THE BENEFIT OF TEACHING PRACTICE SUBJECT ON THE ENGLISH

STUDENT TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY AT THE

UNIVERSITY OF JAMBI
By Nadya Pramesti
English Education Study Program Languange and Arts Department Faculty of
Teacher Training and Education (FKIP) Jambi University
Supervisors:
Bunga Ayu Wulandari, S.Pd., M.EIL., Ph.D.
Tubagus Zam Zam Al Arif, S.Pd., M.Pd.
Email: nadyapramesti94@gmail.com
_____________________________________________________

ABSTRACT
The purpose of his study is to understand English student teachers’ identity in
their teaching practice and the benefits of teaching practice to their professional
identity as teachers. The data were gathered through an interview that involved five
pre-service teachers who already had experience in teaching students in the schools.
All of the participants were asked some questions related to their perception towards
teaching practice, teaching practice experience, teacher’s roles and teacher’s identity.
The result of this study shows that all of the participants perceived teaching practice
as an important program that allows them to understand teacher as profession through
a real experience. However, most of the participants believed that their teaching
practice experiences were limited due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In relation to their
experiences, the participants show a great understanding of what are the teacher’s
roles by getting involved directly in the schools. They were involved in preparing
lesson plans, learning materials and helping with the evaluation of the students
learning. They also taught the students through various online learning services. The
participants believed that teaching practice program has made them to feel and
understand what it is like to be a teacher in the school. By getting involved to do
various tasks from preparing learning materials to evaluating the students learning,
the participants have learned a lot about what real teachers should do and their
responsibility.
Keywords: Pre-Service Teacher, Teacher Identity

INTRODUCTION ~ Teachers are the education (Undang-Undang Republik

important part of education (Purwadi
& Kholid, 2017). They play important
roles in education including several
main tasks such as, teaching, guiding,
directing, training, evaluating, and
evaluating students in early childhood
education through formal education,
basic education and secondary
Indonesia Nomor 14, 2005).
Therefore, teachers’ roles could
determine the success of the teaching
and learning process in the classroom.
Teachers are one of the important
factors in the success of the learning
process (Rahmadhani, Rahmat, &
Purwianingsih, 2016). That is because

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teachers are instructors and managers
of learning and mediators, figures, role
models, and identification for students.
Therefore, to achieve a good learning
process, teachers are required to have
an effective learning system. As the
consequence, without no exception to
EFL teachers, they also have to be
experts in the methodology of
language learning and teaching (Kong,
et al, 2016).
In order to realize a good
quality and effective teaching and
learning, it is necessary to for new
teachers to learn in Teaching
Education program. Teaching
education program is spread over two
phases which are theoretical phase and
practical one (König & Blömeke,
2013). Theoretical phase emphasizes
academic and theoretical studies such
as subject-related teaching methods
and the contents while practical one,
this phase requires the students to
undertake teaching practice at school
and aims at practical transfer of
theoretical knowledge. An in the line
with the policy in teaching education
faculty at Jambi University, their
students are required to undertake
teaching practice subject during 2
months at selected school in semester
seven with 4 credits.
Teaching practice as written in
guiding book for student teachers of
the University of Jambi emphasizes
aspects that have to be analyzed by the
student teachers including curriculum,
curriculum implementation, learning
plans, learning implementation,
evaluation, assessment, report, student
management, school management,
class management, learning source
management, education policy, and
school environment. Those aspects are
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oriented to give student teachers real
experiences of working in real schools
and get some benefits for their
professional development (Hepsary &
Ena, 2019). By doing teaching
practice, student teachers are given
opportunities to get professional
knowledge, teaching skills, and
teaching competence. The other
benefit that student teachers can get
during teaching practice is to construct
their teachers’ identity.
Simply, teacher’s identity is a
more personal thing and indicates how
one identifies with being a teacher and
how one feels as a teacher (Mayer,
1999). Korthagen (2004) argued
teachers’ professional identity has
substantial effect on a teachers’
teaching, professional development,
and staying in the teaching profession,
etc., and influences individual teaching
effects by affecting their concrete
behaviors in the process of teaching. It
shows that the importance of seeking
teachers’ identity for student teachers
in order to prepare in becoming a well-
qualified future teacher. As what is
insisted and expected in teaching
practice, student teachers are asked to
position themselves as teacher at
school.
By positioning student teachers
as a real teacher, it contributes in
teacher identity construction (Kayi-
Aydar, 2015). Moreover, their
identities can determine what kind of
interaction and experience that they
have during their teaching practice and
decision making to stay or leave the
profession. For this reason, this study
attempts to analyze English student
teachers’ identities during their
teaching practice.

