Blogging- it’s MEANINGFUL!!

In my opinion, by participating in this web blog, it helped me loads to reflect on what I had learnt during lectures and tutorials time. It was because; it had helped me out in understanding the plays, dramas better and polished my skills in writing. This web blog had lots of benefits for us as students such as we were able to share the knowledge together, learnt from others’ point of view of something, improve our writing and thinking skills and so on. By reading others’ opinions and thoughts of plays and so on I knew the plays better and able to share my views with them by giving comments to theirs thoughts. On the other hand, by participating in this web blog, I think it had helped me loads in developing my cognitive skills and strategies in my learning process. It was because, when we able to gave the comments to our friends’ opinions and topics, it really helped me to look on others’ perspective and opinions of the plays and the terms of drama with different view and it has open up my mind in judging others’ and sharing our thoughts together. On next week, all of us will be going to KL PAC to watch a play. It seems almost 3 months we had looking for a play to have the experience about it. I really hope that, when we are there, we will have a true view about how the theatre looks like, how about the casts there, the motions on the sages and so on. Perhaps, it will be a meaningful watching trip to us as we are studying drama on this semester. Furthermore, it for this web blog, it had required me to think critically about all aspects of life regarding the issues in the plays. I had also developed my own perspective by creating and exploring my own beliefs when I looked on something in my life. Besides, this web blog was a good way of developing students’ skills and sharing knowledge in learning literature. As for me, this web blog was essential for us as students in gaining the knowledge and sharing the experiences in our learning process.

It has helped me lots!!

As for me, the experiences of conducting simulated teaching had given me lots of chances in improving my skills in teaching process as a teacher trainee. These simulated teaching presentations were very important stages in opening the correct schemata and getting our students interest. Through these simulated teaching presentations, it taught me to look at the poor and outdated strategy something that might be boring them. So from that situation, it had made me to think other initiative to attract the students’ attention and at the same time the methods should appropriate with their abilities. As a result, I had chosen to use an attractive and interesting strategy that will help them to get attention easily. As for my pre and while reading simulated teaching, I had chosen to give them a lesson about a theme of my text; The Ring Doesn’t Fit. Through the activities that I had prepared for them, it would give them a brief understanding about the play better and enhanced their abilities to share their thoughts and opinions together with their friends. The students can simply relate the activities with the text and they enjoyed it so much. On top of that, while doing this simulated teaching, the reflection had made me aware of and control the lesson by actively assessing what they know, what they need to know, and how their feedback of the lesson on that day. Besides, it had also helped me lots to realise my weaknesses and improve my teaching ability. Overall, this reflection was most important in prompting my teaching practices because it provided me with an opportunity to step back and think about how the students actually solved problems and how a particular set of problem solving strategies was appropriated for achieving their learning goals.

He’s here!!!

Last Monday, he was here…Kee Thuan Chye..It was such a great experience to meet him as a successful English writer in Malaysia and Dr. Edwin had tried his best to bring him to us. We had a meeting about 2hours and firstly he shared his experiences and he had been a journalist now for 28 years. His experiences started when he said that in fact, he was not thinking of going to university because of the expense. So, after Form 6, he took a job at MAS, and it lasted for two days. Later, he furthered his studies in USM and he had become enamoured of the theatre after doing a lot of work at the Experimental Theatre. Then, he wrote his own plays and directed them, and that became his passion. In the meeting he talked much about his play; Swordfish and the Concubine and had asked us about the play. It was such a good play because he was able to combine the elements of traditional and modern into that play and present it in his own way. The play completed in different way from others writers as he portrayed the humour and messages in one time. In this semester, we were studying this play and really hope that his brief explanations about it will help us better in our final on next week. He also talked about his books and certain of his works were based on the true scenarios in Malaysia. From the meeting I can simply said that he had shown to us that whether it was English literature or any kind of literature, it was important to have an appreciation of it because literature deals with life, it deals with a lot of moral issues, it deals with how people live, how they behave in certain situations. And although literary works may be fictive, or fictional, there was a certain truth to them. And, as we read them, we empathise with the characters. We go through the journey that they go through and we hopefully, understand something about life from their experience.

Simulated Teaching

I think that the teacher can use a variety of instructional strategies to encourage students' development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills through simulated teaching presentations in classroom. It is because, I really assume that this simulated teaching presentations are very important stages in opening the correct schemata and getting the students interest. A poor and outdated strategy might be boring to our students; in contrast, an attractive and interesting strategy will help us to get our student attention easily. Once we fail to attract our students, maybe they will not listen to our class for the next lesson. For example, I do feel that by giving such unrelated and boring tasks to the students during the simulated teaching processes, these really make the class fall asleep. For my set induction stage, I choose to use power point presentation to catch the students’ attention of the lesson. I use The Ring Doesn’t Fit as for my microteaching text and in this play, the term or element of wedding is portrays by the author. So, for my set induction section, I show pictures of wedding ceremonies and give them clues about the possibilities that may happen during a wedding ceremony. I give certain situations about it and it seems that the students get interest on it. They give their attention by answering my questions and get involve with the lesson. As a teacher, we are not to be knowledgeable, but also creative in a way teaching them. We must create creative activities to attract students and built up their interest to the subject. We also have to be friendly but a bit strict, so that students will listen to us and pay full attention while we are teaching. In short, I feel that the way we as a teacher use the approaches in our simulated teaching should be focused more on students’ needs for their learning process and at the same time it will make the lesson meaningful for them to acquire it.

