PLAYS AND DRAMA FOR YOUNG LEARNERS (LGA 3104) REFLECTION

by: NORSHAKEERAH BINTI ABEDU RASHID

Firstly, I am so grateful because I able to complete all the tasks contain inside
LGA 3104 question assignment. Greatest appreciation I gave to my respected
lecturer, Mr Abdul Wahab for his hard work in delivering lots of useful knowledge to
my friends and me in the class for this semester. I could say that he had put so much
effort especially when it comes to his lecture hour. I really love when it comes to his
lecture. This is because, I find that he has his own way in delivering knowledge
because the way he demonstrates things to my friends and I is not the same as other
lecturers. He gave us many suggestions during his lecture. This is mainly because I
feel so interested and eager to listen to her lecture. Besides that, we will also have
some sort of discussion on our assignments and tasks. Sir Wahab did his part in
explaining things that we did not understand and commenting on our drafts of our
assignments. I really appreciate all the positive and negative comments that he gave.
I take all the comments as the opportunity for me to learn to be more effective in
teaching my pupils in future.
Getting back on my reflection, my group members consist of Haikal, Nashrah,
Nezanna, Jannah and me. Before we perform our play, we had to undergo a few
initial processes such as, the process of selecting, process of adapting and last but
not least process of performing. It is essential and vital for us to be fully prepared
before performing our play. All the important aspects need to be considered before
we could perform the play. This is to prevent any unwanted incidents to happen and
befall on us. In the middle of selecting the script to be used for our group play, we
had a minor setback. There are so many good script to choose from, every one of our
group members script have their own strong qualities. It took us quite a while to pick
the most suitable and appropriate script to be used for our group play. At the end, we
had agreed upon, using Jannahs script, entitled I Want My Mother Back for our
play. The script is the most important aspect of the project. The script is the blueprint
or template of the play. Like a blueprint for a physical construction, such as a house
or multiple level building, if its faulty the building will fail. It is impossible to envision a
play without a script, as the script is the base for what appears onstage.
We had chosen I Want My Mother Back script to be our group act mainly because,
it contain most of the important aspects that are required and listed for, what a good
PLAYS AND DRAMA FOR YOUNG LEARNERS (LGA 3104) REFLECTION
by: NORSHAKEERAH BINTI ABEDU RASHID

script should have. It is a very wise decision for me because we really need to
consider all the aspects before performing. It will make our planning and preparation
of the play much easier.
There are no doubt, even though I Want My Mother Back is a good script, it
still require a few alteration. This minor change is to suit our group so that all the
members in the group will have a part to play in it. The lack of dialogues for the
backup actors is one of the changes we had made. Now, we had entered the
adapting process. During this stage, we need to check again the flow of the play
according to the script. There were scenes we need to adapt and change so the
actors will be more comfortable during performance. We also had included some
minor physical movement with songs that audience can follow along during the play.
We included participation of the audience in our play to make it more interesting.
However, only left four days to perform the play, we have to change the story.
This is because the drama is quite serious. There were also serious roles of our casts
and the dialogues are quite long. My friend`s experience saying that we have to
make short dialogues to make the pupils understand and focus. Besides, other
groups have funny dialogues and characters. Therefore, we have to make our drama
becomes funny, lively and interacts with the pupils. After having some discussion, we
decided to run a play entitled Upin Ipin..Its School Time. The story was very
interesting and pupils able to understand the story well. I was very sure the pupils
would enjoy watching it.
During our group performance on the stage, we had the time of our life, and
the audience seems to love it. We had tried to involve the audience as much as
possible during our group play to make it more interactive and interesting and to gain
their attention. The play went smoothly on that day. We manage to complete the play
superbly.
At the end of the day, I had gained so many inputs while completing this
assignment. I had learned many useful skills on how to plan and prepare a play and
performing it on stage. Working in a big group had taught me to be more cooperative
and to contribute all my efforts and give full commitment when working as a group, to
PLAYS AND DRAMA FOR YOUNG LEARNERS (LGA 3104) REFLECTION
by: NORSHAKEERAH BINTI ABEDU RASHID

