Teach to Learn Teaching

       Teaching is like growing a plant. The place where you have to grow a seed to be a useful plant which can give you sweet fruits or beautiful flowers. What treatments that you give to your plant are, absolutely will influence the growth of your plant later on. Giving fertilizer, enough water, or good soil can be the options to succeed growing a plant.

      The same case with teaching. Delivering lesson to the students is not a trivial job. Everyone who being a teacher have to pay attention on everything that he/she does in preparing materials until reflecting his/her own teaching. Like growing a plant, teacher has to look in detail of the materials, techniques, and activities that he/she going to use in the teaching process. I can say this because in teaching we may not focus on delivering the materials to the students only but also focus on how we deliver the materials. In the other hand, students do not similar to plant. If we grow a plant but then it falls unsuccessful, we can try again from the beginning steps. Yet, different with teaching the students. We should not regard them as a trial rabbit (kelinci percobaan) of our teaching ability. As a teacher, we have to teach carefully in order to be a good and reliable role models because what we teach will influence the students’ future later on.

      Selecting materials, creating fun activities, and also adapting attractive techniques can be the consideration to conduct a successful teaching. Thus, we have to look again every single thing that we are going to do in teaching. We also have to teach our students like we take care of our plant. In other words, we may not only focus on the materials but also the feeling and attitude of the students. We have to give them affection, love, and caring in order to create a good attitude and also smart students. Creating a cozy and safe learning situation will also influence the students’ responses toward our teaching. Enjoy Your Teaching ^^

The writer is a student-teacher of English Teaching Education Program, Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga-Central Java. When writing this post, she is a seventh-semester college students and doing Teaching Practicum (PPL) in SMK Negeri 2 Salatiga.