Questions that marked in my head???

it is week 13 and this course is about to come to an end. I did learn a lot about drama like its history and conventions odf drama and so on. I did the simulated teaching and it really helps me to improve my teaching skills.
However, there is one question that still troubles me: How could i improve my skills of interpreting literary works? Actually, i feel quite difficult to interpret classic works like King Lear. The language used inside really hinders me from understanding and discovering the literary elements like themes and symbols.
maybe i should read more and gain more knowledge in understanding classic English. i think i need advicement and comments from my friends, lecturers and the tutors too.

Blog, Does it help?

Writing blog helps me to reflect back what I have learnt from lectures and tutorials. It reminds me to adopt what I have learnt in my future subjects and teachings. Besides, questions provided by Dr Edwin cause me to think, reflect and finally find a way to solve the problems which I found in improving my knowledge and teaching skills.
Besides that, I learn a lot from my course mates’ blogs. From their sharing, I learn to adopt their good opinions into my teaching. Blog also provides chances for me to share and express my opinions. I can share my experience as well like the experience of heading KLPAC.
In a nutshell, i think that blogging is a very good way of learning language.

Adapt and adopt

In lecture and tutorials, I learned a lot of knowledge and teaching skills. For example, I learn ways to interpret theme, characters, plot and so on. The pattern of exercise for example, highlighting the characteristics of the character through his dialogue helps me to analyse the character. It does help to analyse the treatment of the theme through characters and language. Through the exercise that given by the lecturer, I will adopt his technique of teaching into my real teaching in the future.
Besides, the teaching skills that I learned from my lecturer give me a clearer picture on how to teach more efficiently in my future teaching. I learn to create more useful and appropriate worksheets for my students too. I will adapt the skills in creating execises.

Would I interpret differently?

Before the lessons, I would try to interpret the plays by myself. There might be some different interpretation because I like to think by myself. However, after the lessons I will stick to the lecturer’s interpretation. After Dr Edwin interprets, I understand more about the play. He gives explanation on important things and gives lots assignments for us to do. From the assignments, we learn the ways to interpret things. For instance, assignment 1 which requests us to write about treatment of the theme. It helps me to discover the way to analyze the theme.
As for my tutor, Miss Kastoori, I really like her way of teaching. she tries to attract us to the lessons. She gave us useful exercises which help us in understanding the play.

Useful and not useful…

Actually, all that I learned through the lecture-tutorial are useful to my area of study. I learned the ways to interpret the characters and theme of the play through the lecture-tutorial. I learn to discover how the theme works through elements f literature like characters, language, choice of words, and symbols.
Besides, the study of classic English in Shakespeare helps me to discover more about English literature. The words used in classic English are different from words used in modern English. It is much more difficult to understand. Fortunately, there were notes and explanations in the book. The explanations help me to comprehend the meaning of the text.

The lecture tutorial

I found that it was quite interesting when Miss Kastoori asked us to role-play the play “Bingo” by Edward Bond in groups. All of the members of my group were well involved in the play. We were so enjoyed during the moment of acting. Through role play, we were introduced to drama. I found that drama is actually very interesting. I began to love this course! Besides that, I found that a drama can actually be performed in many ways. The way of performance for a same drama is totally different from other groups. It is unbelievable that every way of performances brings different effects to the audiences! I discover that drama can actually help a person to improve his or her creativity. During drama class, a lot of knowledge like history of drama, soliloquy, tragedy and lots more are exposed to me.

Any questions?

The problem that i face during simulated teaching is that i do not know how to increase my own confidence during simulated teaching. I think i may need to practice more before simulated teaching. Through practice, i can gain my confidence and try to manage the time more effective. Besides, i can train myself to teach in a better manner. The only way that i can find is to practice more. i think i need advice from my coursemate too. Their comments and advices are very important for me to improve myself.

if there were another chance...

I will do it in a different way but not totally different from the way I had used before if I was given a chance to present the same lesson again. I wanted to change my way of teaching due to several reasons. First, I hope to improve my way of teaching. I get to know that my voice is too soft. So, if there were another chance, I will try to speak louder so that all the students can hear me clearly. Besides that, I hope to increase more class activities for stimulating learners’ thinking. Group discussions, theme-based teaching and presentations can be carried out if I have enough time. Finally, I hope I can use some online exercises for my students to participate.

My strengths and weaknesses in simulated teaching

I think I have a sense of humour in my ways of teaching. I try to create a more relax atmosphere to reduce the tension of students when they get exposed to new things. Besides, I think I am very creative at inventing exercises for students. Irealised that students need to be attracted to the lesson first so that they will pay attention the lessons. Besides, I like to ask students questions in order to stimulate their thinking and develop creative thinking amongst them.
In term of weaknesses, I do not have enough confidence to teach students. I feel afraid that I cannot teach well. In fact, I did not make enough practice before I go for simulated teaching. this affected my performance during simulated teaching. so, through simulated teaching, I know my point of weaknesses and will try to correct my mistake so that the same mistakes will not be repeated.

