15th October 2009 Parody- It’s Like Having Theatre All Over Again!

How long has it been since we had to come up with different kinds of stage performance every single week? Oh, it feels so good to be able to dramatize those eccentric ideas which lost its wittiness when penned onto pieces of papers. Once again, we are given the golden opportunity to perform on stage just like what we did in the theatre course under Pn. Juridah a year ago. This day, we are to perform a parody on any fairytale of our choice and gosh, you wouldn’t have imagined the level of excitement in each of us! I bet all you would not disagree with my claim that today’s lecture was one of the best in the past 10 weeks. Don’t you think so? Every group put so much effort in creating their parodies; in fact I think all the groups deserve a pat on the back for the hard work they have shown. Everyone was laughing throughout the two-hour tutorial session! Wouldn’t it be great to see every Literature in English lessons in schools as lively as today’s? If teachers are ready to put in effort in designing interesting activities like this, I believe there will be no more complains about how the Literature in English lessons bored our students to death. I think it is possible to implement what we have done today in any English classrooms in our schools. Although students need to master a certain level of fluency in order to dramatize their ideas, I believe this activity works equally well with students who are of low level of proficiency in the target language because they students can always opt for a pantomime to present their ideas. Students in schools are no different compare to us. Like how we enjoyed laughing our hearts out during our friends’ hilarious parodies, students will also feel the joy and fun if they are given interesting tasks like this! What I see is that each day, students go to school anticipating creatively-planned lessons that will liven up the dull and boring classroom and I think English teachers should be the first to bring such excitement to the schools!

6th October 2009 Jigsaw Puzzle. Oops, I mean Jigsaw Reading!

We almost fell off our chairs the moment Miss Dzeelfa mentioned that we were to reading a 14-page long speech for today’s in-class activity! My goodness, how are we supposed to read and make sense out of such a long text with so little time allocated? In the midst of chaos and panic, our lecturer calmed the storm by introducing a very wise reading strategy, that is, jigsaw reading. The speech was ‘cut’ up and each of us was assigned to different parts of the speech. We then proceed to our ‘expert groups’ whereby those who have the same extracts will sit down and brainstorm the main messages raised in that particular part of the speech. After the brainstorming session, we then go back to our original group and explain the product of the brainstorming session to our fellow group members. As each of the group members discusses their extract, we were able to understand the message of the whole speech without having to go through the hassle of reading the 14-page long speech by Malcolm X. The brainstorming process was a crucial part in jigsaw reading as these ‘expert groups’ need to comprehend the assigned extract so that each of the members in the ‘expert group’ can explain their extracts effective to their group members in the original groups. Sadly some of the members in my ‘expert group’ were rather passive. They were not actively participating in the brainstorming session; instead they were waiting for people to spoon-feed them with the meaning of the extracts. PARASITES!!! It irks me, these good-for-nothing, blood-sucking leeches! I mean, hello! It would not hurt if you open our mouth and contribute some ideas to the discussion! Even if your ideas are not ‘intellectual’, at least put in some effort to show that you are part of this ‘expert group’! What made things worst was that the only male specimen in my ‘expert group’ was too selfish to share his thoughts! Although he had some thoughtful insights to the extract which was assigned to us, he kept his mouth tightly sealed as if he applied UHU glue onto his lips. For goodness sake, share your ideas during the discussion to clear confusions. No! This guy just sat his overweight bottom onto the chair, criticizing and scorning at our misinterpretations of the extract! People, group discussion is all about active participation by all members, therefore, by all means, throw whatever ideas you have and do not hesitate! Even if your insights are not accepted, it does not implied tat your idea was of no good. We learn from the mistakes we made and knowledge is meant to be shared and no kept in secret! The jigsaw reading activity we did indeed overcome the problem of reading a long text and would certainly be an effective strategy to apply to our lessons in the near future. It saves a lot of time and students are in a way ‘pushed’ to interact among each other in order to produce something, in this case, the meaning for each extract. However, jigsaw reading also has its short comings. In order to carry out jigsaw reading, the teacher should first consider the size of the classroom and the noise level of the discussion. Note that ample space should be provided so that students can move around comfortably to form their ‘expert groups’. Secondary school students are noisy by nature so the teacher should also consider the amount of noise that will be generated during the brainstorming session. We certainly do not want the teacher from the next class to accuse the teacher for not being able to control the class. Besides that, students might be tempted to use their mother tongue during the discussion if the teacher grants tem all the freedom to carry out the brainstorming session on their own. Therefore, the teacher should take note that students are using the target language when they carry out the brainstorming session. It will be of no benefit if students carry out the discussion in their mother tongue most of the time. Besides that, the teacher should walk around the class and spend some time to listen to the discussions in each group so as to ensure active participation from every group member and also offer help when students are in need.