Lga 3104

LGA3104 PLAYS AND DRAMA FOR YOUNG LEARNERS

INTRODUCTION

Drama and plays are useful in language learning for young learners. As for

young learners acquires language unconsciously. They offer children world of supported

meaning that they can relate to.

Pupils enjoy drama and play much, rather than sitting all day long in a dull

classroom. They like to move around and yet having hands on activity. Learning through

drama gives much impact to the pupils in the developing of their language and also the

aesthetic values of the drama itself. This is in line with Piaget (1962)” Dramatic play

permits children to fit the reality of the world into their own interests and knowledge.

One of the purest forms of symbolic thought available to young children, dramatic play

contributes strongly to the intellectual development of children.

Drama provides opportunities for multi-sensory, kinaesthetic responses to stories

and engages children in ‘learning by doing’ at a number of different levels. At a basic

level, through listening and responding to storytelling and doing short, introductory

drama activities, children use mime, sounds, gestures and imitation to show their

understanding and to make connections between language and corporal expression.

This helps young children associate actions, words and meanings and memorize key

language in a natural and enjoyable way.

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TASK 1

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THE STORY

Once there lived an ant and a grasshopper in a grassy meadow.

All day long the ant would work hard, collecting grains of wheat from the farmer's field

far away. She would hurry to the field every morning, as soon as it was light enough to

see by, and toil back with a heavy grain of wheat balanced on her head. She would put

the grain of wheat carefully away in her larder, and then hurry back to the field for

another one. All day long she would work, without stop or rest, scurrying back and forth

from the field, collecting the grains of wheat and storing them carefully in her larder.

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The grasshopper would look at her and laugh. 'Why do you work so hard, dear ant?' he

would say. 'Come, rest awhile, and listen to my song. Summer is here, the days are

long and bright. Why waste the sunshine in labour and toil?'

The ant would ignore him, and head bent, would just hurry to the field a little faster. This

would make the grasshopper laugh even louder. 'What a silly little ant you are!' he

would call after her. 'Come, come and dance with me! Forget about work! Enjoy the

summer! Live a little!' And the grasshopper would hop away across the meadow,

singing and dancing merrily.

Summer faded into autumn, and autumn turned into winter. The sun was hardly seen,

and the days were short and grey, the nights long and dark. It became freezing cold,

and snow began to fall.

The grasshopper didn't feel like singing any more. He was cold and hungry. He had

nowhere to shelter from the snow, and nothing to eat. The meadow and the farmer's

field were covered in snow, and there was no food to be had. 'Oh what shall I do?

Where shall I go?' wailed the grasshopper. Suddenly he remembered the ant. 'Ah - I

shall go to the ant and ask her for food and shelter!' declared the grasshopper, perking

up. So off he went to the ant's house and knocked at her door. 'Hello ant!' he cried

cheerfully. 'Here I am, to sing for you, as I warm myself by your fire, while you get me

some food from that larder of yours!'

The ant looked at the grasshopper and said, 'All summer long I worked hard while you

made fun of me, and sang and danced. You should have thought of winter then! Find

somewhere else to sing, grasshopper! There is no warmth or food for you here!' And the

ant shut the door in the grasshopper's face.

It is wise to worry about tomorrow today.

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THE SCRIPT

Characters:

Three storytellers,

three ants,

grasshopper,

owls,

squirrels and

bears.

(Stage Directions: the owls, squirrels and bears are in a large semicircle stage right;

storytellers are stage left and the ants are in the centre of the stage.)

Storyteller 1: One hot summer’s day …

Storyteller 2: … there were some ants working hard.

Storyteller 3: They were collecting food for the winter. (All the ants are miming digging,

pulling and pushing.)

Ant 1: I am so hot.

Ant 2: Me too!

Ant 3: This is very hard work.

Storyteller 1: They saw a grasshopper listening to some music on his iPod.

(Grasshopper passes by, singing and dancing; the ants stop work and look at him.)

Storyteller 2: He was dancing …

Storyteller 3: … and laughing and enjoying the lovely weather.

