Students Insights on Indonesian EFL Pre-Service Teachers in Malaysian ESL Schools

摘要

With the advancement of global workforce, English language teaching program in Indonesia should be designed to prepare students with adequate knowledge and experiences to teach globally. Many collaborative works are done among universities to give first-hand experience on international pre-service teaching. The purpose of this study is to get some insights from Indonesian students' pre-service teaching experiences in Malaysia. Five pre-service students majoring in English language teaching from three different universities in Indonesia were involved as participants. This descriptive study used narrative inquiry and employed data from students' reflective journals, interviews, field notes and other documents. English is taught as foreign language in Indonesia (EFL), while Malaysia taught it as their second language (ESL). Despite the differences, it was found out that the pre-service students faced some challenges related to students' characteristics, language proficiency, classroom management, and cultural shock. However, they also got some benefits for involving the international teaching practicum program such as improvement of their English, knowledge on Malaysian curriculum and best practices on dealing with student-centered classes, as well as great impact on their soft skill development. It is expected that this study can be a basis to design curriculum to prepare Indonesian students for global competition.