Professional+Learning+Communities+at+Work


 * =__**Professional Learning Communities for English Teachers in Indonesia**__=

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Do you know this expectation?

PERSONAL SPACE

MOTTO : Teacher makes a change Teaching is a matter of love, art and patience. This quotation is what I believe in doing my job as a teacher. On the other hand being motivated is not enough to put me as a qualified teacher. There are some requirements that I feel that I need to address my self as a professional teacher. I need to possess a certain academic qualification besides passing the test.There are also some competencies namely pedagogy competency, personality competency, social competency and professional competency that I need to perform in doing my job.

In 2012, Indonesian government also regulates new policy for teachers. It states that each teacher needs to meet the standard given by the test and this is done through a teacher on-line test. This on-line test is the first test that a teacher has ever joined since he/she is accepted as a teacher. The result is surprising. The majority of people fail in gaining the minimum standard decided by the government. Although there is a debate about whether there should be or no a test, some teachers start to feel that there is an urgency to work toward professionalism in doing the job. Moreover, the government also raises the standard of salary by giving additional allowance which is considered as the professional standard. The government start to re-register the teachers who have worked for minimum 5 years and ask them to join port-folio evaluation in order to determine those who are qualified to get direct professional qualification and those are not qualified and should join additional training for qualification as professional teacher. When a teacher can meet the requirement, she or he is given additional allowance to appreciate the work the they do regardless they status as government employee or non government employee.

The term professional is related to the job that a teacher performs in job. Wikipedia states that a **professional** is a person who is engaged in a certain activity, or occupation, for gain or compensation as means of livelihood; such as a permanent career, not as an [|amateur] or pastime.[|[][|1][|]][|[][|2][|]] The traditional professions were [|doctors], [|engineers], [|lawyers], [|architects] and [|commissioned military officers]. Today, the term is applied to [|nurses], [|accountants], [|educators], [|scientists], [|technology experts], [|social workers], [|artists], librarians (information professionals) and many more. This also includes job as __a teacher__. Due to the professional service that a teacher should run, there are many things that a teacher should do in performing the job. It can start from the administrative work, the teaching-learning process, the social skills, communication skills, technology skills, grading skills, teaching strategies, parents involvement and many more.

This condition emerges a new need. The teachers need to meet the standards regulated by the government. Once this condition is set up, the government expects to employ professional teachers. This standard is not easy to meet since teachers are various. They teach in different places. Some of them teach in remote areas where they can go to a city only once in a month. Some teach in schools where the facilities are limited and the students are from low class society. The next problem is the teachers come from different educational backgrounds. The teachers also have different style in teaching, different level of knowledge, different characters, different students. what is worse is that government do not evenly distribute the opportunity of teachers in joining the workshops, training, seminars that can improve the teacher's professionalism. They tend to prioritize those teachers who work in model school or standardized school. Those schools represent eight standards that each school should have ideally.(LINK).This situation puts teachers in difficult situation. They want to improve themselves but they don't know what to do or how to get that. The last problem is that teachers are already in the zone of comfort. They take for granted that they know everything. They know what to teach and ho to teach. Each year they are doing the same steps, the procedures, the same schedule. They start losing interests of how to gain new ideas. They are reluctant in facing the new changes.

This condition is being observed by teachers who involve in professional learning communities. Those teachers especially concern with the quality of teachers in the future. They also consider the problems that might come in the next ten years. The latest development of technology, the change of learning styles, globalization and education paradigm are some among so many changes that happen in education. This condition results in willingness to work together to improve the quality of teachers as professional workers. This commitment is promising because it comes from the grass -root level. When there is a level of agreement among the teachers, schools, and other parties to support the quality of teachers, there will be a mutual benefit to be shared by all of the parties.

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FORMAL BACKGROUND

Based on the minister's regulation number 16/2007, it is stated that a teacher should employ four competencies besides academic qualification. They are pedagogy, personality, social and professional competencies. The pedagogy competency is the capability of the teacher to master student's characteristics including physical, morale, social, cultural, emotional and intellectual. This helps the teacher to identify the students' potential and problem. This competency also includes the capability to master the theory of learning and to apply it in the classroom; to develop the curriculum in the subjects taught, conduct educated learning process; to apply technology in classroom; to facilitate the students' potential development; to communicate effectively to students; to assess and evaluate the process and result of study; to use the result of evaluation and to apply reflective in teaching.

The personality competency is the capability of a teacher to act according to religion, law, social and culture norm; to perform as honest and high morale personality as model for students as well as the society; to perform mature, stabile, wise and charismatic personality; to perform high working pattern and to uphold the profession as teachers.

The social competencies include the capability to act inclusively, objectively and not discriminative regardless the gender, religion, race, physical condition, family background and social economic status; to communicative effectively with empathy and polite way to colleagues, staff, parents and society; to be able to teach in any place of Indonesia and to communicate within own professional community or others in oral as well as written way.

The professional competency is the capability to master the knowledge regarding the material, structure, concept, and scientific thinking pattern to support the subject taught; to master competency standard and basic standard competency of the subject taught; to develop material of subject creatively; to develop professionalism continuously by doing reflective action and to use information and communication technology to communicate and develop.

The four competencies above are stated by the government to standardize the profession as teacher. This standard comes as the government wants to improve the quality of teacher. A teacher is expected to meet those four standards in doing the job. Link : []

ENGLISH TEACHER ASSOCIATION (MGMP)

In the book Professional Learning Communities at Work: Best Practices for Enhancing Student Achievement ( Du-Four & Eaker, 1998), it is stated that the most promising strategy for sustained, substantive school improvement is developing the ability of school personnel to function as professional learning communities (p. xi).

MGMP is an association that the government has approved as part of organization under the supervision of Education Department in Indonesia. Its member as well as the committee come from different schools from the same level of elementary school, middle school or high school and the same subject. They can be government employee as well as non-government employee because some schools are public schools and some are private schools. They meet once in a month to run the programs that has been decided in November the previous year as they were evaluating the programs. This organization is ideally working hand in hand with the other organization[| PGRI.]This organization is a nationally approved by the government.

There are some opportunities and challenges related to the organization. The opportunities come from the willingness of the teachers to meet each month regularly. They come to the meeting although they are not given transportation fee because they want to get a new idea, to share new techniques, to discuss problems related to teaching, to update the information about education or even to have a workshop. There are some programs that have been decided to undergo each month and usually there is an evaluation by the end of the year. The program are usually decided by the members as well as the committee. The programs can be about the teacher's administrative staff such as lesson plan, academic schedule in a year, the current issue in technology related to teaching management or administration, English proficiency, sharing teaching technique, work shop, social activities such as competition or outing.

On the other hand there are some challenges in conducting the organization. The difference in ages, schools, experience, mission, vision can be also the challenges in running the program. It is not easy to conduct the program although it has been decided before. It also takes the willingness of other members to be actively engaged in activities that have been planned and conducted every month.

MGMP Program
 * Administrative work such as academic plan for a year, academic plan for two semesters, time table, competency standard, analysis for competency standard, lesson plan, remedial plan, test items, analysis for test items.
 * Work shop for current issues such as technology and new curriculum.
 * TOEFL Practice
 * Sharing sessions for teaching techniques
 * Social Activities such as outing, competition among schools, attending wedding ceremonies.