GEN TEFL Journal Volume 4 (2019) E-ISSN 2520 209X
SM-3T PROGRAM AND EFL TEACHERS’ QUALITY: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES
Santri E. P. Djahimo
This qualitative study aims at finding out whether or not Indonesian Government Program named SM-3T (Sarjana Mendidik di Daerah Terdepan, Terluar dan Tertinggal) is effective to improve Indonesian EFL teachers’ quality. This SM-3T Program is a program designed by the Indonesian Government for fresh graduates to teach for a year in disadvantaged, foremost, and outermost areas throughout Indonesia. Additionally, it also seeks to reveal and identify the difficulties that they have encountered when they were teaching in those areas and how those challenges could be turned out to be good opportunities for their future teaching career. The selected informants are 10 SM-3T teachers who have been back from their teaching areas. Questionnaire and interview have been used as the instruments for data collection. The results reveal that these teachers faced many various physical, socioeconomic and cultural challenges during their teaching period. They had to struggle to be able to adapt with the local culture to survive. However, they have also admitted that those challenges have changed their perceptions about the importance of education in general and the need to urgently improve themselves in EFL teaching in particular.
Date of publication: 15 December 2019
SM-3T PROGRAM AND EFL TEACHERS’ QUALITY: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES
Santri E. P. Djahimo
This qualitative study aims at finding out whether or not Indonesian Government Program named SM-3T (Sarjana Mendidik di Daerah Terdepan, Terluar dan Tertinggal) is effective to improve Indonesian EFL teachers’ quality. This SM-3T Program is a program designed by the Indonesian Government for fresh graduates to teach for a year in disadvantaged, foremost, and outermost areas throughout Indonesia. Additionally, it also seeks to reveal and identify the difficulties that they have encountered when they were teaching in those areas and how those challenges could be turned out to be good opportunities for their future teaching career. The selected informants are 10 SM-3T teachers who have been back from their teaching areas. Questionnaire and interview have been used as the instruments for data collection. The results reveal that these teachers faced many various physical, socioeconomic and cultural challenges during their teaching period. They had to struggle to be able to adapt with the local culture to survive. However, they have also admitted that those challenges have changed their perceptions about the importance of education in general and the need to urgently improve themselves in EFL teaching in particular.
Date of publication: 15 December 2019