Watching movie!!

Elizabeth In The Golden Age. It was the first movie that Dr. Edwin asked us to watch. This movie portrayed women in power. I personally always admired woman who were in power and in this movie, Elizabeth who was the queen of England played a very important role. She was full with braveness and courage and as a queen who was supposed to lead all her people, she gave everything that she could give. For example we could see, when the Spanish came to conquer England, England was losing all their ships in the war and most of the people died, as a queen she did not see herself as a woman, she herself went to the war to fight with the spanish. Elizabeth was also good in making decisions. I could see clearly in this play, she wasn't dependent on anyone. Although she listens to some people for advice but eventually she makes her own decision. There were other things that I wanted to share here about this movie but, I wanted to share one thing why Dr. Edwin had asked us to watch such movie. It was because, he would like us to get the ideas about how the time, the people, the places in Elizabethan era would look alike. It helped us lots in understanding the play during that era and gave us a clear view about people those days. We could simply make comparisons of plays between our time and Elizabethan era. From this movie, we could see woman as a leader and she was a good, dependable queen for her people...

Critical Casebook: Sophocles!!

Honestly, I didn’t bother about this book when I get it for the first time. The language itself had made me felt very lazy to read it. But, I had to force myself to read it for my drama’s class. I had to do it so..huuuuuu...Since Dr. Edwin was the one who reading together with us through the lines in class, it had made our days more easier in order to understand the story line. Then, I started to enjoy my drama class and tried to get into the text. Hopefully, by the end of this semester, all of us will be able to answer the final and here I would like to retell the story based on my understanding with you guys. Laius and Jocasta were king and queen of Thebes, a town in Greece. One day, they had a baby boy. An oracle prophesied that the boy would grow up and kill his father and marry his mother. To thwart the prophecy, Laius and Jocasta decided to kill their baby. In those days, it was usual to leave an unwanted or defective baby in the wilderness. Laius and Jocasta did this. To be extra-sure, they pierced his little feet and tied them together. A kindly shepherd found the baby. He gave the baby to a friend, who took it to Corinth, another town. The king and queen of Corinth couldn't have a baby of their own. So they adopted the foundling. Nobody ever told little Oedipus that his mother was never pregnant. One day, after he had grown up, a drunk mentioned his being adopted. Oedipus questioned his parents, but they denied it. Oedipus visited various oracles to find out whether he was really adopted. All the oracles told him instead that he would kill his father and marry his mother. To thwart the oracles, Oedipus left Corinth permanently. Travelling the roads, Oedipus got into a traffic squabble and killed a stranger who (unknown to him) was King Laius. In one version, there was a dispute over right-of-way on a bridge. In those days, high rank got to go first, Oedipus identified himself as heir to the throne of Corinth, and for some reason Laius's people simply attacked instead of explaining that he was king of Thebes. Some versions say that the rude Laius drove over Oedipus's sore foot, making him lose his temper. Soon Oedipus's smarts saved the town of Thebes, and he was made king. Oedipus married Laius's widow, Queen Jocasta. He ruled well, and they had four children. Eventually, Oedipus and Jocasta found out what had really happened. Here, you must assume that accidentally killing your father and marrying your mother is a disaster. Jocasta committed suicide, and Oedipus blinded himself and became a wandering beggar. From this story, Dr. Edwin had asked us to pay close attention to the aspects of dramatic irony, elements of fate (moira), the riddle and how Oedipus solves it and its far reaching consequences, the prophesies and how they are fulfilled, the tragic flow in Oedipus and some other aspects. From this time, I will try to find out all these aspects and will use all the information about Oedipus Rex that I have gained from Dr. Edwin’s class for my final exam preparation.

~My Script Writing Process~

I’ve always hated writing. L It requires discipline, focus, and a willingness to go back and rewrite something again and again. I know that I’m not the only person who feels this way. Lots of my friends agree that writing the script is one of the most difficult parts of making a movie/play. It’s not fun, social, or exciting. Writing is a tough process that involves you, your laptop, and your life experiences. So how do you start writing? Well, the question has the answer built in . . . you JUST START. As for me, we are in a group of three, so it helps us lot to start and finish it by the time given. We are actually writing the script of something doesn’t like a light-hearted play, because at the same time we must give a brief description to the students about love triangle among teenagers. As we already know, love is beautiful, but most of the time, love can kill a person. This is what we call “when love goes wrong”. As I keep writing down ideas, the plots eventually come into being. The more ideas we have, the more we are able to work the plot. We have discussed the idea for this story and we spend numerous nights to brainstorm and develop the characters, flesh out scenes, and ultimately develop an outline that is strong enough to begin turning it into a script. Huuuhh, how difficult right to be a script writer?? I think the process of writing the script from the outline is pretty simple. Hehehe..although at first I say that I’m the one who always hated writing. The more details the outline, the easier the process of writing the script. Completing the first draft, no matter how good or bad it is, is the first crucial step in making a good story. When we finish the first draft, we hand on it to Mr.Harold and Dr. Edwin to get their feedbacks. There are some mistakes that require us to revise and rewrite the script to make it tighter and better paced, to make the characters stronger and the dialog snappier. It is a lot easier once we get past the hurdle of completing the first draft. Then, we go through several revisions of our script and we are happy with it after get our third draft from Mr.Harold. We feel like it is time to go into preproduction. Cheeeeewahhhhh:-)