Questions I still have after lectures and tutorials.

Well it is the 13th week and this course is coming to an end. I have learnt a lot about drama and did the simulated teaching for it. Now, I’m reflecting back on the questions that still remain. I think there are no major questions, since the lecturer and tutor are both informative and knowledgeable. I think the only question left is: how to improve my interpretation of any literary work. In any literary works, we need to interpret the meaning as this is an important aspect after all. Only through the meaning we can get the message or the theme.

I think in order to resolve this, group discussion or further research needs to be done. Through group discussion I can get other people’s ideas and interpretation and base on that I can build my own interpretation as well. The reason being is that everyone has their own opinions and by exchanging ideas and views, I can improve my interpretation better.

Another way is through research. Finding more information about a play or drama can improve my interpretation and it is a form of input as well. We can look up the info on the internet or from books. In a way it is a way to gain knowledge and appreciate the play even more.

Blogs...does it contribute anything to my lesson?

During my first lecture, Dr. Edwin said that one of our assignments is to create our own blog. When I first heard that, I sighed and think that is going to be troublesome and boring. But as each week past by, I find out that blogs is actually a good platform for my thoughts to flow. It is a place where I can put my reflections into words and a good way to express my opinions. As I as taking Teaching the Language of Drama this semester, I think blogging is a good way to state my opinions and questions. Another thing about blogs that I like is that I can read other person’s view and opinion. Their view also contributes greatly because they help me understand better about the plays and I see them as my idea generator.
Besides that, I can also view my course mates’ blogs. Their thoughts are a lot different than mine and I am inspired by their opinions and feelings towards the course and lessons. Now I see blogging in a different light. I see it not only as a website but a stage for me and my course mates as well to put their thoughts into words and an outlet of our abundant views.

Would I interpret differently?

After all the lectures and tutorials that I have attended, I would not interpret it differently. When I first take this course, I came without much knowledge about drama. It is during lectures that I learn about drama and theatre. When Dr. Edwin discuss with us about the important aspects of the plays, I understand the plays better and that also helps me to be more analytical about certain. That all started with explanations the lecturer gave during the lesson. Base on his interpretation, I can gain knowledge and understand the meaning even better. When he emphasizes certain aspect of the play, I would pay more attention and jot it down.

As for my tutor, Miss Kasthoori, I find the way she teaches is also interesting. Her teachings also help me to build up my own interpretation of the lesson. So, the answer on interpreting the lesson differently still remains. Instead the lectures and tutorials give me more ideas and I understand more on the plays even more.

Learning about the plays is challenging for me, so I would not interpret them differently. Usually I will seek the lectures and tutorials for guidance and that helps me able to improve my own interpretation and understanding.

Adopt and Adapt

In lectures and tutorials, I have gained a lot of knowledge and it will come in handy when I become a teacher. In lectures I learned about the criteria of a good play. That had taught me how to choose a good and interesting play for my students. The skill of choosing a good play is important as it determines that interest of the students. For example, if I chose a boring, long and also a play that has no relation to my students, I am sure that they will not pay attention to my teachings. So, I think this skill is beneficial and adopting this skill is not hard with practice and lots of reading.

Choosing a play is one thing but choosing a suitable play is another. Finding a suitable play for my students is essential. This is one skill that I need to adapt. When searching an appropriate play, I need to identify the level of proficiency of the students, their level of understanding and also their interests.

Being a teacher is not easy when looking for the right material for the students. So, adapting these skills is a challenge and I need to concentrate on my goals to achieve it.

Aspects that are useful or not useful

The lessons that I have learned are all important to my area of study. In lectures, I learned the criteria of a good play which is useful to me when I’m teaching my students. Learning about the criteria of a good play is important for I need to choose wisely about the suitable play for my students. The criteria of a play should be interesting, concerns human experience and has impact on the students. These are useful aspects and I can use that in my area of study. Before this, I was ignorant about these criteria and did not bother about them.

Besides that, I think that learning the history of theatre is relevant to my field of study. To me learning the history of it is useful because it gives me a better picture on how theatre came to be. I can use the history of theatre as a way to introduce theatre to my students…of course I need to make history interesting. It does help me appreciate theatre more and see it as a performing art and it’s something to be admired as well.

So far, there are no aspects that in lectures or tutorials that are not useful. I take the lessons as a part of the learning process and also away to gain knowledge.

What have I learn?

During the first day of tutorial, it was quite interesting. Miss Kastoori asked us to role-play a simple and short play called “Bingo” by Edward Bond. Each groups need to present their own interpretation by role-playing it. My group and I were all involve in the play. We acted as students as students discussing homework and bombarding one particular student. While looking at other people’s performances, I would never think that one simple play can be performed in many ways. After that first class, I learned that drama can help a person expand his or her imagination and creativity.

