Introduction

Teaching practice occupies a key position in the programme of teacher education. It is a

culminating experience in teacher preparation. It provides opportunity for student teachers to get

socialized into the profession (Furlong et.al, 1988). Performance during teaching practice

provides some basis for predicting the future success of the teacher. Outgoing popularity and

centrality of teaching practice is an important contributing factor towards the quality of teacher

education programme (Trowbridge and Bybee, 1994; Sharafuddin, and Allison, 1969).

Teaching practice is also the name of the preparation of student teachers for teaching by

practical training. It is the application of teaching methods, teaching strategies, teaching

principles, teaching techniques and practical training and practice /exercise of different activities

of daily school life.

The main aim of teaching practice are to provide the prospective teachers with

appropriate teacher pupil relationship, attitudes and ideas relative to teaching profession,

opportunity for self evaluation, skills and strategies. Opportunity to exchange of ideas and

methods between practicing school and teacher training college, by student teacher is further

enhanced by perceiving new ideas material.

Moreover, the teaching practice also help to develop personal relationship with others

like administrators, teachers, parents and students, to provide with practical experience in school

to overcome the problems of discipline, to provide with an opportunity to put theories into

practice, to enable the student teachers to plan and prepare lessons effectively, to develop skill in

the use of fundamental procedures, techniques and methods of teaching, and to provide an

opportunity for self evaluation and to discover own strengths and weaknesses.

We are given six months of teaching practice. It has been golden opportunity and

enriching experience that fully helped in professional and personal development. Moreover, I

could really get into the shoe of teacher and teaching in becoming and in moulding the life of

students. It have been a good time to learn and teach in the real phenomenonal school setting as

teaching faculty.

First day to schoolWe reported to the school, Lungtenzampa Middle Secondary School on 10th February,

2011. The school was established in 1972. It is headed by Principal Madam Kinley Pem. The

school has one thousand one hundred seventy seven (Boys: 544 and girls: 633) students. The

school has fifty four teaching staff and (National: 43 and non-national: 11) and fourteen

nonteaching staff. The vision of the school is “Epitome of Excellence par Education” and the

mission of the school is “Enhancement of citizens who uphold GNH values through

conducive and meaningful education experiences.”

No sooner have we reported to the school we have met our focal person and mentors. We

were oriented about the school and the resources available and so on. I was then introduced and

attached with my mentors, Mrs. Namgay Lhaden and Mrs. Jigme Euden and given biology and

chemistry of class nine to be taught.

I have been mindful on the certain commitments before I go into the real teaching life. As

a student, I remember how very quickly we used to stereotype and backbite our teacher as a

‘impulsive’, ‘frantic’, ‘strict’, ‘friendly’, ‘joker’, ‘boring’ or as a ‘good’ teacher and so on. These

tags do remain with the students for a long duration. Children are in fact excited and curious to

have new teachers. Mentally I had decided that I do not want to earn a stereotyped impression as

a boring and a dull teacher. I have been thinking over the different prospects of the kind of

teacher I wanted to “BE “during my teaching practice tenure. The tag “good and interesting,

frank and approachable” consecutively seemed to be the dominant feeling. I wanted to become a

good and inspiring teacher in fact.

Professional Development

Palmer, P.J (2005) stated, “If teachers are to become healers for their students, they must

first work hard to heal themselves. Our great need as a teacher is to acknowledge and reveal the

fears that permeate our own lives so that we can stop feeding the fear in the world and start

relieving it” (p.38). Frequent student-teacher interaction in and out of class is a most important

factor in students’ motivation, encouragement, participation and involvement. Teacher’s concern

helps students get through rough times and keep on working. It also enhances student’s

intellectual commitment and encourages them to think about their own values, plans and

belongingness. Learning is enhanced when it is more like a team effort than a solo race. Good

learning, like good work, is collaborative and social, isolated one. Working with others often

increases involvement in learning. Sharing one's ideas and responding to others improves

thinking and deepens understanding which promotes professional development.

