Proceeding

The 60th TEFLIN International Conference 27-29 August 2013 Indonesian University Jakarta
ISSN 977 2338776 13

Modeling Teaching in in-Service Teacher Training:

An Experience from in-Service Teacher Training in Aceh
Muhsinin
Mataram State Institute for Islamic Studies (IAIN Mataram)
nienzs@hotmail.com
This writing is based on my experience in giving training to high schools English
teachers in Aceh. It was a five-day training with 15 participants from 3 different
schools. Having presented the input sessions, on the last day of the training, based on
their request, I taught at one of their schools to give a model of teaching. I assigned the
teachers to observe different aspects of my teaching using observation sheets. After the
teaching, I gave reflection by telling them the rationale of every stages of my lesson.
They also had to report their observation result. When I asked them their impression
about the modeling teaching, most of them said that they could learn more by observing
the real example from the tutor. Based on this experience, to satisfy the needs of the
teachers, it is worth considering that every in-service teacher training provides modeling
teaching.
Key words: in-service teacher training, reflection, rationale, modeling teaching
Introduction
In-service teacher training is one of the ways for teachers to improve their professional
development. However, in-service teacher training sometimes do not have direct impact
on the improvement of the teachers competence. With the format of training which
does not consider the teachers knowledge of the language (English) and focus more on
the material presentation rather than the practical skills make it difficult for the teachers
to acquire and implement the teaching methods in their real teaching. The fact that the
retention level is low is another problem with in-service teacher training. Teachers do
not always practice what they have got from the training, rather they will teach they way
they did before they attended the training. Thus, there should be a new way of
delivering an in-service teacher training to obtain a maximum result.
As an English language teacher trainer, I frequently heard from the teacher trainees that
the situation they had in the classroom was totally different from the situation they had
in the training which made it difficult for them to practice the method they learned from
the training because during the training they only got the theories of teaching. This
writing offers an alternative in in-service teacher training by providing modeling
teaching to the trainees. The modeling teaching should be done at the same level of
schools where the trainees teach.
Modeling Teaching in in-Service Teacher Training
The term modeling here refers to the example of teaching provided by the tutor to the
trainees. Here the trainees get opportunity to observe tutor teach. This definition is in
line with the definition propose by Schunk & Zimmerman (1997) which states that,
Modeling refers to the patterning of thoughts, beliefs, strategies, and actions after those
displayed by one or more modelsusually teachers or parents who explain and
demonstrate skills. What is displayed here is the strategies of teaching to the teacher
trainees. This is different from simulation, peers teaching or practice teaching which is
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The 60th TEFLIN International Conference 27-29 August 2013 Indonesian University Jakarta
ISSN 977 2338776 13

done among the trainees. In this modeling teaching, the tutor teaches the students at the
schools where the trainees teach or at school which is the same level of the school
where the trainees teach.
The use of modeling teaching has been shown to be effective because individuals will
imitate the behavior of a person they respect and with whom they have a rapport
(Bandura, 1977). Teaching is an activity which is more on the behavior than the
knowledge. Therefore, improving the way to teach as part of teacher professional
development will be best learned not through lecturing or tutorial but through imitating
the model practiced by the tutor or mentor. As for the pre-service teacher training
Schuman & Relihan (1990) suggest that more time should be provided for practice to
use the knowledge they are gaining in order to be most effective in their role as
teachers. They have to understand the concepts and how to use them, from the
perspective of the child as well as that of the teacher. This can be accomplished by the
instructor demonstrating these strategies while preservice students role play first as
children, then as teachers.
McGarr (2012) even points out the importance of modeling teaching for pre-service
teachers which is also the same for in-service teacher training. He says that the lack of
modeling recognized effective teaching methods, by a supervisory teacher, can impact
the success or failure of a pre-service teachers implementation of educational content,
as well as, effective control of the learning environment. This means that modeling
teaching is vital in determining the success or failure of teacher training.
Thus, the use of modeling teaching in in-service teacher training can help teachers to
imitate the teaching methods used by the tutor. However, with the policy of in-service
teacher training in Indonesia where tutors or trainers generally come from university
lecturers who might have no experience in teaching at lower level school, it is difficult
to expect that they will be able to give good model of teaching. They are certainly good
at theory but might be lack of practical competence in teaching at elementary or high
schools.
Experience from Aceh
After the tragedy of tsunami in 2004, a lot of projects have been implemented in Aceh
including teacher trainings. The trainings are organized not only by the government but
also by Non Government Organization (NGO). One of the NGOs that organizes training
for English teachers is Yayasan Pengembangan Pendidikan dan Telematika
Indonesia(YPPTI) which is an NGO partner of APO-EMOI (Aceh Project OperationExxon Mobil Indonesia) in implementing the CSR in the district of north Aceh.
The teachers involved in this training came from 3 different schools: Islamic Senior
High School (MAN) Sumbok Sumbok Rayeuk Nibong, SMAN Meurah Mulia, and
SMK Tanah Luas. The training was held for four days at one of the schools with two
tutors involved. During the training, I learned that the level of English language
knowledge of most of the teachers were still low. They made me use bahasa Indonesia
in delivering the training because they also used bahasa Indonesia in their teaching. This
led me to ask them what they actually needed to be able to improve their way of
teaching. To my surprised they answered that they wanted a model of teaching and
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The 60th TEFLIN International Conference 27-29 August 2013 Indonesian University Jakarta
ISSN 977 2338776 13

