How Does Blogs Help?

How does blog contribute to your reflection on your study or learning in this course? That was also one of the questions that the interviewer, Mr. Too Wei Keong asked me regarding blogs in learning. In my opinion, it helps a great deal in helping students’ to reflect on their learning process.

The main reason of why blog helps students to reflect on their study is because of the academic purpose of its creation – to be treated as a journal, where students write and comment on what they have learnt in the lectures or tutorials. Inevitably, this will lead students to reflect on what they had been taught. In other words, it also helps in improving students’ reflective skills.

Besides that, students can also refer to the blogs of their course mates to know or recall back what they had missed in the lectures due to some reasons, such as absent, lack of attention and slip of memory.

Last but not the least, blog provides a conducive, stress-free environment, where students can freely express their thoughts and doubts that they are too shy or fear to voice out in the lectures. Thus, it may also serves as a forum to discuss about what they had learnt, as students comment on the blogs of their course mates.

In conclusion, blogs are very useful in the learning process. Besides helping students to reflect on their learning process, students become more motivated when they had a clearer picture on what they are learning, as well as the use of the knowledge they had learnt. Once they understand that what they are learning will be useful in the future, they will become more inquisitive, hardworking and attentive in the lectures and tutorials.

Analyzing Sophocles’ Portrayal of Characters in "Oedipus Rex"

Last week, I had been busy doing the Assignment 2 of EDU 3217 – analyse the treatment of a theme or portrayal of characters in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex or Kee Thuan Chye’s The Swordfish, Then the Concubine. For the assignment, I chose to analyse Sophocles’ Sophocles’ Portrayal of Characters in Oedipus Rex through Labels and Labeling. Thus, in this blog post, I will be sharing some of the findings in my analysis.

Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities and have them relate to other characters living with him.

~ Mel Brooks, an American writer

Sophocles uses three types of labeling to portray his characters in Oedipus Rex. Each type of labeling has its way and function in characterization.

1. Labeling done by the playwright through giving names, which carry meanings that describe a character’s most important traits. Its purpose is to tell the audience and readers which traits to concentrate on, as well as create dramatic irony.

Example 1: The name of the antagonist, Oedipus has ambiguity in meaning. The word Oida means “to know” that is derived from the root vid-, which means “see”. This is referring to Oedipus’ contrasting traits that deal with his ability of having eyesight and insight. It also hints on Oedipus’ inquisitive nature (to know about who the murderer of King Laius is) that will serves as his tragic flaw (harmatia). In Greek, Oedipus also means “swollen foot” and “clubfoot”, which are the most important physical trait of Oedipus that symbolizes his irreversible fate (moira) in the play.

Example 2: Teiresias’ name is defined as “one who cries the signs of the heavens” in Greek, that tell us his role as a wise, skillful seer in the play, as well as mystery or truth revealer to the readers or audience.

Example 3: the name of Creon is a male name that is defined as “prince” in Greek (as opposed to Creusa that is defined in Greek as “princess”). The status of the Creon as a prince is the most important information about Creon, for it tells the audience or readers that he will be the next king-to-be after Oedipus. Thus, this explains why he is suspected to steal Oedipus’ throne, as well as foreshadows he will be the next ruler after Oedipus’ downfall, which is bound to come in the tragedy that entails reversal of fortune. (Sources: Answers.com and Mybaby-name.com)

2. Labeling done by other characters (epithets) to describe the characters through other characters’ point of views. Its function is to fill the audience and readers with more information (e.g. background information (identities, status and roles), past deeds and attributes), so that they have a clearer picture about the characters, which will helps a great deal in understanding and analysing the character. However, the description may not necessarily be reliable and misleading, for it may be originated from the labelers’ wrong perception, bias, jealousy and ignorance.

Example: Creon is introduced by Oedipus, as “Son of Menoikeus, brother of the Queen” (In Prologue, page 1386, line 72), which portrays his identity and his relationship with other characters.

3. Labeling done by the analysed characters to portray his characters in an implicit way, by providing the access to the characters’ mind. Its function is to provide opportunity, freedom and space to the audience and readers to think and analyse the traits of the characters.

