Reflection after the course of EDU3217

I really learnt a lot about play. In this course, all the play that we do is all very interesting and provides us a lot of knowledge regarding life. For example, for Oedipus Rex, I learnt about dramatic Irony and some more about the mythology of the ancient Greek. These things taught us the moral and how they perceive life in those ancient days. Although their perception is totally different from what we have now, the humanity concept is still there. We still ask the same questions as they do like “Does everything according to our fate?”, “What is the purpose of life?” and many more. It is true that we may not find the answer even until the Sun die off, but thinking all these things make us human. Because of these, we started to search for our identity and communicate with one another to find the answer of those questions. Besides that, learning those play also taught me a new perceptive about life. All the plays taught us that reality of life is cruel and we have to try our best to live in this cruel world. I am very happy that I take this course because it makes me more human in the sense that I started to noticed the things that I never noticed in my life like others people suffering. I am really happy that I get this course because I learnt a lot of thing. Plus we got good lecturer, Dr Edwin, probably the best lecturer in UPM, Mr. Harold, far more better than the tutor that we have last year.

Experience in pre-reading and while-reading activities in micro teaching

This is the second time that I think hard for the exercise that I need to do for my pre-reading and while-reading activities. I want something different from others, something new, something more creative and attract more attention. I completely do not have single ideas. I keep on thinking for several day and surf internet and read book for more ideas. One day, I stumble across a forum in which the teachers from all over the world share their opinions and help each others. I was really amazed with the forum and wonder whether Malaysia will be able to have this kind of forum. Back to the story, one of teachers there suggested that KWL is the one of the best pre-reading method to coordinate the students in improving their comprehension skill. Well, without much thought, I quickly adapt the thought into my lesson plan. While thinking the activities for my while reading, I was reading the play “Soul Gone home” by Langston Hughes. I noticed that the tone changed as the story continue and I remember that Dr. Edwin once taught us about tone using this play. Suddenly, I think of doing graph as my while reading activity. I quickly plan a exercise in which can facilitate students to draw the particular graph and suggest the relationship between the character. I was finally content with the activities that I was going to do in the microteaching.
The microteaching went well but again my pronunciation spoils my presentation. I could say that I was very mad until I can go for surgery and change my tongue or any organ that connected with my pronunciation. But still, I was happy that Mr. Harold said that my activities were creative and after I considered it back now, I felt that all my effort is being paid off. Well, for those people who read my blog, I hope you get some ideas to teach your students, sibling or perhaps children.

Street Car named desire

A few days after my set induction, we have to watch a movie named “A StreetCar named desire” directed by Glenn Jordan and starring Alec Baldwin, Jessica Lange, John Goodman and Diane Lane. It is a movie based on the play “A StreetCar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams. In this movie, we can see that a young Polish American living in a cozy apartment with his quasi-newlywed bride. Stella, a magnolia fresh off a Southern plantation, portrayed with equal panache by Kim Hunter. Things seem to be going along pretty well until Stella's older sister shows up on the doorstep. Blanche Dubois, ( Vivian Leigh ) is a figure as obnoxious as she is tragic, and almost from the very start she is despised by her Polish brother-in-law. The movie is really old-fashion and we can’t get what the actors say in the movie because of their accent. We even have to refer to the play “A StreetCar Named Desire” to understand the play. I confessed that I sleep throughout the half session of the play. It was really too boring for me. First of all, the movie is in black and white. Second, it takes a lot of concentration to get what they are talking about. Third, I think because of the culture differences in our life and movie. However, when I surf internet, I found out that the movie was very famous and it had win several awards. Pretty amazing for this movie. Anyway, I think if we are able to understand the actor accent and the movie is not in black and white, maybe we enjoy the movie.

