met her in person. She is Ma’am Levy Palafox. The most humble and caring person I knew there. Since the first time we met, she treated us like her own daughter. After meeting her in person, she asked us to come to the Science Fair, so that she could tour us around the venue. We agreed, excitingly.
Science Fair
Ma’am Minnie Joy, Nissa’s cooperating teacher, drove us to Camiling East Central Elementary School, which 10 minutes away from our school. All the audiences were confused that they got a visitors who wearing headscraf/hijab. But anyway, I liked that attention, because we got to introduce people to my religion, Islam. The moment we arrived there, the opening ceremony was started, the master of ceremony announcing that the competition had started. Ma’am Levy Palafox directly asked us to accompany her to look around all the competition. We saw the Quiz Bee Competition, Science Odyssey, Sci-Fi Drawing Competition,and the selection of Mr and Ms. Science of Camiling East District. All the competition were divided by grade, there were 4th grade, 5th grade, and 6th grade categories. Ah ya, I was so glad to met my student in Quiz Bee 4th grade category, He was John Red. The sweetest one in class.
In Science Fair, we got a chance to meet all the teachers from another school, it was such a cool experiences for me. The committee treated us like an honour guest that they had, I was about to cry…. To be honest. Because when we all gathered in the main stage, I and Nissa were asked to seated in the VIP, it was a place that only Ma’am Levy Palafox, the district supervisor, could have. It. Was. Amazing.
Came to the time where we were able to see the selection of Mr. and Ms Science of Camiling East District. They were presenting 3 attires each individual. 1st attire was the casual theme, 2nd attire was the sport theme, and the 3rd was the recycled theme. They were so good at presenting their clothing despite they were in such a young age! No wonder why our Miss Universe is from Philippines!
The competition ended at 06.00 p.m, the MC announced the winner of each competition while waiting for the selection of Mr. and Ms. Science. I and Nissa decided to went to our dorm earlier than the end of the event . I admitted, the competition was great. We were glad to witness such a competition.
As I wrote in my previous post that my host school was in Malacampa Elementary School Main. I was asked to teach the 4th grade class regular and SSES. But because of the preparation of some competition, the 4th grade SSES class wasn’t having an effective day to get their lesson. So I taught in 4th grade regular instead.
I had my observation for 3 days. It was 3rd and 5th of September. My cooperating teacher asked me to observed her at the back of the class. I got to see her delivering her English material. The class was so chaotic, of course, because the number of the students were so many (There were 57 students). But Ma’am Kristine managed the class well with her strict rules for the students, and also Ma’am Kristine is so firm when it comes to discipline.
The students were hard to control but it was because they were excited to study. Even if they were super loud, they allowed to hear the instruction clearly. They could be competitive while collaborating.
Here are the notes that I wrote when I was in my observation:
First, it was about the facility. The class has 6 unites of electric fan, a bathroom inside the class (because the teachers believe if they placed bathroom outside, the students might escape anywhere they want), monitor, speakers, wifi.. teacher mostly provide the facility with their own money (such as printer, speaker, etc), the class was pretty small for 57 students inside. But what I like about the class is it has so many colors.
Second, because of the educational system that regulated by the government, the regular class is the class for those students from the middle class economy family. They are freed to not wearing their uniform. I have a story of my student, his name is Gabrielle, he is a boy who sells many thing at the class, that day he was selling a Yam, in Tagalog its called Singkamas or in Indonesia its called Bengkoang. I bought 2 for 10 Piso. I was touched, because I saw him selling anything to get allowance. And I could see from his eyes that he was so proud to help his parents. Ah ya, most of my students were not familiar with English, only 4 of them who fluently speak in English, most of them communicate with Tagalog or Elokano, so it was one of my barrier there, but… You know what? His class-mates were so supportive, they helped Gabrielle to communicate with me, so that I could buy his Singkamas.
Okay, continue to my observation…
Third, about the school time. They have the full day school of learning. From 7.30 a.m until 11.00 a.m (with a break for snack time which they called it “Rises Time” at 09.00 a.m) and then they can go home (or stay in the class) to have their lunch. After they have lunch, they have to go back at 01.00 p.m, continue the lesson, have their Rises Time at 02.30 p.m, and the lesson will ended at 04.00 p.m.
Fourth, the English material. Malacampa Elementary School Main has their own schedule, no need to make a lesson plan, they generated the material into a month schedule and started to teach day by day by looking at that schedule. So, I was asked to make a lesson plan by looking at the month schedule. For your information, making a lesson plan in Philippines is way more simpler than Indonesian lesson plan.
