In order to achieve the main objective of Bachelor of Education program (B.Ed) which is to develop trainees' professional skills in teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) at the Intermediate level, Practicum has been considered as a compulsory subject which aims to provide trainees chance to apply the knowledge of teaching philosophies, theories, and techniques that they have learnt in class from the three major subjects, namely Teaching Methodology, Applied Linguistics, and Foundation of Education into the real classroom situations. During six weeks of practicum period, all teacher trainees in the evening shift have conducted the teaching practice with the first year students at the Institute of Foreign Languages (IFL). Having assigned to teach Writing Skills 102 in class A1.6 for three sessions was the crucial experience for me and there are many good and bad things that I have made.
I was very proud of myself since I had a great opportunity to teach IFL students. Frankly, I have regarded this practicum as a hot battlefield. Before conducting my teaching practice, I have received the training over one semester by my course lecturers and there were more guides that I got from both the practicum workshop and the senior lecturers in the practicum orientation, I seemed to be a soldier who was full of strategies, and weapons just like Sun Tzu, Chinese military strategist, said, "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win." I have always kept telling myself that I must try all of my best and get a good result at the end of the practicum. However, as the human beings, it is normal that we all have one common thing which is the nervous feeling when facing new thing that we have never experienced before. Admittedly, I did have it since I have learnt that most of the IFL students are quite challenging and very curious to learn things.