REVIEW OF RELATED
LITERATURE ~ Teaching Practice
Teaching practice is an
important component of giving the
opportunity for student teachers in the
teaching faculty. The teaching practice
is program provided for pre-service
teacher to join practice in school, field
studies or school-based experience.
The teaching practice programs aims
to prepare the students to become
quality teachers that equipped with
teaching skills and capabilities that
will provide experience and
knowledge to meet the demands of
being teacher as profession.
Syahrial et al (2018) affirm that
after participating in teaching practice
program, students are expected to be
able to strengthen academic
competence in education and subject
areas accompanied by critical thinking
skills and higher-level thinking skills.
Syahrial et al (2018) also emphasizes
that the scope of the implementation of
teaching practice in Faculty of Art and
Teaching in Jambi University
reinforces teacher tasks in both
academic and administrative tasks.
Teaching practice gives student
teachers experience in the actual
teaching and learning environment. It
has substantial differences between
practice teaching in front of classmates
on microteaching subject and
delivering teaching material in front of
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students. Marais & Meier (2004) assert
that the term teaching practice
represents the range of experiences to
which student teachers are exposed
when they work in classrooms and
schools. It pinpoints that teaching
practice provides authentic context
within in which student teachers are
exposed to complexity of the reality of
being a real teacher. This process
imposes student teachers whether the
right career choice ends up on teacher
profession or not. However, despite its
importance, Killen & Steyn (2001)
note that teaching practice sometimes
becomes a demoralizing and
sometimes very frightening
experience.
Teacher’s Professional Identity ~
Avalos & Aylwin (2007) asserts that
teachers’ professional identity is an
important factor in understanding their
professional lives and career decision
making that determines teachers’
motivation, effectiveness and
retention. Further teacher’s identity
has relation to the “self” in
constructing the way we interact
within the environment and make a
judgment in a given context. Watson
(2006) claims that professional action
is doing professional identity. For
student teachers, given the opportunity
for teaching practice means to allow
them doing professional action as the
process in constructing teachers’
professional identity. However, pre-
service teachers’ professional identity
influenced program performance by
affecting their task value belief and
extrinsic learning motivation (Zhang et
al, 2016). Becoming aware of their
profession and understanding their task
values are also the ways of
maintaining the existence of teacher’s
identity within.
Compared to real teachers,
student teachers are lack of real
experiences in teaching profession. For
this reason, Beauchamp and Thomas
(2006) believe that student teachers
have not yet formed an essential
professional identity but just formed a
student identity. In fact, teachers’
professional identity has a widespread
effect on a teachers’ teaching,
professional development, and staying
in the teaching profession, etc., and
influences individual teaching effects
by affecting their concrete behaviors in
the process of teaching (Korthagen,
2004). It is also supported by Rodger
and Scoot (2008) that student teachers
may construct new identity, adapt
personal understandings and express
themselves in the classroom during the
teaching practice program. In other
words, student teachers are highly
expected to develop their identity as
professional teachers. It is in
accordance to Cooper and Olson
(1996), they believe that teacher
identity is continually being formed
and reformed as the individuals
develop over time and through
interaction with others. The
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experiences gained by the student
teachers during the teaching practice
will develop their identity as a teacher
and develop their understanding about
what a real teacher in the school
should do. In addition, the students
will also learn about teachers’
responsibility along the way.
PREVIOUS STUDIES ~
Previous study related to this
topic which discussed the students’
teachers’ identity during their teaching
practice at school. The study was
conducted by Hepsary & Ena (2019)
who attempted to discover the
identities of pre-service teachers in a
private university in Yogyakarta in
relation to their positioning of their
students. This study also seeked to
what extent positioning can construct
identities of the pre-service teachers.
By using interview to two pre-service
teachers of a private university in
Yogyakarta, this study revealed that
the pre-service teachers perceived
various identities in relation to
positioning of their students. However,
it was found that there were different
identities between the two participants
even though they faced similar
problems. This study highlighted the
function of positioning as the real
teacher and how it has helped the pre-
service teachers constructed their
identities.
Another literature related to
this research is conducted by Elizabet
Afreilyanti (2017) entitled A Study of
EFL Pre-Service Teachers’ Identity
Transformation on the Development of
Their Profffesional Identity. This study
was aimed to discover the
transformation of student-teachers’
professional identity and to discover
what factor that affect mentioned
transformation. In her research,
Elizabet used interview in collecting
the data which later were analyzed
based on some related theories. The
results of her study found that some of
the student-teachers experience the
transformation from learning
facilitator to spiritual guide and vice
versa. Besides, the results also showed
several factors that affect the
transformation, including self
introduction, relation with the students,
teaching concept and techniques,
teaching experience and knowledge.
RESEARCH METHOD
This research is designed as a
descriptive-qualitative research.
Qualitative research is conducted
because the researcher wants to
explore phenomena that cannot be
quantified that are descriptive such as
the process of a work step, the formula
of a recipe, the notions of a diverse
concept, the characteristics of an item
and service, pictures, styles,
procedures the way a culture, the
physical model of an artifact and etc.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
This chapter presents the
findings of the study based on the data
gathered through interview. There are
four subtopics in finding which
