Fitriyah, Siti Masrifatul (‘Fitri’) (MA and PhD alumna)

Hi, my name is Fitri and I am from Indonesia. I am an alumnus of UoM and would really love to comeback soon for a further study. I started my MA in TESOL programme in Autumn September 2008, my first autumn ever, and finished in Autumn 2009.

For my MA dissertation I studied and wrote about English Teachers’ Professional Development activities in one of the schools in my hometown. My foci were especially the characteristics of their activity and how it may facilitate their collegiality and reflection. I love working with teachers, and fortunately as a teacher educator I have always a lot of opportunities to work with them.

My journey to support teachers’ professional development has led my involvements in their classes and with their students. Sometimes, the teachers request me to teach in their classes to show them how some methods or techniques work in different atmosphere, after which we usually do an intense discussion. Further, based on what the teachers told me and my observations in their classes, I know that most of the teachers got stuck for ideas to find applicable methods to create joyful and effective learning. Joyful learning has always been an important topic in every teacher training or workshop in my country. We even have a special jargon for it that is PAIKEM or an active, innovative, creative, and joyful learning. However, how to put this into context, has always been a problem for the teachers in the real life. Often, the teachers got stuck and therefore got back to the “easy” way of teaching that is explanation and drill. This is what motivates me to choose my topic for my Doctorate study, that is to find the culturally appropriate methods for motivating and effective ELT in CLIL context. I do hope that everything goes well with my application and my scholarship that I can start to prepare for my study soon.

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