Grasshopper: Ants, you are so silly. You need to enjoy the sunshine.

(Ants start working again.)

Ant 1: We are working hard.

Ant 2: We want to have food for the winter. (Grasshopper keeps dancing.)

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Storyteller 1: The grasshopper continued enjoying himself. (The Ants keep working

and move stage right.)

Storyteller 2: Winter started to come and the weather got colder and colder.

Storyteller 3: The snow began to fall.

Storyteller 1: The grasshopper was cold and hungry. (Grasshopper rubs his stomach

and shivers. He looks at the owls who start to fly around the stage.)

Grasshopper: I am cold and hungry; perhaps my friends the owls will feed me. Owls!

Owls! Will you please feed me?

Owls: (Owls fly around the grasshopper and stop centre stage. They stand around the

grasshopper.) Twit Tuhooo! Oh no, we will not feed you. (They fly back to their place in

the semicircle.)

Grasshopper: Oh dear! I know, I will ask my friends the bears to feed me.

(Grasshopper walks towards the bears.) Bears! Bears! Please feed me. (Bears are

asleep so he wakes them up and they walk to the centre stage.)

Bears: (The bears are very angry that they have been woken up.) Growl! Growl! Oh no,

we will not feed you. (The bears go back to their place in the semicircle.)

Storyteller 1: Then the grasshopper saw some squirrels. (The squirrels mime eating

nuts stage right.)

Grasshopper: Squirrels! Squirrels! Please feed me! (They squirrels walk towards him.)

Squirrels: Oh no, we will not feed you. (They hop back to stage right.)

Storyteller 2: The grasshopper was very cold and hungry. He didn’t know what to do.

(Grasshopper is shivering and rubbing his stomach.)

Storyteller 3: Then he thought of the ants. (The ants move to the centre of the stage.)

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Grasshopper: Ants! Ants! Please feed me. (The ants go into a huddle away from the

grasshopper.)

Storyteller 1: The ants thought about it and decided to give him some food. (All the

ants face the grasshopper.)

Ant 1: You must promise that next year you will work hard in the summer.

(Grasshopper gets down on his hands and knees.)

Grasshopper: Oh thank you Ants, I promise.

Storyteller 1: That summer the grasshopper kept his promise and worked hard to

collect food for the next winter. (Grasshopper mimes pushing, pulling, carrying and

digging with all the ants.)

Storyteller 2: The lesson of the story is: fail to prepare …

Storyteller 3: …prepare to fail

THE END

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JUSTIFICATION OF THE SELECTION

For this task, I chose the World of Stories Theme based on animals. Through

this theme, children can see that the stories are often captivating as they are about

situations, real or imagined, featuring characters, calling out emotional responses from

their minds. Through stories a child is also helped to build a rich vocabulary which

enables them to articulate their thoughts and feelings more clearly.

Brown and Tomlinson, 1993 states that by using a quality stories, children are

exposed to rich vocabulary and excellent in writing styles, which serve as good models

for their own speaking and writing voices. In fact, the use of the World of Story in ESL

classroom may help the teacher to use it as powerful tools to help the children engage

with reading and also attract them in role play during their lesson.

“The Ant and The Grasshopper” is a very interesting and amusement story

indeed to be adapted into drama. The scene is mostly in the jungle and part of it in a

village area at the country side.This story fit my theme, world of stories. There are few

factors to be justified in selection of the stories to be adapted into drama. Learner level

is the most important criteria that must be considered . It is also an important

consideration in adapting the stories to be scripted and to be performed in such play. In

this stories, I found that it really suits the student’s level in terms of text difficulty and

also language complexity which are vocabulary and sentence structure.

The contents of this story suit the pupils’ interest. According to Nuttal(1982) The

students preferences should not be neglected and a survey of their tastes might help

the teacher quite a lot. Students’ interest is considered the first requirement that should

take into consideration. Young learners enjoy stories based on animals which they

could easily associate the content closely to their existing world knowledge, culture and

tradition. Children prefer stories that have many characters that they could enjoy and

imagine while reading it. They also prefer humorous stories and also stories on

enjoyable experiences.So, I feel that the story is very suitable to be performed as play.