asked me to teach at one of their schools. I agreed and decided to teach at Islamic Senior
High School grade 11.
Procedure
The training consists of input session, consultation, mini lesson presentation, and
modeling teaching. The input sessions cover the principles of communicative English
language teaching (CELT) such as teacher centered and learner centered, eliciting and
questioning techniques, monitoring and giving feedbacks, and teacher and learner roles.
These materials were presented communicatively by involving the teachers actively.
They experienced CELT by working individually, in pairs, in groups, mingling activity,
etc.
Consultation was done to help teachers plan their lesson for teaching. This activity
included preparing lesson plan, preparing materials, media, and teaching methods. The
participants were supervised individually to give them freer opportunity to ask personal
questions related to their problems in CELT.
Mini lesson presentation was done to provide opportunity for the teachers to practice the
model of teaching presented in the training. This is a peer teaching aimed at practicing
some aspects of CELT such as how to ask questions, how to give instructions, how to
give feed backs, how to monitor students, etc. The teachers also had to reflect on their
own teaching and observe other teachers to learn to give feed backs.
As for modeling teaching, I taught at one of the trainees school. It was grade 11 of
Islamic Senior High School. The length of the lesson was sixty minutes with the
materials taken from the English text book used by the school. The material was about
Indonesian culture with reading skill as the focus.
The focus of my modeling were material adaptation, students-centered, integrated skills,
and the use of English. The topic in the book was Indonesian culture but the culture
presented in the book was only culture from certain part of Indonesia mostly Java. This,
certainly would make the students uninterested to the material because they did not
know anything about the topic. For this reason, I decided to find a local culture which
might be familiar to the students. Then, I decided to take one of Aceh legends entitled
The Story of Guel Dance. The skill focus according to the book is reading, but then I
integrated it with the other skills; listening, speaking and writing.
To make the reading text more communicative, I changed the format into questions and
answers. I asked some questions to the students about the The Story of Guel Dance.
Because they were familiar with the topic they could guess the answers. I just needed to
help them find the right words and made good sentence arrangement. When all
questions have been answered, I asked them to take turn practice the dialogue in pairs.

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The 60th TEFLIN International Conference 27-29 August 2013 Indonesian University Jakarta
ISSN 977 2338776 13

To introduce student-centered activity I demonstrated introduction activity where I

required questions from the students. I put some cards containing information about me
on the board which becomes the answers to the students questions. The information I
provided related to my name, my birth day, the number of children that have, my job,
the subject that I teach, etc. I also provided the right questions on the cards which I put
next to the information if the students could ask the right questions. I gave the complete
answer anytime the students could ask the right question. To start the activity I gave the
first question as the model and put it next to my name. The students had to struggle to
make questions which the answers are my birth day (July 4, 1968), the number of
children that I have (4), my job (teacher), the subject that I teach (English), etc.
When all questions have been asked, the next activity was practicing the question and
answer. To do this, I showed the question to the students and asked them to read it.
Then I showed the answer and asked them to read the complete answer. To help them, I
demonstrated a model for them to follow. This activity was continued by asking the
students classically, in groups, in pairs, and individually until they could ask all the
questions and find the correct answers.
Results
Having finished the teaching, I made a reflection of my own teaching. I explained in
detail the rationale of all steps and activities I did in my teaching. Based on the
observation they made I found out the following points:
1.