Students’ focus

In the six month of teaching, I realized that learning is not simply a spectaculation in the

sporting events. Students do not learn much by mere sitting in classroom listening to teachers,

memorizing prepackages from the textbooks, and vomiting out answers. They should talk about

what they are learning, reflect on it, relate it to past experiences/learning, and apply it to their

daily lives. They must make and model what they learn, a part of themselves. Knowing what we

know and don't know focuses our learning. In getting started, students need help in assessing

their existing knowledge and competence. Then, in classes, students need frequent time provided

to perform and receive feedback on their performance. In the various junction, and at its end,

students need chances to reflect on what they have learned, what they still need to know, and

how they might assess themselves. Time plus energy equals learning. Learning to use one's time

well is critical for students. Allocating realistic amounts of time means effective learning for

students and effective teaching for teachers. Different students bring different talents and styles

to school. Students rich in hands-on experience may not do so well with theory. Students need

opportunities to show their talents and learn in ways that work for them. Then they can be

pushed to learn in new ways that do not come so easily. Knowing the individual differences and

knowing students is vital for the professional development as we can know their differences and

different learning style.

Teaching competencies

The instructional hours began on 28th February, 2011. Every day one lesson has been

observed by my mentors, focal person and peers as well. The observations have been amazing

and informative to learn that in every lesson we could at least practice two skills. The

introductory procedures and closures and classroom use of language, use of teaching-learning

materials, stimulus and interaction variations and giving instructions for organizing learning

activities could be used throughout the lessons. Some of the positive comment that I got from my

mentor were audible voice, good flow of the lesson, varied stimulation, good explanation, good

lesson flow, clear instructions, good attention gain, good introduction and outlining, good

handwriting, good usage of board and so on.

Over the period of six months, I felt that there was great improvement in my teaching and in the

application of the skills and strategies. I felt that my teaching was very effective because student

could understand my lesson. There was active participation and interaction in the class that made

learning very interesting, effective and retentive. The interesting and effective lesson also

enabled to maintain a well classroom decorum and conducive environment.

To practice skills and strategies aptly was not an easy task, it was necessary to choose the most

appropriate strategies for a particular skill while preparing lesson plan. Among the ten skills that

we have learned in the college, I found management of groups for learning, giving instructions

for organizing learning activities, teaching of skills and procedure, interaction and variation, use

of teaching aids and introductory procedures and closure and classroom use language were easier

and most appropriate in biology lesson. But skills like questioning and handling pupils’

responses and teaching of values and attitudes were difficult to be incorporated in teaching

biology lesson. Framing questions and planning lessons base on that skill was tough as it requires

previously learned knowledge. Most of the topics are new to the students which really impede to

practice and frame different levels of questioning base on the Bloom’s taxonomy. Teaching of

values and attitudes demands commitments as a result of the lesson learned which is difficult for

biology concept like ‘fertilization’, ‘flower’, ‘external morphology of the plant’ and ‘cells’. I

realized, finding the outcome of values incorporated in lessons was immeasurable. It can be

observed over a long period of time.

After several round of micro-teaching in the college I felt like I lack something in my

teaching but my mentor commented that my teaching went well except the usage of frequent

words like now, then, did u get me, all right and o.k.. The most habitual word that I used while

teaching was ‘all right’, whenever I wanted to introduce new lesson I used ‘all right.’ I

understood that it would have been better if I had used some other words or phrases than alright’

or ‘now’. My mentor advised me to use better option and made me put cautious effort in using

better options.

