Summary & Suggestion

 

 I never imagined I would become an exchange student, but it was a dream come true. Initially, it would be highly challenging since fluency in English was a requirement. While I am not yet at that level, I considered withdrawing my enrollment. However, my program director convinced me to take this opportunity. Thus, I enrolled in the Sea Teacher program, which involved teaching at the SLU Laboratory High School in Baguio City, Philippines.

During my first week, I had difficulty adjusting to my new surroundings, including the food, the locals, and even transportation. My agenda during this initial week was to observe, and I had the opportunity to meet my CT, Sir Marlon L. Pawid. Immediately, I began helping him with his classes and continued to do so until the end of the week, at which point Sir Marlon asked me to create a lesson plan focusing on yoga.

In the second week, I finished my first lesson plan and submitted it to Sir Marlon, and my topic was yoga. I had never done yoga before because yoga is not included in the curriculum of physical education in Indonesia. Still, I had to continue learning about yoga to complete my teaching demonstration.

The third week has come, and I have already adapted to the Philippines. Remembering Sir Marlon's schedule, the habits of my daily life have made, like I woke up every 5.00 a.m., went to the navy base in a jeepney, wrote down my time in and my time out, at my third week also had my final demonstration which was sport officiating in basketball, I had to memorize hand signals, and various fouls, to taught the student, it was hard for me to explain fouls in English, but thankfully the students know what I meant.

In the fourth week, I still had to go to the navy base to write down our absence. In my last week, we exchanged souvenirs and gifts that I gave to my fellow friend back in the attic; it was so sad, and I hated the fact that I was about to leave. I was giving Batik to my ct sir Marlon L. Pawid. We bid farewell, we ate in restaurants together, and the next day, our SLU student's friends came to our dorm after they finished their schedule at the navy base. It makes me sad because they were planning and giving the gift before we were about to leave the Philippines. I loved being there in Baguio; we danced together and exchanged our stories for the last time; after they all went home, it was a long night for us as Indonesians. We were enjoying the curfew from our window room. I enjoyed staying in Baguio. Baguio has my heart. I wish I could get back to Baguio someday.

Suggestion

I needed more than 28 days in the Philippines; I couldn't tour Baguio and only learned two topics in the Philippine curriculum since I'm still interested in teaching in the Philippines.

1. We should have stayed in other countries for a longer period, such as three months, but we only had eight weekends to enjoy our stay in Baguio.

2. The accommodations from receiving and sending institutions should arrange the budgets for this program; we needed help managing our finances since we were not completely supported, unlike our Indonesian friends from other universities.

Overall, the Sea Teacher program was an excellent program for us as student teachers who wanted to go overseas, and I hope SEAMEO will continue to provide the Sea Teacher Program..