Professional Self-Awareness Leading to Teachers’ Success in Improving
their Teaching
through Action Research: A Preliminary Observation
Suwarsih Madya
The language teachers I supervised generally complained that their teaching had failed due, among other things, to the following unsupportive factors: inadequate facilities (no language laboratory), students’ low motivation, students’ reluctant response to learning tasks, students’ low ability, students’ passiveness, and students’ ignorance. After having a series of consultative discussions about the process of their teaching as illustrated in their teaching vignettes, they gradually became aware of their own weaknesses, and wanted to improve, but felt doubtful whether they could improve such a terrible situation. Through a series of dialogues in a democratic atmosphere, they gradually built confidence in their capability to change themselves and their teaching situation. Action researcg was then chosen as a means of accomplising improvement. Making great efforts to fulfill the dialogic validity, democratic validity, process validity, outcome validity, and catalytic validity, they ultimately managed to improve their teaching: (1) they themselves found etaching interesting, (2) they became more aware of their students’ characteristics and personality types; (3) their students became more enthusiastic in their classes, and (4) therefore they became willingly involved in the teaching-learning process, (5) their language classes became lively, and (6) they became persons who wanted to try new things for the sake of their students’ learning. This paper will present important points about a preliminary observation on how language teachers’ professional self-awareness led to their success in improving teaching through action research.
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Madya,
S. (2006, April). Professional self-awareness leading to
teachers’ success in improving their teaching through action research: A
preliminary observation. Paper presented at the 41st RELC
International Seminar,
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