Example: Through Oedipus’ labeling on others, we know about his disrespect to other people. He disrespects his own wife when he calls her “woman” in Scene II (page 1400, line 125). He also shows his disrespect to the blind and the elderly, when he mocks at Teiresias – “child of endless night” (line 150) and “sightless, witless, senseless, mad old man” (line 153) (Scene I, page 1394).

Unlike short stories that have narrators who can describe the characters, a play needs to find a way to do this within a short period of time. Hence, labeling is chosen for being the most creative, natural, time-saving and thought-provoking way to define and describe a character.

Words have meaning and names have power.

~ Author unknown

Similar Lesson, Different Method

If I were given a second chance to conduct the same lesson, will I deliver the same activity? My answer to that question will be “No”, simply because we should work for the better. There is no such thing as a perfect activity. In fact, there will always be some flaws detected in the particular activity.

In my case, if I were given a second chance to conduct the same lesson, I will vary my activities to make my lesson more interesting. Instead of just worksheets, I can use games to capture students’ interest to my lesson. Similarly, besides individual activity, I can plan for pair or group activities. Teaching is an art, repeating the same activity or routine merely reflects non-creativity.

As for questions or doubts in simulated teaching, I had none as both lecturer and tutor had explained clearly about what to do and what not to do before we start simulated teaching. Moreover, both of them were there if we need to make any enquiries or need any assistance from them.

My Strengths and Weaknesses in Simulated Teaching

On the 13th of April 2009, I had presented a simulated teaching in front of twenty course mates, who acted as my Form Four students. Similar to other course mates, after I had done my simulated teaching, I had to listen to Miss Kasthoori’s comment about my teaching. Thanks to her, I get a clearer picture about my strengths and weaknesses in teaching after listening to her comment.

First of all, I will start off with something positive – my strengths. My good point in teaching is clarity, regardless in the aspect of voice or explanation. Due to my loud voice, I faced no problem in voice projection and students could hear what I say clearly. In set induction, I had explained most of the terms that needed to deal with in the lesson, such as tragedy, reversal of fortune, labels and characteristics. Hence, students understood the concept and were able to achieve the objective of the lesson, which is to analyse the development of Oedipus’ characteristics from earlier scene to later scene through labels.

As for my weaknesses, they are poor time management and over-ambitious. In order to let students to have a clear picture on what they were doing, I used lots of time to explain the terms and concepts in set induction. As a result, my set induction was too long. Besides, many of my course mates were teaching how to analyse the characteristics through adjectives, I decided not to repeat the same activities again. However, according to the tutor’s comment, analysing characteristics through labels was rather too heavy for the students.

In conclusion, the simulated teaching makes me realise that I need to improve my teaching skills by managing my time well. I should discard some of the redundant explanation for it will be too time-consuming. As for activities, I should plan it according to the students' ability. In other words, the only remedy of my weaknesses is to understand students' level of proficiency and understanding.

Simulated Teaching and Real Life Teaching - Same or Different?

After performing simulated teaching, I find that it is a good experience to future teachers. Why would I say so? Undeniably, simulated teaching creates a training ground to future teachers to practice whatever they had learnt (especially teaching methodologies), before they are sent to teach in real life situation. However, is simulated teaching similar to real life teaching?

To begin with, let us look at the similarities between simulated teaching and real life teaching. The first similarity will be the emphasis on dress code as a teacher. The next similarity is teacher always ask questions, such as “Do you understand?” or “Any questions?” to check on students’ understanding. Moreover, in set induction, teachers will relate students’ experience to the story. The purpose of doing this is to initiate students’ interest in the lesson, to give a better understanding to the students, and to activate the appropriate network of schemata in reading the story. As for post-reading or closure, teachers will sum up the lesson and also discuss about the message or moral value that can be found in the story.

Next, we shall look at the differences between simulated teaching and real life teaching. First of all, simulated teaching is more complicated than teaching in real life, especially in preparation stage. In simulated teaching, teachers have to create their own worksheets and decide what to teach. On the contrary, in real life teaching, teachers do not have much time to do all this, for they have many paper works to do in the school. Moreover, there are many workbooks that provide good worksheets to their students. They also do not need to crack their heads thinking what to teach, for their teachings are bounded by the syllabus and modules, which are created by the Ministry of Education.