Besides that, before taking this course, I thought that drama is just dialogues but during lectures I learned that drama is more than that. In a play, there are a lot of genres like comedy, tragicomedy, farce, and so on. In lectures, I also learn there are two types of theatre: Aristotelian and Brechtian. Beforehand, I never heard of these terms and taking this course has broadened my mind on the world of theatre and drama. Moreover, listening to the lectures isn’t so bad since there were terms or conventions in theatre that were foreign to me like soliloquy and the aside. I have never expected that drama has so much of these aspects and that really change my perspective on drama.

Any Questions?

The question that I still have regarding simulated teaching is how to make my activities more interesting. When preparing for my simulated teaching, I’ll always have problems figuring how to make my activities more appealing to the students. I do worry that my activities could bore the students and that will make the students uninterested towards the lesson. This kind of problem usually I can solve on my own. It would be good to have some feedback from my peers about the activities, so that I can make more improvements. I think that if there is something wrong with the activities, I should do better and review them through discussion with friends by asking for their opinions. If I made a mistake, I’ll treat it as part of the learning process and learn from it. From what Ms Kastoori has said during my first class, it’s better to learn our mistakes now than during our teaching practical.

Any changes?...Hmm...

If I were to deliver the similar lesson again, I would make some changes for it. I think that I could have done better with some correction of my activities and improve the way I present. From Ms Kastoori’s advice, I should have separated the extract for the earlier scene and the later scene. The lengths of the extracts also need to be adjusted since they were not well balanced. If I had done so, students could have seen the changes of Oedipus’ character even clearer. For the while-reading, I would change the exercise because that is what most of my course mates were doing which was identifying the connotation of the words they have found in the pre-reading stage. After reviewing my own lesson, I find the while-reading activity is a bit redundant. So, I should have made some changes to that activity to make it more interesting for the students.
Another thing I would like to change about the lesson is myself. I was not well-prepared and that affected my confidence. I didn’t prepare the answers for the activity and when one of my students made a mistake, I was corrected by Ms Kastoori and that affected my performance as well. So, before I have any presentation, I need practice and review my presentation. I will learn from this mistake and not repeat it again because it is quite embarrassing and I want to better in my presentations especially my simulated teachings.

My strengths and weakness in S.T....moving forward for improvement

My strengths in my simulated teaching is my ability to project my voice and my ability to connect with the students. In my opinion, voice projection is very important in the teaching profession. I realize that when I teach, having good voice projection students tend to pay more attention. Since in real classroom situation, students will not pay much attention when the teacher speaks softly. So, I train myself to speak louder especially when doing my simulated teaching. Besides that, I also realize that I can connect to the students through a bit of humour. Listening to the students’ opinions is also part of connecting and understanding them. Students nowadays want to be heard and as teachers, I think should try to listen to the students’ views. The way I maintain this is through daily interaction and pay attention when someone is talking to me.
As for my weakness, I was not fully prepared during my simulated teaching. This affected my performances, thus, also affected my confidence. My exercises were not good enough because the extracts I chose for the pre-reading were inappropriate length. So for my other simulated teaching, I need to concentrate on these aspects as to not make the same mistakes again.

My simulated teaching

My simulated teaching was on the 13^th of March. For my set induction, I showed a picture of the prime minister and asked the students to describe him. Then, I related the description of the prime minister to introduce the lesson. My lesson was to teach the characteristics of Oedipus in the earlier scene and the later scene. As for my pre-reading activity, I asked the students to highlight the characteristics of Oedipus in the extract from the prologue and the exodus scenes. For my while-reading, students need to list down the words and identify the connotation of the words.

In my opinion, simulated teaching does have its similarity and differences with real teaching. In terms of similarity, teachers in schools would relate certain things to the story in a way to introduce the story to the students. There are some differences as well. In simulated teaching, we encourage students to discover things but in schools, teachers usually spoon-feed the students. In schools, teacher would go straight to the teaching of the content. Unlike simulated teaching where we ask the students to highlight or identify certain things from the text. Besides that, the classroom environment is different. In simulated teaching, students are more cooperative since they are my course mates. However, that is not the case in real-life teaching. Students tend to challenge the teacher and the teacher needs to know how to handle the class effectively.

So, in real-life scenario, teaching is quite different than simulated teaching. But simulated teaching is a good experience for teachers-to-be as a practice before entering the schools. They can prepare themselves and plan their lesson better when teaching in schools.

My Dramatic Journey

This post is long overdue, so might as well get started. On March 7^th, a bunch of friends and I went to the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPAC) to watch a play. When we arrived there, I was impressed by the building’s design which is modern and artistic. The play that we have chosen was The Secret Love Life of Ophelia. The play is actually depicting the secret love life of Hamlet and Ophelia that was not shown in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

As I entered ‘pentas 2’, I was surprised that the stage is small and on it was just two couch and two tables. What amazed me was that the play starts on time regardless the audience has not fully arrived, which is so different than cinemas where they play advertisements to give time for the viewers to enter the cinema.

