PPG is Pendidikan Profesi Guru in Bahasa Indonesia or Teacher Training Program in English. This program has a very special objective, which is creating professional teachers. There are several PPG programs you can join depending on your background or interest. I do not know how many exactly PPG programs are but I do know four of them. They are PPG SM-3T, PPG-T, regular PPG and subsidized PPG.
My PPG program is PPG SM-3T which is only for those who joined SM-3T program. SM-3T program is a program for people whose degree is a bachelor in Education program. These SM-3T teachers will be sent to a frontier or rural area from Aceh to Papua for a year. I was sent to West Kutai, Borneo approximately three years ago. These teachers, once they've finished the program, will be granted scholarship to join PPG program, which is PPG SM-3T. Therefore this program is a free one, unlike the regular one which you have to pay approximately seven million Rupiahs.
If you manage to graduate from this program, you'll earn a special title "Gr" which stands for Guru Profesional or professional teacher. In my country, you are not a "real" teacher if you have not earned the famous "professional" title.
PPG program lasts for a year and consists of two semesters. The first semester is an academic program. In this semester, the student-teachers participate in three different yet related activities. They are workshops (lesson plan making and microteaching) and educational seminars (if there's any). In workshops, we were expected to produce six well-written lesson plans. Each lesson plan was made based on a particular English subject from junior high school to the senior high school level. During the production, we were helped by two lecturers who reviewed our products. Then, those lesson plans we had made were implemented in our microteaching sections. In this section, our lecturers would sit at the back of the class and give critics after we performed. At the end of the workshop, we had to submit all works to the PPG instructor. In the seminar area, we attended two educational seminars. One was about PPG program itself and other was about ASEAN Economic Community: The Importance of English Teacher, which you can find on my blog.
In the second semester, we did a Teaching Practice in a real school. We were split into fifteen to sixteen groups and sent to fifteen or sixteen schools to implement what we had learned during our workshop into a real teaching and learning process. We were given two advisors in completing this semester. One was an English teacher from the school. The English teacher should be the "professional" one which meant that ht teacher had done a certification program (similar with PPG). The second advisor was one of our lecturers. In this Teaching Practice activity, we had to blend with the school. This was very hard to do because many teachers and staffs underestimate and even did not even acknowledge us. It was that hard, believe me. In the end of this semester, we were required to submit three reports. They were PPL report, Action Research, and Portfolio.
During the PPG SM-3T program, we had to live in a dormitory with no permission to leave except for certain reasons, like your parent died or something. The dormitory life was as stressful as the campus life, if not more. There were many activities we had to do like sports, informal lectures, foreign language class, etc. I am sorry but I cannot mention them one by one.
Some of these activities were very interesting to me since they were new to me. For example, the use of leaves as many beautiful accessories. We used a chemical substance for this activity which I found very cool. I always find the use of chemical very cool, I do not know why. I just have this fascination with chemical reaction. I am impressed easily. The next interesting activity for me was a traditional dance class. I love Indonesian traditional dances, therefore, I immediately signed up for this class and it was not disappointing. We learned two beautiful dances in this class. I will tell you more about this dormitory life in the next part.
After we finished all these stressful stuff, we had to face two exams. The first exam was UTL or Ujian Tulis Lokal (Written Local Exam). I know it sounds very weird, but that is the direct translation of the exam's name. Here, we were given an hour to solve twenty difficult pedagogical questions. The scariest exam was the last one, National Exam for PPG Students. It was fair to call this exam that name because this was the stage which determined whether you passed PPG or not. The scores for this exam were usually very bad according to the previous year. Therefore, every Saturday and the last two weeks of PPG, we were drilled by our lecturers with so many IELTS and TOEFL tests. Unfortunately, the test was very different than those tests. It was much more difficult. The difficulty was so frightening because each lecturer had his/her own answer. We were so confused. But well, whatever happened, we had to face this one.
The National Exam consisted of 120 questions. They were 40 personality questions, 20 English teaching-related pedagogical question and 60 English knowledge questions (because I am an English student). We had to finish this test in 180 minutes. There were two National Exam test, first was the main one. The second was for those who did not pass the main one. Thank God, I passed the main one so I did not have to study hard and retake the second test. Unfortunately, many of my friends did not pass the test and they had to retake it once more. I wish all the best for them.
The next part, we'll move to the boarding life which was filled with interesting stories. See you...
During the PPG SM-3T program, we had to live in a dormitory with no permission to leave except for certain reasons, like your parent died or something. The dormitory life was as stressful as the campus life, if not more. There were many activities we had to do like sports, informal lectures, foreign language class, etc. I am sorry but I cannot mention them one by one.
Some of these activities were very interesting to me since they were new to me. For example, the use of leaves as many beautiful accessories. We used a chemical substance for this activity which I found very cool. I always find the use of chemical very cool, I do not know why. I just have this fascination with chemical reaction. I am impressed easily. The next interesting activity for me was a traditional dance class. I love Indonesian traditional dances, therefore, I immediately signed up for this class and it was not disappointing. We learned two beautiful dances in this class. I will tell you more about this dormitory life in the next part.
After we finished all these stressful stuff, we had to face two exams. The first exam was UTL or Ujian Tulis Lokal (Written Local Exam). I know it sounds very weird, but that is the direct translation of the exam's name. Here, we were given an hour to solve twenty difficult pedagogical questions. The scariest exam was the last one, National Exam for PPG Students. It was fair to call this exam that name because this was the stage which determined whether you passed PPG or not. The scores for this exam were usually very bad according to the previous year. Therefore, every Saturday and the last two weeks of PPG, we were drilled by our lecturers with so many IELTS and TOEFL tests. Unfortunately, the test was very different than those tests. It was much more difficult. The difficulty was so frightening because each lecturer had his/her own answer. We were so confused. But well, whatever happened, we had to face this one.
The National Exam consisted of 120 questions. They were 40 personality questions, 20 English teaching-related pedagogical question and 60 English knowledge questions (because I am an English student). We had to finish this test in 180 minutes. There were two National Exam test, first was the main one. The second was for those who did not pass the main one. Thank God, I passed the main one so I did not have to study hard and retake the second test. Unfortunately, many of my friends did not pass the test and they had to retake it once more. I wish all the best for them.
The next part, we'll move to the boarding life which was filled with interesting stories. See you...
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