Life Skills Development in Bahasa Indonesia

WHEN the right teaching methods are used, students will be more enthusiastic in learning. This has been proved by Sutarno, M.Pd, a Bahasa Indonesia teacher at SMPN 2 Semanding, Tuban, East Java. Bapak Sutarno has used teaching methods which encourages students to be more active in solving problems.

Starting his lesson, Bpk. Sutarno began by presenting some crime cases which had occurred in Tuban. He asked the students what they knew about the cases. After the students had focused their attention on the topic, Bpk. Sutarno explained the purpose of the lesson. After that he asked students to form groups consisting of four people.

The groups were called cooperative groups. From these groups, Bpk. Sutarno then formed new groups called expert groups. After that, pak Sutarno distributed clippings from the newspapers about crime cases in Tuban happening in the last week.

Representatives from each group took a sealed envelop containing the clippings. After receiving the envelopes the groups discussed the main ideas in the clippings. Then when they finished, they returned to their previous groups, that is their cooperative groups.

In these cooperative groups the students discussed the causes of crime and how to prevent it. After the discussion, each group wrote down their findings and presented them to the rest of the class. There was a lively debate when each group presenting its finding. This session was very helpful to the students as they had the chance to express their ideas, argue, and counter argue. Besides they also got a lot of useful information in this session.

At the end of session, students gave their comments about the lesson. Most of them enjoyed learning like this. This can be seen from their written comments which stated how interesting, fun and easy the lesson was.

Training to Improve Teachers’ Professionalism

“TODAY I’m so happy because I could understand the lesson easily,” said one student of SMPN 1 Sukodono, Sidoarjo. That day training in practical teaching took place at SMPN 1 Sukodono. This training was a part of training on Better Teaching and Learning 2 (BTL2) conducted by DBE3 East Java.

This BTL2 training was conducted in two batches. The first batch was held from May 26-28 in Aula Departemen Agama, Sidoarjo. In this batch 81 teachers from DBE3 partner schools in Sidoarjo attended. The training methods used in this training proved to be effective as all participants took part enthusiastically right until the end.

The second batch was held on June 2-4, involving 79 teachers. On the last day of the training, participants had opportunities to do practical teaching at SMPN 1 Sukodono, SMPN 1 Tarik dan SMPN 2 Wonoayu. Bapak Suryadi, one of the participants, said that the materials given and the methods used in the training were new to him and he learned from it.

He added that this kind of training was one way to enhance teachers’ skills and develop their professionalism.