achieve great results and outcome. I learned how to be more patience and selfless,
put the group needs before me in order to complete the objective of the assignment.
All of this experience will benefit me in the near future and I surely will cherish all the
moments we shared together in completing this assignment.
Next, for the personal growth, I have learnt how to control my stage fright. I am
easily feeling nervous whenever I want to perform in front of others although the
audiences are my classmates. I cannot remember the dialogues and actions even
though I practice a lot before the performances. However, during this drama
performance, I can control my anxiety. This is because we practice a lot and I keep
thinking that this is only drama practice and I only want to perform in front of young
learners. Therefore, I perform the drama calmly and enjoyably.
For the professional growth, as a future teacher, I am learning to perform
drama and teach English to the young learners. I learn their acceptance of the
drama, their feedback, and their response for the drama. Overall, the young learners
enjoy the drama and give positive feedback whenever we ask them to interact with us
maybe because most of them are clever pupils. When I tell them that we want to
perform drama, most of them feel excited and ask the titles of drama. The girls love
to see the beautiful costumes and make-up whereas the boys like to watch the
actions and male costumes.
This drama can be related to one of the Multiple Intelligences learning theory
by Howard Gardner, which is body/kinesthetic intelligence. This is because people
with high kinesthetic intelligence process information through their bodies-through
muscle, sensation, and movement. Their bodies are their avenue to learning and
understanding any content or subject and are also their preferred form of self-
expression. Additional characteristics of the people with kinesthetic intelligence is
ability to express emotions through bodily movement, enjoys physical movement and
dance, experiences a total physical response and often good at creative drama
(Connie Hine, 2008). So, when the young learners with the body/kinesthetic
intelligence see this drama, they can learn and understand the drama very well.
PLAYS AND DRAMA FOR YOUNG LEARNERS (LGA 3104) REFLECTION
by: NORSHAKEERAH BINTI ABEDU RASHID

However, there is an issue of the drama for young learners which is pupils that
have low-level learning ability cannot understand the drama. This is because the
dialogues are quite long and use low frequency words. As a future teacher, I should
select and adapt the dialogues so that the dialogues are short and simple. Besides
that, I also have to put more actions than dialogues in the drama. If the pupils do not
understand the actions, they can just watch the actions and thus, understand the
drama. I also must make suitable costumes and masks so that the pupils are not
confused with the casts.
In the future if I want to perform it on stage, I had the proper knowledge that I had
gain from my experience in completing this assignment. A few adaptations still need
to be made in order to make it a successful performance. Overall, I take all the
comments positively and take it as the chance for me to improve myself if I were to
teach primary school pupils in future. Personally, I must say that I should be thankful
to those who give their full cooperation and commitment when our group was doing
the play. I do gained lots of new and useful knowledge in learning this subject. As a
future teacher, I hope that I will be able to produce pupils who are knowledgeable
and competent, who possess high moral standards and who are responsible and
capable of achieving high level of personal well-being as well as being able to
contribute to the harmony and betterment of the family, the society and the nation at
large learning. In other words, the content of knowledge is not an end in itself but a
means to an end.







PLAYS AND DRAMA FOR YOUNG LEARNERS (LGA 3104) REFLECTION
by: NORSHAKEERAH BINTI ABEDU RASHID


REFERENCES:

Brown, E. (2004). Using children's literature with young learners. The Internet
TESL Journal, Vol. X, No. 2. Retrieved from http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Brown-
ChildrensLit.html
Buchanan, M. (n.d.). Why teach drama? A defense of the craft. Retrieved from
ChildDrama.com website, http://www.childdrama.com/why.html
Hine, C. (2008). Developing multiple intelligences in young learners. Retrieved
from Earlychildhood NEWS.com website,
http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID
=251
Nurhayati Alwi. (2012). Using drama for young learners (blogspot). Retrieved from
http://athysmile.blogspot.com/2012/10/using-drama-for-young-learners.html
Savi, V. (n.d.). Developing language skills in teaching English to young learners:
listening and speaking (pdf format). Retrieved from
http://www.britishcouncil.rs/files/2013/05/serbia-elta-newsletter-2013-march-
young_learners_playground-savic.pdf