My simulated teaching

I love simulated teaching. It really helps me in my future teaching. For the set induction, I relate a video clip of lion king to my students and ask them to figure out the characteristics of the lion king as being a king. I relate the qualities that should be possessed by the king to Oedipus’s characteristics. For my pre-reading activities, I asked the students to complete the profile of Oedipus which choices of answers were provided. It was easy for the students as they can just guest the answers. For my while reading activity, I asked the students to read the extracts from earlier and later scenes and identify the characteristics of Oedipus portrayed through the extracts given. For the post reading, I asked the students to write an essay comparing Oedipus’s characteristics from the earlier scenes and the later scenes.
In my opinion, there are similarities and differences between simulated teaching and real teaching. In terms of similarities, teachers in school will introduce the story to students by using certain things just as during simulated teachings. Worksheets and exercises will be provided to students during both real teaching and simulated teaching. In term of differences, teacher will usually focus on learner’s autonomy during simulated teaching. However, during real teaching, teacher will usually just put a lot of input into students and seldom ask students to express their opinions. In terms of time duration, simulated teaching usually takes 15 minutes for the teacher to finish all the set induction, pre-reading and while-reading activities. However, in real teaching, teacher can spend 40-80 minutes to teach the whole lesson.
For me, simulated teaching is actually a good experience. It helps me to discover my strengths and weaknesses. I learn from the mistakes and try to improve my teaching skills.

Elizabeth, the Golden Age

This was the first movie I watched with my classmates for this course. I love this play so much. It was very interesting and it talks about a capable and wise queen of England.
Elizabeth is a responsible queen who tries her best to protect her people. Although she is a women without man, she can stands on her own. She loves her maid so much. Even though she discovers that her favorite maid, Bess was pregnant and the baby belongs to the man Elizabeth love, she did not give death commands to both of them. She was jealous of that but she still forgives them.
I feel really touched by her determination in protecting her country and people. When her cousin wanted to take her place as a queen and when Spain wanted to attack England, she tries her best to fight against those powers. She even took part in war to defend her country.
The play, I consider as great because the flow of the story is smooth. The plot is interesting and captivating.

Hamlet, the movie…

Have you watch Hamlet before? It is a play written by William Shakespeare. I watch the play last few weeks. It was starring by Mel Gibson. I like this movie because the story is very gothic and it causes me to find out more about the story. The story is very interesting. It was carried out by resemblance of the plot in which Hamlet had imagined how his father poisoned by Claudius.
In brief, the play is about a prince from Denmark, Hamlet who wants to find out the truth of his father murder. His father is actually murdered by Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius. Claudius then married Hamlet’s mother and becomes the king of Denmark. Hamlet wants to take revenge on his uncle because of his father death, but everyone believes that Claudius is innocent. Claudius then tried to poison Hamlet by putting a poisoned pearl in Hamlet’s drink. However, the queen becomes the one who drinks the poisoned drink. The truth is revealed after that. Hamlet died at the end also because he was cut by a poisoned sword. He then uses the same sword to killed King Claudius.
I love the part that plays the sword fighting between Hamlet and Ophelia’s brother. It is the beginning of the death of the whole royal family. However, I dislike the tragic ending of the play. I hope that the protagonists can stay alive till the end of the play. The tragedy causes sadness and the feeling of unfair.
Anyway, the play is quite interesting.

What does Ophelia’s secret life all about?

On 9 of March 2009, I went with my friend to Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre to watch the play, “The secret love life of Ophelia”. It was my first time went to KL PAC (Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre) as well as the first time I watch theatre. The place was so beautiful. It was decorated with artistic pictures and the scenery there was so breathtaking. We took a lot of photos. (hehe..)
The play was carried out at Pentas 2. I was so surprised of the way the stage look like. (In my experience, the stage is usually higher than the audience seats.) It was so small and was surrounded by the audience seats. There was only sofa, small tables and floor mat. It gives the audience a sense of closeness. It provides an opportunity for the audience to watch clearer.
I found that the actor and actress are very good in acting. They can act without the acting tools! For instant, the actor who acts the character of Oedipus can act the action of making a cup of coffee so lively! The action of stirring, putting sugar into the coffee seems so real.
However, I do not find that the story is interesting for me. I dislike the actors like keep on talking. There seems like no climax. It is so dull and bored for me. Besides, the play is actually does not follow the original story of Hamlet. This play was just totally about story of love. The main characters use email to express their love towards each other.
Anyway, it is a good experience for me to watch the play. It helps me to gain new knowledge of theatre.