Fifth, Magical Words. It was the first day I got magical words from my Cooperating Teacher. She said that being a teacher is a noble job, that is why she still passionately teaching there. She inspired me by no matter how many tasks she has, she still took a good care of her class.
In 3 days, I got to learn many things. The children was having no doubt to approach me even they were not fluent in English. They interested to (also) learn something new from me. So, we taught Indonesian and Tagalog alternately.
3rd of September, 2019.
Before I and Nissa went to our host school. TAU provided us a Language Lesson with one of the lecture. We discovered so many things that we didn’t realize about english. It was fun. Because we got to now where our mistakes was.
The lesson took 1.5 hours. In the end of the lesson, the lecture asked us to write down our story about traveling to Philippines in 5 sentences using all the material we’ve got in the lesson. We were so excited to read our story. We found out that we all felt the same, why could I said so? It was because we smiled while we wrote down our story. It was a good feeling, wasn’t it?
Anyway, I was really glad to be there and learned something new!
Address: Malacampa, Camiling, Tarlac
Municipality: Camiling
Province: Tarlac
Region: III – Central Luzon
Category: Public Elementary School
Year Founded: 1945
Contact Number: 9219998615
Email: school106346@trokis.com
School Principal: MA. Caroline G. Razalan Ed.D.
Malacampa Elementary School Main is a DepED managed partially public elementary school located in Camiling, Tarlac Province, Philippines. This school was established on January 1st, 1945 – 74 years ago. Malacampa Elementary School is a public school from Kinder to Grade 6 with two section for each grade. This school has a complete of class room, inside the classroom it also has a toilet and some stuff for eat and drink. The clasroon also has a beautiful mural and learning media.
Malacampa Elementary School has so many facilities, such us the classroom which is include with toilet and a simple kitchen that support some tableware. This school also has a canteen, schoolyard, stage school, office for the teacher and principal, and park. They named the park with the subject they learned, such as math park, science park, etc. Every side of this school are decorated with beautiful painting.
The school day is held from monday to friday, so saturday and sunday is a holiday. The learning activity begins at 7.30 until 4 p.m and for each subject has an hour per meeting. But from 7 until 7.30 a.m we should do the flag ceremony. The flag ceremony include the sport gymnastic also. So everyday they will always do the exercise before learned in a class. From monday to thursday they do the learning process, but for friday they only have a quiz to review the lesson. The subjects that teached in this school are mathematics, science, filipino, english, MAPEH (Music, Arts, Physical Education and Health), EPP (Edukasyong Pantahanan at Pangkabuhayan), etc.
Malacampa Elementary School provided the books for teacher and also for the pupils. The teacher has a guide book for arrange the lessons. They also allowed to find the learning resources from the internet and the other books that related to the lesson. And for the pupils the school give a students book for the reference to learn at school and home. But it’s not for all subject. For example, here’s the teached guide book and students book for English subject.
In the learning process, the teacher always give the evaluation in the end of the lesson. And then every friday the pupils will have a quiz for review the lesson from monday to thursday. The school also give the final score for the pupils every quarter of the semester. They also give the appreciation to the students that have a good achivement every semester.
The school used the K-12 curriculum. The K-12 aims to provide every Filipino child with the education s/he needs to compete in a global context and give them enough time to master skills and concept. In the school when they arranged the lesson they refer to this K-12 curriculum.
The teaching plan in this school called lesson plan as generally. The format contain; the learning objective; the content; the reference or learning resource; the procedure include review of the past lesson, motivation for gain the interesting and focused of the pupils, presentation for the main lesson, discussion and group activity, individual practice, developing mastery, generalization about the lesson, evaluation, and assignment in the end of the lesson.
For me, Malacampa Elementary School Main is one of the biggest school in Camiling. For your information, the building is disability-friendly, isn’t it cool?
Here are some findings that I and Nissa found in Malacampa Elementary School:
One of the coolest thing there is the Mothers Club! I found it amazing to see mothers of many students, gather to facilitate the school and their pupils. They were working hard passionately whenever there were a school program. And, also… That pink T-shirt with “Mothers Club” written on their back was LIT!
One more thing….. Duh, there are so many cool thing in my host school!
Every morning, the students were having their physical activity by dancing to a song. I found it cool and exciting. What a briliant idea to do such a physical activity. The pupils totally love it!
Yap, that’s all. I challenge you to discover many thing from Malacampa Elementary School Main by seeing all my writings. Ciao!
Unlike the other participants who already met their cooperating teacher in the opening program, I was unable to meet my cooperating teacher, it was because my host school was in Malacampa Elementary School Main, and the other were in TAU Laboratory School. So we decided to go there the next day.