As I watch the play, I think the story was a bit of a bore since its Shakespearean English and not modern English. So, it took time for me to process what the actors were saying. What I like about it is that the setting is modern but not the language which I think was nice. Besides that, I was very impressed that the actor’s acting especially the part where he was making coffee without any props in other word making imaginary coffee. So he must have practice a lot for that part.

The play came to an end when the actors bowed and the audience applauded for their performances. Overall, theatre is not as boring as I thought at first, so that change my perspective on theatre. It was actually quite an interesting experience and I don’t mind watching another play again.

Teiresias. Who is he?

Tiresias was a prophet of Zeus. There are different stories about the cause of his blindness, the most direct being that he was simply blinded by the gods for revealing their secrets.

On Mount Cyllene in the Peloponnese, as Tiresias came upon a pair of copulating snakes, he hit the pair with his stick. Hera was not pleased, and she punished Tiresias by transforming him into a woman. As a woman, Tiresias became a priestess of Hera, married and had children. After seven years as a woman, Tiresias again found mating snakes; depending on the myth, either she made sure to leave the snakes alone this time, or, according to Hyginus, trampled on them. As a result, Tiresias was released from his sentence and permitted to regain his masculinity. Tiresias was drawn into an argument between Hera and her husband Zeus, on the theme of who has more pleasure in sex: the man, as Hera claimed; or, as Zeus claimed, the woman, as Tiresias had experienced both. Tiresias revealed woman's greatest secret: that she receives the greater pleasure: "Of ten parts a man enjoys one only." Hera instantly struck him blind for his impiety. Zeus could do nothing to stop her, but he did give Tiresias the gift of foresight and a lifespan of seven lives.

Tiresias appears as the name of a recurring character in several stories and Greek tragedies concerning the legendary history of Thebes. For example, in Sophocles' Oedipus the King, Oedipus, calls upon Tiresias to aid in the investigation of the killing of the previous king, Laius. At first, Tiresias refuses to give a direct answer and instead hints that the killer is someone Oedipus really does not wish to find. However, after being provoked to anger by Oedipus' accusation first that he has no foresight and then that Tiresias had had a hand in the murder, he reveals that in fact it was Oedipus himself who had (unwittingly) committed the crime. Outraged, Oedipus throws him out of the palace, but then afterwards realizes the truth.

Tiresias died after drinking the water from the spring Tilphussa, where he was struck by an arrow of Apollo. After his death he was visited in the underworld by Odysseus, to whom he gave valuable advice concerning the rest of his voyage, specifically concerning the cattle of Helios, advice which Odysseus' men did not follow, to their peril.

Is theatre out of date?

Theatre is it out dated or not? That is the question. In my opinion, theatre is out of date simply because people are not interested in watching a play. This is because movies have more special effects that plays lack. Technology is getting more advance and people are becoming more excited about it because there is not a movie without using CGI (computer generated images). People are intrigued when CGI effects are used in movies and that captured their attention. But, they don’t have that feeling when watching a play.

Another reason theatre is out of date is that people having a misconception that the theatre is going to be boring. Usually people’s mindset about theatre is a performing art that does not appeal to their everyday life like the movies does. In other words they think it’s all about Shakespeare and nothing else. People rarely go to the theatre to watch a play, since, not all people can appreciate Shakespeare’s work.

Besides that, I think theatre is out dated because it needs good concentration in order to know what the actors are saying since it’s a live performance. If you miss anything about the play, you can’t replay it. So, movies have an advantage in this situation because people can wait for the DVDs or download online and they can watch it over and over again.

This is only my opinion on this question. I also think that every person can have other opinions about drama or theatre, it depends how they appreciate it.

Cinema and Theatre

It is interesting to ponder about the similarities and the differences of cinema and theatre. The one similarity that I can think of is that both connected with a cast of actors, script and music. It doesn’t matter where we spent our time in front of the big screen, whether it’s in the theatre or the cinema, both of them have these aspects.

I think that the effort put in cinema and theatre is different. In theatre, the actors need to have a good amount of experience and whole lot of practice to perfect their performances. The reason being is that when actors in theatre are performing there is no room for mistakes since it’s a live performance unlike in movies when a mistake is made, the director will just say ‘cut’ and film that scene again.. So, I think that a theatrical actor is more challenging.

Another difference between the cinema and theatre is the setting. In the theatre, the setting is made out of props depending on the play that is being performed that day. While the cinema, I can only see a big screen and nothing else. In the theatre, I can imagine the crew’s effort and time on preparing the props for the play. The remarkable thing about the setting is it needs to change according to the scenes. Even though in movies have special effects, nothing beats hand made props that the theatre crew has prepared through sweat and tears.

Overall, cinema and theatre have the similar aspects like in actors, script and music. They both have their share of differences as well.