Teiresias, who is he?

Teiresias was known as a famous prohet in Thebes. There are different stories about the reason of his blindness.
One of the stories telling that Teiresias was blinded by Athena because he accidentally came across her when she was bathing. His mother, Chariclo, a nymph of Athena, begged her to undo her curse, but Athena could not, instead she gave Teiresias the gift of prophecy to compensate for his blindness.
Another type of allusion towards Teiresias’s blindness is in two episodes, recounts Tiresias' sex-change and his encounter with Zeus and Hera. Teiresias was known as a prophet of Zeus. In the first episode, Teiresias was said to come upon a pair of copulating snakes on Mount Cyllene in the Peloponnese, he then hit the pair a smart blow with his stick. His act caused Hera to punish him by transforming him into a woman. As a woman, Teiresias became priestess of Hera, married and had children including Manto, who also own the gift of prophecy. Lady Tearesias was a prostitute of great renown based on some versions of the tale. Tearesias found again a pair of mating snakes after seven years becoming woman. What will she do this time? She will either made sure to leave the snakes alone this time depending on the myth this time or according to Hyginus, she trampled on them. As the result, Teiresias was released from the curse and return to his masculinity.
In another episode, Teiresias was involved in the conflict between Hera and her husband, Zeus on the theme which who more pleasure in sex. Hera claimed that the man enjoy sex more, however, Zeus claimed that woman has more pleasure in sex. Teiresias who had experienced both revealed woman;s greatest secret: that she receives greater pleasure. “Of ten parts, a man enjoys one only.” Hera was unhappy and struck him blind for his impiety. Zeus was unable to stop her but he did give Teiresias the gift of foresight and a lifespan of seven lives.
Teiresias appeared in several stories and Greek tragedies as a mythic prohet. Teiresias appeared with Cadmus, the founder and the first king of Thebes in the Bacchae by Euripides. They warned the current king Pentheus against denouncing Dionysus as a god. Along with Cadmus, he dresses in women’s clothing to go up the mountain to worship Dionysus with the Theban women.
In Sophocles’s “Oedipus the king”, Oedipus asked Teiresisas’s help to investigate the murdered of King Laius. Teiresias, however, at first did not want to reveal the truth that Oedipus is actually the murderer of King Laius. After being provoked by Oedipus’s accusation that he did not have the ability of foresight and he involved in the murder of Laius, Teiresias revealed the fact that it was Oedipus who had killed King Laius. Oedipus threw him out the palace but then realized the truth.
Tereisias died after drinking the water from the spring Tilphussa, where he was struck by an arrow of Apollo. He was visited by Odysseus after his death in the underworld.

Cinema and Theatre

Theatre is a building with stage for the performance of plays and other dramatic performances. Cinema is a room with big screen which is used to play films in front of the audience seat. Both are similar as both are presenting dramatic performances to bring pleasures to audiences. Besides, both of them involve actors, scripts, plots, and music.
However, theatre is different from cinema as the play is performed in the present time or in other words, it is live performance. The actors that performed in the theatre must put great effort in practicing as they cannot do mistake during the live performance. In movies, when there is a mistake done, the director will just say “cut” and film that scene again. Besides, the setting of theatre is different to the cinema also. The stage of the theatre is decorated depending on the play being performed on that day. The decoration of the stage is temporarily and can be changed when other play is performed. In the cinema, no decoration of the setting is needed as the movies are played through videos. Without the movies, the screen is just a blank screen. in a nutshell, both theatre and cinema have similarities and differences.

Is theatre out of date?

Theatre is a performance art that places human experience before a group of people-an audience-in the present moment. I think theatre is out of date because it is performed in a dull way. In this age of world which is full of technology wonders, people are more attracted to movies which have more special effects. They feel more excited when watching movies which presented in an advanced way with computer generated images and etc. In contrast, theatre is performed without special effects. It is lagging behind in the world full of technologies wonders. It is performed presently in front of audience. The content is limited too. For example, it cannot involve scenes that need the use of transport like van as you cannot drive a real van into the stage!
Besides, theatre is out of date because audiences need to pay great concentration to catch what the play is going on. They need to listen attentively to catch what the actors talking about as theatre cannot be play back or repeated. People choose to watch movies rather than theatre as movies can be downloaded easily and watch it many times and there is subtitle on the screen while theatre does not have it.
Apart from that, most people think that the content of theatre is unrealistic and are not related to our daily lives. People usually think that theatre is all about art and in their mindset, only those who are good in art can understand theatre. This causes them not to watch play.