Reflection on my set-induction

In the course EDU 3217, we need to perform a microteaching as part of our assessment. In microteaching, we are required to prepare three activities which are set induction, pre-reading and while reading and perform them in the classroom. Teaching drama is a brand new thing for me. All these year, we have been trained to teach grammar, reading skill, writing skill, and literature component in school. Teaching play to the students is a whole brand new experience. While I was thinking for the set induction activities, I do not have any idea on what I should do. Should I do what I do in literature component? I search for ideas in the internet for ideas for my set induction activity. Finally, I manage to find a poem from a rape victim and I think is most suitable thing to arouse students’ interest towards the play I am going to teach which is “Soul Gone Home” by Langston Hughes.
Although I manage to come out with totally different set induction from others, my pronunciation and voice projection spoil my set induction. I did not know that my voice is loud enough for the whole class but I still use microphone to teach the class. Just imagine the loud voice is being amplified in loud speaker. I felt quite stupid when Mr. Harold told me that my voice is too loud and it makes the students difficult to understand what I say. It was very embarrassing but I have to admit it. I’ll remember it for the rest of my life that I will always lower down my voice if I use microphone. Another thing that spoil my set induction is my pronunciation. I confess that maybe I did not try hard to change my pronunciation. I guess I have to started practice now to improve my pronunciation so that when I teach in real class, I would not have much problem getting my students to understand my instruction.

Macbeth (another play of tragedy)

I remember that I watch Macbeth few weeks ago. It was not such pleasant movie since the movie quality is not that good. However, I do confess the story seems quite interesting because it follow completely just like in the book. I was very surprised and amazed with the amount of props that are required to make the movie. For all who know Shakespeare, I guess you also know what Macbeth is. For those who don’t know, well since you got internet to access my blog, read play for yourself. Here is the link.

http://www.literaturepage.com/read/shakespeare_macbeth.html

If you like Macbeth and want to know Macbeth better, below are seveal links that discuss about Macbeth. You can learn a lot from them.

· http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth

· www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/macbeth/

· www.pathguy.com/macbeth.htm

Now I’m going to talk about Macbeth. Since Macbeth is a tragedy play, it is no surprised to see blood and heads cut off in the movie. Oh God... I don’t know why people in Shakespearian time like tragedy so much. It seem like they like to watch people enjoy first, and then later suffer. Well, I want to say much because maybe our future generation may say the same thing to our generation too. Back to the movie, I really hate the character “Macbeth”. He has a great ambition and a heart of a coward. He is indecisive too. When he heard the prophecy from the witches, he believes the witches so much that he quickly sends a letter to his wife “Lady Macbeth”. Under the persuasion of Lady Macbeth, Macbeth finally kills King Duncan and become king. When he become king, he become obsess with the guilt he make and afraid of the retribution of his sin. He makes stupid moves which caused him to have more enemies and seek the witches for more prophecy. The witch prophecy indeed makes him strong against his enemy but it also represents his fate which leads to his death. Well, I want to talk about the character that I like but unfortunately I hate almost all the character in the story. Well, that’s all for today. Hope you enjoy my blog. If you got any comments, please give one. I’m a very open-minded person.

Experience writing a Play script

In this course, we are required to write play script. This is first time in my life that I write a script. At first, I thought it is impossible for me to write play script because I thought that I lacked of imagination and the romance to do so because I am more to the realistic side compare to literature side. There are three persons in my group who are Krishna, Fadzwan and me. In the beginning, coming out with a topic and theme that are agreeable among the three of us is hard. All of us have different ideas, different perception on how we look at the world. After long time of arguing on which theme to choose, we decided to choose the theme “love” as it is more common and interesting in real life. During the process of writing the script, we found out that writing a natural and interesting dialog between the characters were very hard because we are trained to write in correct grammar. If we write a dialog in the correct sentences, the script will look so unnatural and audience will get bored easily. With the help of our lecturer, Dr. Edwin and our tutor, Mr. Harold, we manage to write a readable script. We feel very happy. We learnt a lot during writing the play script. We learn that we need to take into consideration of audience, language used and the purpose of the play.