Classroom management

Class management was crucial to have successful and even lesson delivery throughout. I

learned to respect my student’s work and opinion. I gave them group activities. I use to check

and monitor their work regularly. My mentor cautioned me that at times students pretend doing

the work in front of us. I have respected student’s doubts. I use to consult my mentor and search

from library as and when I came across difficult concept. Students were very curious in learning

because they were asking many questions during the lesson. I learned to design the lesson

keeping in mind time, type of activity and capacity of student and their interest.

i) Challenges

The task of educating, civilizing and spiritualizing the children with an aim to shape them into

good human beings and good citizens is indeed challenging. Teaching practice made me to

realize that teaching was indeed a challenging job. Some of the challenges that I faced are as

follows:

Lesson planning

A key aspect of effective teaching is having a plan for what will happen in the classroom

each day. Creating a plan involves setting realistic goals in line with the curriculum and

education policy; decide how to incorporate course textbooks and other required materials, and

identifying activities that will promote learning. Lesson planning was challenging because while

preparing the lesson I had to choose the most appropriate skill and strategy that was applicable in

the transformation of the lesson. For example teaching of practical works requires teaching of

skills and procedure and interaction variation whereas teaching of theoretical concept demands

lecture method.

Incorporating values and attitudes was yet another challenge. I informed the students about

my lesson objectives. Student’s responses indicated that they understood the values but I could

not measure whether I could change their attitude. This was not realistic and I feel it would take

years for a teacher to understand the attitude of their students.

Child centered learning

In the school time table science subjects are given three periods in a week irrespective of the

vast syllabus coverage. I felt the period allocation was insufficient. In these three periods, teacher

could not create more activities and therefore we did not have sufficient time to make students

learn through various activities. This was a major concern for us. We had to create less activity

to fulfill the skills that we were supposed to use while teaching the lesson. On the other hand our

school got disturbed many times due to different activities like visit of His Majesty the fifth Druk

Gyelpo, school rimdo, inter school basket and football competition, inter house cultural

competition, sports day and meeting on GNH.

Therefore, many a times, we had to use lecture method to cover the syllabus and also take extra

classes on weekends. In the rush to cover the syllabus, we could not focus on child centered

learning.

Dealing with students

The students in Thimphu are vocal and have exposure to different learning facilities. So it

was very challenging for me to cope up with them. For teaching a particular concept I had to

refer different sources like internet and references to prepare the lesson before going to the class.

We need to plan lessons regularly and read a lot of books to have sound knowledge on the

content to respond to

student’s quarries. Since I was given two different subjects to teach I had to read and prepare

well to face every possible questions and doubts. However, dealing with individual and catering

to individual need was indeed challenging. Some of the senior teachers and my mentor were of

great help to me. They always lend their help to solve my doubts.

a) Knowing the names of students

The most important quality that a teacher should possess is the ability to know the names of

every student. My mentor’s first advice was that I should know the student by their name. So I

asked the class captain to write the names of the students and stick on the table. This way over

the period of two weeks I succeeded in remembering almost all their names. This really helped

me in developing a good relationship with the students and to understand their learning capacity

and tracking the performance of the students.

b) Note book correction

Note book correction was a very difficult task for me since we hardly had any free period. I was

given 24 periods a week. The free periods that we get were fully utilized for lesson planning, pre

conference and post conferences. Besides I was sent for substitution and my mentor with co

curricular activities like gardening. Parents and students were particularly concerned with the

notebook correction. The teacher does one round correction every week. We had to cope with the

school culture and parent’s pressure. Therefore we had to use weekends and skip lunch break for

the correction of the books.

ii) Initiatives and achievements

I would like to share some achievements and contributions that I have made to the school during

the six months stay.

First to go with my academic achievements, I am happy to report that a 100% result was

achieved in unit test and mid- term in my subject (biology and science) in the six section of class

nine and one section of class seven that I taught. In an education system like ours, where it is an

exam oriented, and examination best reflects how hard the teacher has worked in teaching the

students. Better performances by the students certainly mean that the teacher has worked well.

Reflecting on the performance of my students, I feel I have done justice to my profession.

I was school scout and tarayana club coordinator. On April 5 th, 2010, we have organized a mass

cleaning campaign in the city. During the club hours on Saturday, we organized various

sensitization program on nature and keeping our environment clean and green which is one of

the values of Gross National Happiness within the club thereby keeping the club members

(students) virtually engaged and busy. And it is good to see students learning about GNH values

and teaching the other friends about clean and green environment.

