Reflection on Distance Education: Lesson Learned from Pre-service Teacher Program During Covid-19

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic provides the right momentum for implementing distance education worldwide, including in Indonesia. This reflection is an effort to explore prospective teachers' experiences teaching French as a foreign language in Senior High School 1 Bangsri, Jepara, Central Java, Indonesia, participating in the Education Practice Program in periods of crisis due to pandemic. Various adaptations and improvisations in finding ways to implement online teaching practices need to be interpreted critically for remedial measures for related institutions, namely universities and schools. The students are agents who can help schools accelerate the improvement of the quality of distance learning schools where they practice education. Various kinds of students' knowledge and experience of online learning practices, including proficiency in using multiple platforms, seem useless in facing the infrastructure obstacles such as inadequate internet, lack of internet data, and lack of student interest in learning. Finally, the overall infrastructure for distance learning success still needs to be improved, including improving students' skills searching for creative and adaptive breakthroughs in understanding. For universities, this is a challenge that must be sought solutions, namely training students to continue to think critically through a constructive and adaptive curriculum in preparing prospective teacher students who will become agents of change in teaching French as a foreign language in Indonesia.