Nonetheless, teachers in simulated teaching can have a better class control as compared to teachers in real life teaching. This is because the students of simulated teaching are their course mates, who are usually more cooperative. In other words, teacher in simulated teaching face students that have no discipline problems.

Moreover, both teachers and students in the school are spoon-fed in their teaching and learning. Just as I had pointed out earlier, school teachers do less work in preparation because teaching materials are mostly provided by the Ministry of Education, or they can also find good workbooks in the book stores. As for students, there are more rote-learning or passive learning in their teaching process, but less self-discovery involves. The main reason is our education system, which is academic-based. Teachers have to rush the lesson to complete the syllabus that is given to them. Consequently, students are not given enough time to analyse and understand the text thoroughly. More often than not, drill-and-practice method is much favoured. In other words, teachers focus on how to make students answer questions accurately, instead of teaching them how to derive the answer. The result (how many A’s) is emphasis, not the process (development of thinking skills). Thus, activities such as analysing the linguistic feature or literary elements in the text are rarely found in schools.

Although both simulated teaching and real life teaching have similarities and differences between them, simulated teaching is undeniably a good initiative for future teachers to practice their teaching.

My Simulated Teaching (Continue) – Pre, While and Post

In pre-reading stage, I asked students to highlight the labels that describe Oedipus in the extract.

For while-reading stage, in the first activity, students were asked to complete the tables, using the labels that they have highlighted in pre-reading. In the tables, they had to state whether the labels are positively, neutrally or negatively connotated, by using (+), (#) and (-) signs respectively. Besides that, they had to find adjectives that describe the labels. For Table A, they also needed to seek for the antonyms of the adjectives as well.

In the second while-reading activity, students had to describe the development of Oedipus’ characteristics, by using the information from Table A and Table B. Since it was a harder task, I gave further explanation to assist students to complete the task.

Lastly, in post-reading stage, I asked students to think whether reversal of fortune in Oedipus’ life causes reversal of his characteristics. Students had to write an essay to state their opinions without exceeding 120 words.

In conclusion, the objective of my lesson is to analyze the development of Oedipus’ characteristics from earlier scene to later scene through labels.

My Simulated Teaching – Set Induction

Analyzing Characters' Traits Through Labels

On the 13th of March, 2009 (Friday), I had done my simulated teaching on Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex”. In this post, I am going to explain the activity of my set induction in detail, whilst pre-reading and while-reading stage will be explained in the following post. For set induction, I used a series of PowerPoint slides.

First, I taught about the reversal of fortune. In Slide 1, I showed a picture of a Greek theatre and asked students to identify what the picture represented. Then, I briefly explained about Greek drama that is famous for its tragedy and reversal of fortune.

Secondly, I further reinforced the concept about reversal of fortune. In Slide 2, I showed two pictures, which portrayed a king and the same king who loses his throne. I told a story about the downfall of the king.

Thirdly, I introduced the term “characteristics”. After listening to the story, students were asked to give description (characteristics) about the character based on the pictures given. I discussed the characteristics with the students. Next, students were required to compare and contrast the discussed characteristics. I pointed out that the characteristics changed completely after the character’s life has changed completely too. Thus, in Slide 3, I asked students to think whether reversal of fortune will cause reversal of characteristics.

Next, I introduced the role of labels in portrayal of characters. In Slide 4, I briefly explained the term “label”, as well as the function and importance of label in analyzing character’s traits. In Slide 5, I showed the two pictures that display the character again and asked students to think how they would address both characters. I pointed out that both labels and characteristics change due to reversal of fortune.

To conclude the set induction, I introduced the play that I wanted to teach in Slide 6, which is Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, as well as the objective of the lesson, which is to analyze the development of Oedipus’ characteristics from earlier scene to later scene through labels.

The questions I had asked to the students in set induction are stated as below: Look at the picture, what can you see?

1. What is Greek drama famous for?
   
2. After listening to the story, do you wish to have that reversal of fortune? Will you remain the same as you are once you have it? If no, how would you change?
   
3. Based on the picture, what are the adjectives that can describe Henry, before and after he lost his throne?
   
4. In your opinion, does reversal of fortune cause reversal of characteristics?
   
5. Look at the picture again, how would you address Henry, before and after he lost his throne?