The SEA Teacher project aims to provide opportunity for preservice student teachers (hereafter “students") from universities in Southeast Asia to have teaching experiences (practicum) in schools in other countries in Southeast Asia. Specifically, the aims of the SEA-Teacher Project are:
​
1. To enable the students to develop their teaching skills and pedagogy.
-
Indeed, with expert teachers whom I observed coupled with the excellent mentors and cooperating teacher, I was able to benchmark some of the good practices that they do inside the classroom. I have already started to apply the strategies that I got there in some of my demo teaching here in the Philippines. Consequently, my eyes were opened to various technological innovations that can be used in making and implementing my teaching plan. In fact, my mentors introduced and gave me some applications on my laptop for me to make some domino and jigsaw (integrating games in teaching mathematics).
2. To encourage the students to practice their English skills.
-
It was really a life-changing experience being assigned to an international school. I was so happy since they are using both English and Bahasa Indonesia as medium of instruction; it means that language barrier was lessened. The students and faculty and staff of the institution can speak and understand English. Thus, I was able to practice my English very well since language barrier wasn’t present during my one-month practicum.
3. To allow the students to gain a broader regional and world view.
-
Truly, this objective was one of the major goals of SEAMEO that was completely realized. Having my student teaching practicum in a foreign country has helped me to grow and mature in my beliefs, behavior and competence and that it helps me adapt to the possibility that in the future our world may be very different, possibly characterized by fading borders or even becoming borderless. It also ushered me to understand the culture of Indonesia in a more constructive way, and my experiences abroad had influenced my interactions with people from other cultures on my return home. I really felt that the rich cultural experiences have enhanced and extended my professional and personal development and gave me a confidence to work with a range of ethnically and culturally diverse learners in my subsequent teaching posts on my return to my home country which is the Philippines. It also gave me opportunity to observe and work in an educational system which was often very different from those I had previously experienced.