Hello, everybody. I am Kartika Yoga, an international student pursuing postgraduate studies in the MA Educational Leadership program. Previously, I taught English at a public school in Indonesia for nearly nine years. Here, I will share my thoughts and experiences with the internship program, which assisted me in carrying out my duties effectively and efficiently. 

While completing an undergraduate program to become a teacher, my campus required all students to complete an internship at the school for approximately six months or one semester. During our internship, we were mentored by local school teachers to develop and deploy teaching tools in the classroom. Aside from teaching in class, we have other responsibilities, such as coordinating student activities or greeting students every morning. Interns can also conduct learning observations and share the findings with the appropriate teacher. As school interns, we are also a subject to monthly supervision by the principal and tutors to evaluate our performance as teachers in the classroom as well as job activities outside of teaching. We received constructive feedback and suggestions on how to use it as material for improvement in the coming month. Our tasks as interns are very similar to those of teachers at the school. I learned and obtained various benefits during my internship, including practical experience, professional development, and skill enhancement. 

Practical Experience 

Interning at a school allowed me to gain real-world experience as a teacher. It allowed me to use the theories I acquired in college in a real-world setting. Aside from that, being an intern allowed me to identify and confront the issues that arose. We will inevitably encounter this issue and attempt to overcome it by utilizing the numerous ideas we have studied. Not all of them were successful, but the important thing is that we gained experience and learned how to deal with challenges that emerge in real-world job situations. This type of internship experience will significantly benefit my future teaching career. I am no longer shocked by the dynamic conditions of the workplace, and I am not afraid to give or apply answers to problems that arise because I was trained to do so during my internship. 

Professional learning

The internship provided me with many opportunities to learn directly from experienced practitioners, including instructors at the school where I worked. I have the chance to monitor their learning in the classroom regularly, as well as how they construct learning techniques, map potential difficulties that may arise during teaching, and develop successful assessments. Apart from monitoring the activities of these experienced teachers, we, as interns, were also free to discuss what we had observed. Discussions like this assist us in understanding the reasonable judgments made by skilled teachers at the school while implementing learning. In the real world of work, the experience of making direct observations as an intern aided my professional development as a teacher since I learned to become a professional teacher and made more effective reasoned decisions. 

Skill development

During our internships, we received valuable assistance developing communication, problem-solving, and time-management skills. We rarely learn skills like these in college because lectures usually focus on theoretical and intellectual topics rather than practical ones. During our internships, we learned how to interact successfully with fellow interns, teachers at school, and students. Of course, these skills only become proficient after some time. However, over the six months of my internship, my communication abilities improved significantly. Aside from communication skills, we can learn how to manage our time correctly to achieve a healthy work-life balance and solve problems effectively and efficiently. 

Overall, the internship program that I received really helped me prepare myself to face the real world of work. I am very aware that to be able to work well, not only intellectual and theoretical skills are needed, but also social, emotional and interpersonal skills. An internship program can be a place for us to develop all these skills as a whole.

Written by Kartika, current MA Educational Leadership at The University of Manchester

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