Fortunately, I met my supervisor in the opening program. Ma’am Analyn Diane (The coordinator who were in charge of managing the SEA-Teacher schedule in TAU) introduced me to my supervisor, Ma’am Analyn J. Alegado, she is one of the lecture in Tarlac Agricultural University. Nissa and I had the same supervisor because our major is elementary school related.
Ma’am Analyn J. Alegado. She was the one who gave me all the ‘magical’ words. One of the most memorable and precious story of her that I won’t forget is, the story of why she wanted to be a teacher.
Ma’am Analyn Alegado was a nurse back before she became a teacher. She told me that she has seen many deaths in her life while became a nurse. When the first time she saw death, she cried her heart out. And his senior said to stop involves feeling for patient. She realized that she couldn’t do that, but she was not thinking further from that. One day, she had a program to teach in public at one of village in Philippines, but she got an unexpected responses. The villager said “We don’t need you to teach us about healthy life and hygine. We have our own culture for that. You just need to teach our children about how to read”. She was surprised by that, and started to challenge herself to teach the children, she realized that it was an easy task to do. After passed through the program, she thought that being a teacher is an honor thing to do, and she said “I can see so many hopes from my student eyes for being a teacher, rather than being a nurse, I see so many hopeless thing, death… and many sad things there. So, why am I still staying here?”. After that, she asked for her husband permission to start her study for being a teacher.
That’s it, the inspirational story that I will remember in my heart, until forever.
Also, I have my cooperating teacher from Malacampa Elementary School Main. She is Ma’am Kristine Joy P. Guarino. She is an English Subject teacher. Let me tell you… She is the most beautiful teacher I’ve ever met in Philippines, hihihi. The most memorable saying of her is “Being a teacher is a noble job, so that’s why I still doing it passionately until now”. She inspired me with her thought. I got to observed her teaching her students for about 3 times, but sadly, she was so busy in September for being a chairman in a journalism competition for elementary school. So she was rarely spending time with me.
Because they motivated and evaluated me. I started to realized that they gave me so many things to learn, including those “magic words” that constructed me. Even physically, they are just an ordinary human being.
I would like to say thanks to Ma’am Analyn J. Alegado and Ma’am Kristine Joy P. Guarino for being the best teacher for me.
Departure and farewell never felt so exciting before. Flight to Philippine got me nervous and excited at the same time. Knowing myself will teaching the students there made me couldn’t wait no more to arrive.
August 31st, 2019. Touch down, Philippines. I, Ane, Nadia, and Nissa were in the same flight from Indonesia. Alfi and Ola were accidently met us in NAIA. So we decided to go together to Clark Airport by P2P Bus. Yes, 6 of us were the first one to arrive at Tarlac Agricultural University, and we got ourselves a room that fitted 6 of us in the building (Farmer Training Center). I was like “ok… they are my new roommate, let’s build an amazing teamwork for about 28 days.”. For your information, the facility was great for us to survive there! Hahaha! And… also, we have an amazing view in front of our dorm, it was a big pond with trees around it.
September 2nd, 2019. I woke up early in the morning, feeling excited with the activity that day. I prepared my best pink batik to attended the opening program. The one who were ready started to wait outside the dormitory (FTC).
I was really nervous for the opening program there were the other overseas students from India and Ghana who also attended the event. It was such an honour to see the table that has our name on the table name. We also got some TAU souvenirs such as drawstring bag, keychain, and a pencil. On the opening program, we sang both of our national anthem. Such a natural feeling that my tears dropped while we were singing Indonesia Raya. It was a mixed feelings between proud of ourselves, nervous, happy, and other feeling. Hihihi.
I was talking to myself. “See? You are here. It is time for you, to learn in everything that happen here. Happy, sad, nervous, thrilling.. Don’t expect things too much, the thing is you will get something new to learn.. And you know, you will never get it in any other places. Fighting!”
After the opening ceremony, the committee prepared us lunch.. Guess what we had back then? …. Yap! Jollibee. It is Philippines pride. Hihi. We were not familiar with gravy sauce, but we just ate. I love the hamburgers, by the way!
We had a tour at College of Education. We went around the college and of course, the TAU Laboratory School. 14 participants will teach there while Nissa and I will having Malacampa Elementary School Main as our host school.
I successfully observed so many things back then.
1st, Ma’am Diane, gave us all the best she could do to provide us all the information. I love her!
2nd, The students incredibly excited to meet us, It is a good sign.
3rd, Every place is a place where we can learn from every single thing.
So… Let’s open a new chapter in TAU after observing so many thing?
Let’s go!
Adventurous Adventure of SEA-Teacher Batch 8 - Philippines 