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Stories can help young learners to improve their listening skills, pronunciation,

therefore potentially helping them to improve their speaking skills. Stories can also be

useful tools in the learning of vocabulary, sentences structure and sentence pattern or

in other words language acquisition. The content of this story is easy to understand

because the usage of repetition of sentence structures and also the writer use simple

words to deliver the story. Many stories contain natural repetition of key vocabulary.

This help children to remember every detail, so they can gradually learn to anticipate

what is about to happen next in the story.What makes this script particularly good for

young children is its simplicity. Moreover, the rhyming nature of each of lines, the

corresponding movements, and the repetitive nature of the entire script help readers

understand and remember their parts. For the same reasons, a script like this could also

work well with English Language Learners.

In storytelling and drama, the usual norms of time, place and identity are

temporarily suspended as, for example, in a story which spans a hundred years yet

takes three minutes to tell, or a drama activity which transforms the classroom into a

‘jungle’ and all the children in it to ‘hungry lions’. Storytelling and drama are above all

shared, communal classroom events which engage children’s interest, attention and

imagination and develop their language skills in a holistic way. They also appeal to

children with different intelligences and learning styles and provide a framework for

fostering social skills and attitudes, such as active listening, collaborating, turn taking

and respect for others, in a positive way.

Stories can be used for number of purposes and there are many reasons why

stories can be considered a valuable pedagogical tools. It can also develop pupils’ in

personal development, aesthetic development, cultural development , language learning

development and also the moral values. In this story of The Ant and The Grasshopper”

there is good moral value being elicit in the story. Besides, having fun performing the

stories the moral values should be conveyed to others as to share good values.

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As conclusion, stories yet drama are useful in language learning for young

learners. As foryoung learners acquires language unconsciously. They offer children

world of supported meaning that they can relate to.

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HOW DRAMA DEVELOP CHILDREN’S LANGUAGE AND

AESTHETIC VALUES

Pupils enjoy drama and play much, rather than sitting all day long in a dull

classroom. They like to move around and yet having hands on activity. Learning through

drama gives much impact to the pupils in the developing of their language and also the

aesthetic values of the drama itself. This is in line with Piaget (1962)” Dramatic play

permits children to fit the reality of the world into their own interests and knowledge.

One of the purest forms of symbolic thought available to young children, dramatic play

contributes strongly to the intellectual development of children.

For me, drama provides all the needs in the multiple intelligence sense. It opens

the opportunities for multi-sensory, musical kinesthetic, kinesthetic responses to stories

and it make children engages in learning unconsciously. They actually learn the

language without realizing it. At a basic level, through listening and responding to

storytelling and doing short, introductory drama activities, children use mime, sounds,

gestures and imitation to show their understanding and to make connections between

language and corporal expression. This helps young children to associate actions,

words and meanings and memorize the dialogue or the language naturally and

enjoyable.

The use of drama provides a focus and support for children to use some

language from the story in an independent way besides having fun and enjoyment.

Drama or play help to building up the confidence and self-esteem among the pupils.

Sometimes it provides the opportunities for children to go beyond the story and explore

the issues, problems or moral dilemmas that contains in it. This not only provides

opportunities for children to use language they know beyond the story script within a

clearly defined framework but also encourages them to develop critical and creative

thinking skills and to work with others in a collaborative way.

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In addition, drama helps to develop sense of appreciation of the art of other

people and others culture. As for example, the story I chose to fit the theme is taken

from the Bengali Folktale. It was a very rare story and the culture for the Malay

background pupils. But it typical story of animals attract the pupils to enjoy and having

fun with the story and the drama. So, implementing other culture is not a burden for the

pupils to understand or to be neglected, it is how teacher carries out the content of the

story. Another form of appreciation is respect toward someone or something valued. In

relationships this translates as care, concern, fair treatment and courtesy.