Elizabeth the First

Just few week ago, I manage to watch a movie ‘Elizabeth the first’ in Dr Edwin’s class. It is indeed a nice movie although there are some boring parts which make me almost fall asleep. For those who have not watched the movie, you can read the movie review at:-
•http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/heat/435/elizabeth.htm
•http://catholicmediareview.blogspot.com/2008/03/movie-review-elizabeth-golden-age-2007.html

For those who wants to watch the movie, you can download using bit torrent. Here is the torrent link. http://www.mininova.org/get/810138. However, please support the original version by buying the dvd at any video shop.

This story of course is mainly about Queen Elizabeth the first. You can see her face throughout the play although it is quite irritating to see her face since she is old and not quite my taste. However, the things that I do like about the movie are qualities of Queen Elizabeth and Lord Wessex throughout the movie.

Queen Elizabeth in the movie has a lot of excellent qualities that we lack in this modern world. First of all, she is humble. Although she was the queen of England, she still listens to her subordinate’s advice. She never dismisses her servants for giving advices. O… I wish how all Malaysian politicians have her quality. Most of the Malaysian politicians never seem to care about the citizen needs and their voices. All they care is how to remain in power. Another excellent quality of Queen Elizabeth is her strong will. As Queen, she is faced with numerous threats and dangers. Since she is a Protestant, the Catholic noblemen (including Norfolk) and abetted by the Pope (John Gielgud) regard her as a heretic (as well as an illegitimate usurper). Both Spain and France are plotting against her, and their ambassadors at her court (James Frain and Eric Cantona, respectively) are constantly attempting to gain advantage over each other. And, of course, Elizabeth is a woman, surrounded by strong-willed men; noblemen, bishops, soldiers who share the same dim view of a woman's abilities. However, she still stands strong and manages to defeat both Spain and France armies.

Another things that I like about the movie is the quality of Walter Raleigh. Although I hate the fact that he is a good womanizer, (he manages to seduce both Queen Elizabeth and Lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth I of England, Elizabeth Throckmorton.), he is wise and knows what and when to talk the right things. He is ambitious and confident in his ability. I really hope that I have his quality. With this ability, I can easily adopt myself in any situation and easily make friends with others.

If you got any comments on my blog, feel free to write anything that you feel. I’ll give 7 stars out of 10 stars .

Teiresias

Today, I am going to talk about Teiresias. I guess most of the readers out there must know already know who he is because he is famous in Greek story. For those, who do not know who he is, let me tell you who he is in simple. Teiresias is a wise, old, blind man who appears in the Oedipus tragedies of Sophocles. He is the one who told Oedipus that he is the murderer of his father. He has many stories for the cause of his blindness. The most wide accepted tradition was that at age seven the Gods blinded him, because he revealed certain things, men ought not to know. According to another tradition, he was blinded after he saw goddess Athena taking bath. Another story made Hera responsible for his blindness, when in a dispute between her and Zeus, he went against her. In order to compensate him, Zeus gave him a longer life (seven or nine times greater than the usual life of men) and the gift of prophecy. No matter which stories are true, he is still a blind, old man with the ability to prophecy. Now I’m going to say what I feel about Teiresias in the drama “Oedipus Rex”. When I read the drama, I seriously feel that Teiresias is a hypocrite man. He knows that he should not come to meet King Oedipus, knowing that King Oedipus will use any method to force him to tell him the murderer of King Laios, king before King Oedipus and yet he comes to meet Oedipus. He is a man honored above all others in the city of Thebes and he is also a messenger of God. With that kind of status, he can choose not to come to meet Oedipus. Besides, he said that “When it comes to speech, your own is neither temperate, Nor opportune. I wish to be more prudent.” He knows that it is not the right time to reveal the truth and he is willing to suffer to keep the truth. Yet he still create an opportunity to reveal the truth. How fake his action is. In conclusion, In the drama "Oedipus Rex", ancient people called Teiresias noble, wise man but in my eye, he is nothing but a hypocrite man which his foolish action causes the innocent King Oedipus who is a victim of fate to suffer even more.