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includes the participant perception
towards teaching practice, teaching
practice experience, teacher roles and
teacher identity. Finally, the results
and findings of this study is discussed
in the last part of this chapter.
FINDINGS
The findings of the study are
related to the participants’ view of
their experiences in teaching practice.
The data gathered from the
interviewed were analyzed based on
four categories. First, the researcher
presents the participants perceptions
towards teaching practice. This part
includes how they viewed the teaching
practice implementation, benefits and
its results for them. The second part
focus on the participants experience in
teaching practice which includes their
task and responsibility in the school
where they conduct the teaching
practice. The third part deals with the
participants roles as teachers in
teaching practice. Finally, the last part
deals with their identity as teachers in
the school where they conduct
teaching practice. The following
explenation are the analysis written by
researcher regarding these four
categories.
PERCEPTION TOWARDS
TEACHING PRACTICE
The participants in this
research were asked some questions
related to how they viewed teaching
practice. The first question related to
this is about their general opinion
towards their teaching practice.
Participants stated that the
implementation of teaching practice
was very beneficial to understand
teacher as profession. In order to
elaborate those previous rensponses,
the participants were also asked about
the kind of benefits that they gain from
teaching practice. All of them agreed
that teaching practice is an important
course for students in Teaching and
Education Faculty who are prepared to
be teachers. Participant 2 said that
teaching practice is better than just
learning theories in the class.
Participant 4 explained that teaching
practice provided an opportunity for
her to learn how to be a teacher and
what a teacher should do. Although
most of the participants stated that the
implementation of teaching practice
was very beneficial and education for
them in order to understand teacher as
a profession. Participant 3 and
participant 4 stated that she was
disappointed that the teaching practice
was conducted through online learning
because of the pandemic.
TEACHING PRACTICE
EXPERIENCE
Aside from the participants
perspective towards teaching practice
program, they also explained about
their experience in teaching practice.
The participants were asked whether
the implementation of teaching
practice already corresponded with the
guideline from the faculty. Participants
explained that the teaching practice
that she has conducted and followed
everything from the guidelines.
Participant 2, in her response above,
explained that she has learnt that there
are many differences in learning
teaching from the theory from what
has actually happened in the practice.
She explained that from teaching
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practice she learned more about what it
is like to be in the position of a teacher
in the school.
Although teaching practices or
PLP seems to be succeeded in
providing the participants with good
experiences and knowledge on how to
be a teacher, there are some problems
that that troubled the participants. In
addition, participants’ teaching
practice experience was also troubled
because of the covid-19 pandemic.
They explained that the teaching
practice activities was limited and only
can be conducted through distance
learning.
TEACHER ROLES
The participants were asked
about their roles in the school where
they did the teach practice. Most of
them response with the same answers
regarding this topic. They explained
that they needed to do the class picket,
creating lesson plans, and teaching
through online class. Some of the
participants also help the students in
their practice for competition. In
addition, the participants also involved
in observing how the English teacher
in the school teach so that she can
teach later in the last weeks.
TEACHER IDENTITY
The last topic that was asked to
the participants is about teacher
identity that they gain from the
teaching practice program. Firstly,
they were asked if teaching practice
program made them felt how it is to be
a real teacher. Participants responded
that teaching program has already
made them to feel like a real teacher.
They explained that they need to
prepare the lesson plan, learning
materials and many other teacher
responsibilities for these classes.
Therefore, the participants believes
that teaching
The participants were also
asked their opinion on how important
it is to position themselves as a real
teacher in the teaching practice. Their
responses were varied. Most of them
has different view about how
important to pose as a real teacher in
teaching practice. Some of them
explained that the important to
position herself as a real teacher is to
approach the students. the various
characters that the students have to be
approach differently based on their
need. On the other hand, some others
believed that it is important to position
herself as a real teacher in order to
succeed the learning process.
Finally, the last question in the
interview was about whether the
participants aware or not that teaching
practice has brought up a teacher
identity to them, and what are the
possible factors. Most of the
participantsstated that teaching
practice program had helped them to
build a connection with the students,
which drives them to teach and help
the students to be success in the
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learning. Another response is that the
factor that could bring up her teacher
identity was based on the teaching
practice activities. She said that by
learning the teacher responsibilities as
a profession and to practice them had
guide her to build her teacher identity
and personality.
CONCLUSIONS ~ Based on data
obtained from interviews during the
study, the authors conclude that:
Their perceptions toward teaching
practice were fun, enjoyable and very
beneficial to understand teacher as
profession. Teaching practice was very
beneficial for them in order to gain
experience to become actual teachers
in the schools.
Second, the participants expressed that
their teaching practice was limited due
to the covid-19 pandemic. Therefore,
they only had the chance to teach
through the online class which utilize
some online services like Zoom,
Google Classroom and WhatsApp.
The participants understood that roles
of teacher in the school. The
requirements to do several tasks like
making lessons plans, preparing
material and evaluating the students
learning has put them in the position of
a real teacher.
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