Participation in drama helps to develop children's imagination. Drama involves

pretending in a variety of situations. It helps children develop imagination, language

skills, cooperation and other social skills, confidence, and creative expression. It is also

important for children to use their imagination, partly because it allows them to

understand history, other cultures and other people. Teacher can also help them to

develop their imagination and creativity by making them think ‘outside the square’ when

solving problems or working together in a drama. According to Fromberg and Gullo

(1992), play enhances language development, social competence, creativity,

imagination, and thinking skills.

Most importantly, the pupils have the confidence to express their own thought

and feelings. They learn to express themselves through language. This helps children

articulate their personal feelings and thoughts to others. Besides that, they also need to

have empathy towards others. Empathy is an extension on building social awareness in

children. They learn to identify the feelings, ideas and attitudes of other people. During

activities in of drama classes, children have to put themselves in another’s shoes in

order to make decisions and solve problems. Thus helping them learn to be considerate

of others thoughts and feelings.

As a conclusion, drama can be a medium of language learning in a fun and

enjoyable way. It is the most effective and powerful way for young children to learn also

to develop all the aesthetic elements. Which are the building of children’s confidence in

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expressing their thoughts and feeling, developing imagination, appreciation of art of

other people and culture. Play and drama provides children with opportunities to engage

in concrete and meaningful activities that enhance physical, language, social, and

cognitive development.

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TASK 2

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COMMITTEE IN STAGE PERFORMANCE

STORY : THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE

DIRECTOR - CIK WAN NORHAYATI BT WAN ABDUL RAHMAN

SCRIPTWRITER - ALIATI KHAIRULNISYAK BT ISMAIL

PROPS - SITI HAZAR BT BADIR

- NORISKILA BT NASHA

- ROHANA BT MOHAMED

MAKE-UP ARTIST - ALIATI KHAIRULNISYAK BT ISMAIL

COSTUME - CIK WAN NORHAYATI BT WAN ABDUL RAHMAN

SOUNDMAN - NORFAIZAH BT MD NOR

BACKDROP - ZURAIDA BT ISA

CHARACTER :

NARRATOR - NORISKILA BT NASHA

HARE - ALIATI KHAIRULNISYAK ISMAIL

TORTOISE - ISMAIL B MOKHTAR

FOX - SITI HAZAR BT BADIR

EAGLE - NORFAIZAH BT MD NOR

BEAR - FARIDAH BT ABDULLAH

TIGER - ROHANA BT MOHAMED

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THE GROUP SCRIPT

The Hare and the Tortoise

Characters:

Storyteller,

Hare,

Tortoise,

Foxes,

Tiger,

Bear and

an eagle.

(Stage Directions: The three storytellers are on the left hand side of the stage and the tortoise is moving around the stage in slow motion.).

Storyteller: Once upon a time there lived a tortoise.

: He liked to go for a leisurely stroll by the edge of a big forest.

: One day a hare came bounding up towards him. (Hare comes running on the stage.)

Hare: (He pushes the tortoise out of the way and nearly knocks him over.) Out of my way you slow coach. You must be so bored because it takes you so long to get anywhere.

Storyteller: The tortoise looked up at the hare and said…

Tortoise: I know I could beat you in a race any day.

Hare: You beat me? Don’t make me laugh! I am so much faster than you. (He shows off his muscles and starts to run up and down.)

Storyteller: The hare laughed and laughed

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Storyteller: Then he met fox. (Fox enter the centre of the stage.)

Hare: Foxes, do you think that tortoise could beat me in a race?

Foxes: Oh, no he couldn’t. (Foxes shake their heads in disbelief.)

Tortoise: Oh yes, I could. (He nods his head.)

Storyteller: Then a tiger came to see what was happening. (tiger enter the centre of the stage.)

Hare: tiger, do you think that tortoise could beat me in a race?

Tiger: Oh yes, he could. (The tiger nod his heads.)

Hare: Oh no he couldn’t. (He shakes his head.)

Storyteller: The bear that were sleeping heard the noise and came trundling along. (Bear enter the centre stage by making bear noise and taking big loud steps.)

Bear: What’s going on here?

Hare: The silly tortoise thinks he can be beat me in a race. What do you think?

Bear: Oh yes, he could. (They shake their heads.)