Dramatic Irony

In EDU 3217, we learnt a lot about drama. One of things that we learn is dramatic irony. Dramatic irony is the situation where character is unaware of something audience knows. In other words, the character in the story does not know his or her fate until he or she meets with his or her fate whereas the audience know from the start or in the middle of the play. I seriously hate this concept because it somehow resembles our life. Who knows that our life are bound to destiny that we never know. No matter what we do we will never escape from our fate that pre-destine our life. Just like in the famous known drama for its dramatic Irony, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus is fated to kill his own father and put out an oath to find out the murderer of King Laios, his father and pass judgment to the murderer. In other words, he unconsciously curses himself. Although Oedipus’s suffering is due to his fate in the drama, I cannot stop feeling pity towards Oedipus for he can become a great king if not for his fate. However, if I got a chance to rewrite the story, I will write that Oedipus does not blind himself but he travel to other place and find cure for the plague and save the entire citizen in Thebes. I do believe in fate but we can change our fate if we try. That is what I believe. In conclusion, dramatic Irony is one of the best tactics used in Greek Tragedy to bring out the concept of tragedy.

Traditonal dance and modern dance

Yesterday, when my friends and I were walking in Time square, we get a chance to see a lion dance in the mall. The lion dance was performed in front of the new shop that was just opened today. It surely was very entertaining as the performers performed very skillfully and it attracted a lot of people to gather there until it totally blocked the walking passage. Although lion dance is one part of my Chinese culture, I know a little bit about lion dance. As far as I know about lion dance, it is performed to bring good luck or prosperity and usually performed only in certain occasions like Chinese New Year or new shop opening ceremony like the one my friends and I saw in Time square. The incident remind me of past that I used to like traditional dances. I learnt Chinese fan dance, Sarawak dance and Zapin during my life in Institut Perguruan Temmenggong Ibrahim (IPTI). These dances are completely different from other dances. I learnt a few modern dances during school life and I notice most of traditional dance emphasize a lot on the feet. For example, when I learnt Chinese fan dance, I need to lift up my leg a little bit while walking in order to bring up the unique of the dance. Unlike modern dance, there is less emphasizing on the foot as long as the whole dance looks nice. However, there are also similarities between traditional and modern dance. Both dances emphasize a lot on timing. Almost all the time is used to get hold of the timing. After we get hold of timing, then we move on improving the dance. Teamwork is also very important in both dances. Audience tend to notice mistakes or bad aspects of the dance so if one of teammates make slightly mistake or not giving his or her full commitment, audience will notice them very easily and it would spoil the whole dance. Therefore, everyone in the dance should work together and give their whole commitment to the dance.

Ignorant to well-Informed learner (7/9/09)

Today is the day that totally changed my perception about drama. I admitted that I was ignorant about drama before I enter Dr Edwin, my lecturer for Teaching the Language of Drama (EDU3217), lecture on that day. It must be due to dislike on acting and stage fright. I seriously thought that drama is just a play which contains a storyline that is performed on stage. During my lesson in EDU3217, my mind totally went blank when Dr Edwin briefed us a lot about the history of drama. I never know that drama in the olden days is so different from the drama that we know today. Isn’t it amazing to know that the concept from drama keep on changing from time to time, from story-telling to gladiator, gladiator to morality play, morality play to mysterious play, and then, it finally evolve to the drama that we know today. As Dr. Edwin always told us, drama represents the development of culture. The changes in the concept of drama represent the growth of human development in this world. The human in the olden day will not have the same values that the human in the present day hold and even the human in future may have different values that we hold today. As science improve day by day, the concept of drama certainly would change again and it would be interesting to wonder what type of drama it would evolve in the future. Maybe it’ll extinct and be replace by modern technology like television and radio or maybe it evolve to another higher stage where it can meet the need of the people in the future. Well, nobody knows about the future. Therefore, it is our job to teach and guide next generation to appreciate drama so that it won’t extinct and evolve to a better drama in the future.