What is teacher aide, what does
s/he do, maybe those are some questions you would pose to me. Teacher aide as
far as I know is somebody who voluntarily goes to school and help students
getting difficulty.
Difficulties may vary, ranges
from inability to read, write to inability to control themselves in behaving.
Students who do not want to study due to family’s problem for example, might
misbehave during lesson. Teacher aide will come to give motivation and facility
so that students learn in any way s/he could.
Students whose first language is
not English will also get help from teacher aide. Students will get involved in
learning the language without being forced to learn. Once I knew a Sudanese child
entering an elementary school, without knowing English at all. Instead of
attending the lesson in class, he learned English with teacher aide. During
learning process the Sudanese child would always listen to the teacher aide
speak English. Then this teacher aide asked questions and shyly he tried to answer
the questions.
Matahari, one of pak Madi’s sons
who was brought to Australia
could barely speak English. That is why he had to deal with teacher aide. He
told me that teacher aide really helped him understand English, meaning he can
speak and write English well. After one semester, he went back to class and
learned any subjects at school using English, a language he didn’t understand
before.
From the facts above, we can
conclude the importance of teacher aide in learning at school. Therefore, can
we apply the idea of having teacher aide at our school due to the failure of
final national exam of our students?