I taught drill to the students of seventh standard for the annual school sports day. The drill was a

mixture of aerobatic and martial arts. This was a very good chance to teach what I have learned

in taekwondo during school days and in the college from my master. The drill was a success.

Students performed well during the sports day. I worked in collaboration with class teachers of

class seven to design dresses and pompom for the drill. Guests and parents extended their

appreciation.

I had the opportunity to coach school football team (both girls and boys). The foot ball skills that

I have learned as a college team was worth to coach my students. As coach I escorted them for

regional school football tournament. It was amazing that students were doing their best and felt

responsible. I assisted the school games teacher to organize games and sports events during the

annual school sports day and inter-house and class competitions. When you are fully engaged in

various programs, the interpersonal skill really develops since you get to know about the other

person well.

As I was attached as a class teacher, I had the chance to teach cultural items for inter house

cultural competition whereby we got first.

Personal developmentSociety expects the teachers to be the role models. The six months in the school was an

advantage to me. Beside the professional development, the school culture groomed me to a better

person and a better teacher. Attending staff meetings, promotion parties, farewell parties and

paying condolence to the bereaved teacher friends taught me the importance of team spirit and

co-operation among the members which also helped to built the inter personal skills.

Working in the environment of teachers and students, I learned to be punctual in all the programs

of the school. The school has a good follow up to track the punctuality since regular attendance

in all programs and assembly was taken.

As a student I wasn’t hard working. In the school I had to work hard to live up to the

expectations of the teachers and students. Teachers had to teach their subjects, they had to be

class teachers, house masters, coordinators for various programs, counselors and the second

parent. To fulfill the roles, teacher had to work hard. Teacher had no room to fail since we deal

with the life of students. As I was given various responsibilities, I had to compromise my

personal time and work hard in the school. I learned to manage time and complete the work

given. Thus, I feel I have become a hard working person compared to my college life.

ConclusionThe six months’ teaching practice is a time of total test where once perseverance and mental

adjustments, compromise and concessions are put to acid test. An absolute reflection on all these

issues with a good degree of wisdom and judgment could be beneficial in forming a professional

attitude. It could contribute towards professional as well as personal growth.

My days in Lungtenzampa are one of the most precious moments that I would like to treasure in

my life. I enjoyed my stay to the fullest. It inspired me to develop as a good teacher.

Teaching in the classroom is not only the objective of teaching practice, but also to provide

training in all activities and work which student teachers are going to perform in future during

their job. For this purpose we had to play the role of the parent, coach, brother, guide and

counselor. We had to participate in all the activities of school e.g. preparation of timetable,

preparation and maintenance of different registers, evaluation of class work and home work,

arrangement of tutorial groups, sports , games, morning assembly, co-curricular activities, duty

during recess, duty as day master, duty before and after school timing, decoration of classroom,

preparation and maintenance of attendance board, news board, information board, look after and

home economics room, science laboratories and library. I really came to know about how to deal

with parents of the students, school supporting staff and guests. Duties as invigilators,

preparation of question papers for examinations, evaluation of answer scripts and compilation of

results is also part of teaching practice. So I am equipped with those skills and techniques.

However I have few suggestions-The duration of teaching practice should be increased up to 12

months at least, so that teaching practice efficiency can be increased. Again in order to make

teaching practice more effective, that student teacher should watch the lessons of experienced

teachers or mentor for one week and write evaluation report about them and supervisors should

provide guidelines to student teachers in the light of this evaluation report.

Finally, student teachers should have a lot of perseverance and restraints. One would feel

exasperated at the pressures from all quarters. School administration, mentor, supervising

lecturer, even the problematic students, all would seem to have ganged up to devour you alive or

make the teaching practice challenging. One should not take them all too negatively. Take it as a

stepping stones for a better teaching and go on with the objective purpose in your mind. We

would have won in the end without realizing until the farewell speeches when some students say

in tears “sir you were a great teacher. You taught us many interesting things--thank you and good

bye”.