What skills did the students learn?

Most of the teachers said that the students learned all the four skills during the
lesson. Some said that although speaking seemed to be more dominant, they had
opportunity to practice other skills.
Comment:
Language skills cannot be learned in isolation. They should be integrated with other
skills. We cannot teach speaking without listening or vice versa, and the same goes
with writing and reading. We cannot teach writing without reading or vice versa.
Thus, the four language skills should be taught in integrated way although we still
can give more focus on certain skill.

2.

Did the students seem to be interested in the materials?

All teachers said that most of the students were interested in the topic because they
were familiar with the story.
Comment:
To make the students feel interested in the topic is very important in ELT because if
they are not interested they do not have motivation to learn. This is the first thing
that the teacher has to do, to make sure that the materials are interesting for the
students. One way to do it is to make it as familiar as possible to the learners.

3.

Did the students participate in the learning?

All teachers said that all students actively participated in the lesson.
Comment:
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The 60th TEFLIN International Conference 27-29 August 2013 Indonesian University Jakarta
ISSN 977 2338776 13

This is very important in student-centered teaching activity to make sure that all
students participate actively in the lesson. This can be done by providing activities
that make the students do something to participate. Teacher has to try to give more
opportunity for the learners to practice the language they are learning.
4.

Were there any students who did not speak English during the lesson?
All teachers said that every student tried to speak English.
Comment:
Classroom is the only place where the students can practice English. Therefore,
teachers should do every effort to make each student gets chance to use English in
the classroom. This can be done by designing learning activities which requires
every students to practice English either in speaking, reading, writing, or listening.

5.

Did the teacher give the same attention to all students?

Most of the teachers said that all students got the same attention from the teacher.
Comment:
Students should feel that their teacher pay the same attention to them. Both getting
to much attention and getting lest attention from the teacher will bring negative
effect to the students. They have to be treated the same way to make them feel
secure in learning. For this reason, teachers should avoid asking questions to the
same students again and again. Teachers can ask for volunteers to make it fairer and
appoint some volunteers when there are students too dominant over the others.

6.

Which part of the training do you think the most influential to improve your
way of teaching?
Some said that mini lesson presentation influenced them a lot, some others said
lesson consultation brought some positive effect, but most of them said that
modeling teaching influenced them a lot to improve their teaching methods.
Comment:
Since teaching is a practical skill it can be learned and improved through imitating
the model of teaching practiced by the tutor. Teacher educators should consider this
that from the pre-service teacher training at teachers college, modeling teaching
should be used as a way to transfer teaching skills to the students teachers.
Schuman & Relihan (1990) claim that if beginning teachers are to be effective, they
must have a model of the various instructional techniques which can be
implemented. Teacher educators, then, must model these techniques in their
education courses. In this way, the message clearly comes through, that what is
modeled in the college classroom is what should be evident in the classrooms in
which they teach.

Conclusions
To sum up, with the advantages and drawbacks of the in-service teacher training
generally practiced to develop teachers professionalism, modeling teaching can be an
alternative to lead the trainees into effective teachers. With good teaching model during
the training, teacher trainees can develop their teaching skills by imitating their tutors or
teacher educators.
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The 60th TEFLIN International Conference 27-29 August 2013 Indonesian University Jakarta
ISSN 977 2338776 13

References
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Hendayana, S. (2007). Development of INSET model for improving Teacher
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McGarr, T. (2012). Modeling Effective Teaching. from
http://www.studymode.com/essays/Modeling-Effective-Teaching-1222104.html
Retrieved 11 November 2012.
Schuman, D.R., & Relihan, J. (1990). The Role of Modeling in Teacher Education
Program. In READING HORIZONS, 1990, volume 31, 2
Schunk, D. H., & Zimmerman,B. J. (1997). Developing self-efficacious readers and
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Wigfield (Eds.), Reading engagement: Motivating readers through integrated
instruction (pp. 3450). Newark, Del: International Reading Association.
Wati, H. (2011). The effectiveness of Indonesian English teachers training programs in
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