Storyteller : The animals continued to argue about who would win the race. (All the animals start arguing with one another making lots of noise.)

Storyteller: Then, suddenly the eagle swooped down to where all the animals were. (Eagle comes flying gracefully on to the stage.)

Eagle: (Eagle uses a whistle to stop the noise.) What’s going on here?

Hare: The silly tortoise thinks he can beat me in a race. Do you think he could beat me?

Eagle: I don’t know but there is one way of finding out. Why don’t you have a race?

Everyone: What a great idea. (They all start cheering.)

Eagle: Right: Hare and Tortoise line up at the starting line. (The hare and the tortoise start limbering up and they get ready at the start line.) On your marks, get set, GO!

Storyteller: All the animals cheered at the side as the hare ran off very quickly and the tortoise just plodded along.

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Storyteller: After a while the hare stopped and said…

Hare: (He wipes his brow.) I’m already half way through so I think I will have a nap in the warm sunshine. (The hare starts to make himself comfortable, lies down and starts snoring.)

Storyteller: The hare fell fast asleep and the tortoise walked steadily on and on.

Storyteller: The hare woke up suddenly. (He starts to yawn and stretch.)

Hare: What a nice sleep. No sign of the tortoise so I better stroll along and finish the race.

Storyteller: The hare ran to the finish line.

Storyteller: Just as he got there he saw the tortoise crossing the line.

Storyteller: All the other animals were cheering and celebrating the tortoise’s victory. (All the other animals start to congratulate the tortoise. The hare stomps off in anger.)

Storyteller: The lesson of the story is …..

Tortoise: Slow and steady wins the race.

Everyone: (except the hare who is sulking) Hip, Hip, Hooray! Hip, Hip, Hooray, Hip, Hip, Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE END

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PROPS, COSTUMES PREPARATION AND REHEARSAL

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TASK 3

WRITTEN REFLECTION

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First and foremost, I would like to thank god for giving me the opportunity to

complete all the tasks contain inside LGA 3104 question assignment. Allow me to show

my greatest appreciation to my respected lecturer, Miss Nagamah A/P Rajusanthian .

The presence of her, in guiding me throughout the tasks had contributed a lot in helping

me completing my assignment. Her hard work in delivering lots of useful knowledge to

my friends and me in the class for this semester would never be in vain. I could say that

Miss Nagamah had put so much effort especially when it comes to her lecture hour. I

really love when it comes to her lecture. I find that she has her own way in delivering

knowledge because the way she demonstrates things to my friends and I is not the

same as other lecturers. Whenever she was giving her lecture, I will always have a pen

and a paper on my table just to jot down important key words that she suggested during

her 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.

Miss Nagamah did her part in explaining things that we do not understand and

commenting on our drafts of our assignments. I really appreciate all the positive and

negative comments that she 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, before we perform our play we had to undergo a

few preliminary process. 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 midst 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, each and 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. In the end we had

agreed upon, using my script, entitled ‘The Hare and the Tortoise’ 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 it’s 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.

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We had chosen ‘The Hare and the Tortoise’ script to be our group act mainly because,

it contain most of the important aspects that are required and listed for, what a good

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 ‘The Hare and the Tortoise’ is a good script, it still

require a few alteration. This minor changes is too 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 might be some scene that we need to adapt and change so that actors will be

more comfortable in performing. Since the original story is taken from an old folktale that

is originated from America, our targeted audience might not be aware of the culture

contain inside the original story, that is why we need to adapt it into our own Malaysian

culture so that they will feel more relatable towards the story and will develop

understandings towards the play. 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.

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 include the audience as much as possible

during our group play to make it more interactive and interesting and also to gain their

attention. The play went smoothly but there are still some problems we had

encountered while performing, mainly because of our own mistakes and slight problems

with the P.A system. We should have check it thoroughly before performing.

Nevertheless, we manage to complete the play magnificently

At the end of the day, I had gained so many inputs while completing this assignment. I

had learned many useful acting skills and how to plan and prepare a play and also

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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

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.

All in all, 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.

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Lga 3104

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Transcript of Lga 3104