TASK 4: CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF STAGE PERFORMANCE (30%)

As future primary English language teachers, teacher trainees are expected to have better

understanding of drama or play and develop various skills in integrating drama in the ESL

classroom. Have you ever heard about integrating rhyme, songs or poems during the

lesson? If yes is the answer, you should probably know about drama in education as well as

it is just like integrating language arts in the teaching and learning process in order to make

the lesson more efficient and interesting. Hence, the focus of the learning process is to offer

the pupils the chances to play and act out natural, having creative interactions as well as

developing the imagination skill in themselves (Moovendhan and Baskaran, 2012) through

drama itself. Thus, through the coursework tasks for ‘Drama’ subject (TSLB3233), I could

gain new experiences that would be very beneficial and useful in facing the real life

situations.

Based on the previous task (Task 3), we had to create necessary props as well as

costumes regarding Aladdin’s drama in group of five based on the chosen adapted Aladdin’s

script version. Before performing this drama, the first thing that I should concern was the

background of the drama itself. Hence, background research is the most crucial step in

drama making. As we were going to perform on Aladdin’s musical play, it was not the same

like any other drama as the features of musical drama are different from tragedy or comedy

drama. According to Kendrick and Roesner (2011), the combination of virtualisation of visual

or gestural elements, dematerialisation and miniaturisation tied the knot between sound and

image that led to the musical theatre (as cited in Megarrity, 2015).

Thus, in performing Aladdin, we knew that the elements of music and dance were a

must in order to grab the attention of the audiences and to make the performance more

interesting. Besides, in terms of props and costumes, we had to do research on Aladdin’s

drama as well regarding the setting and characters in Aladdin. For example, Aladdin’s

costume should not be too fancy at first as he just a poor guy who became a thief at the
marketplace. Another example was the props used should depict the Middle-Eastern culture

like the use of harem pants.

By integrating drama in education, the learning took place through doing and

experience, pupils’ personal development could be developed as well throughout the

process (Isyar and Akay, 2017). The personal development includes soft skill and life-long

learning skill. During props preparation, I learnt on how to be more tolerate and try to accept

other members’ opinion. According to Elston (2014), teachers should encourage thinking

and tolerance as the main priority in the classroom. In my point of view, through the group

work itself, we could learn on how to handle the tolerance issue just like the experience that I

gained in doing the dramatization. As we had to work in group, being an egocentric is a big

no-no as we had to learn on how to accept other people’s idea. After discussing on who’s

adapted script is suitable to be used in the performance, all of my group members could be

tolerate enough by accepting every member’s idea and rejecting some unrealistic ideas in a

polite manner.

Furthermore, other than tolerance, I learnt on how to be creative in producing the

props for the performance. As my group was assigned to perform on the rising action of

Aladdin’s drama, where Aladdin, the hero was brought by an old man to a cave named Cave

of Wonder and he entered a golden chamber, the props resembled all those settings had to

be produced in order to aid our group performance. Hart (2010) stated that there are several

types of prop like hand props, set props, personal props and so on. During props

preparation, we managed to create the Cave of Wonder as the set prop by using recycle

boxes, aluminium foil and black shoe polish meanwhile for the hand props like magic lamp

and golden treasure box, we sprayed them with golden spray can so that it did look like

golden treasure. For the costumes, we decided to create our own costume by ourselves. For

instance, as I was the magic carpet in Aladdin’s dramatization, the carpet’s tassels were

created in order to aid my performance other than wearing ‘baju kelawar’ to make myself

looked more like a rectangle carpet.

 Being the magic carpet, my expression was the most important aspect to be

concerned as I had no dialogue like Aladdin, Jafar and Genie. Other casts had to vary their

intonations while I had to show various expressions and gestures while acting so that it could

attract the audience’s attention during the dramatization. Nishikawa (2017) stated that

mental activities, verbal and body language are part of communication. He also said a lot of

physical movements of expressions were used in a drama. It proves that verbal is not the

only medium that actors could use in dramatise a play, in fact body gestures and face

expressions help the characters a lot in expressing feelings or scenes like sad, angry,

shocked and so on. Thus, by acting as a magic carpet, it taught me on how to express my

emotion by using my whole body. For instance, the first time Aladdin found the magic carpet

in the golden chamber, I had to put a little effort by showing a timid face together with the

curled body so that the audience would not that I was scared at that time.

Besides, a strong relationship between group members lead to a good outcome.

According to (Ustundag, 1997), one of the advantages of using drama as a form of learning,

it would initiate the interpersonal relationships among group members and also between

classmates. A day before the dramatization, we managed to do a full rehearsal on Aladdin’s

performance together with other group members in the Telttrac Hall. Then, through this

stage, the flow of the performance became clearer. After getting feedbacks from my other

classmates, our group members discussed once again on how to improve our performance

especially on the choreography of the ‘Friend Like Me’ song and had a full practice at night.

However, life is not all rainbows and sunshine, there are times where storms strike

when during the performance, it did not go well as I expected especially during the ‘Friend

Like Me’ song as not all of us sang the song. It might be because of the problem in

memorising the lyric or we did not practice much on that part. During the real dramatization,

the laughter and applauses that we got boosted me up and had encouraged me to stay

happy acting as the magic carpet.

 In conclusion, those were the experiences that I could gain during props preparation

and performing the Aladdin’s drama. In fact, it brought me to my previous experience of the

‘Pansor’ dramatization during my foundation year. Even there were few differences between

dramatizing ‘Aladdin’ and ‘Pansor’ like during ‘Pansor’, we had no idea about the stage

direction and in need of lecturer’s full guidance, meanwhile the prior experiences that we

gained through ‘Pansor’ were applied in Aladdin’s performance. In short, by integrating

drama in education, it really helps the learners to gain new experiences especially on the

developing the personal and emotional development, learning on how to be tolerance and

the establishment of the interpersonal relationships. All those experiences would help us to

survive in the future.

REFERENCES

Elston, A. D. (2014). Teaching tolerance in language arts for student awareness in middle

schools (Doctoral thesis, University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio). Retrieved from

https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?

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Hart, E. (2010). Categories of props. Retrieved from http://www.props.eric-

hart.com/features/categories-of-props/

Isyar, O. O., & Akay, C. (2017). The use of “Drama in Education” in primary schools from the

viewpoint of the classroom teachers: A mixed method research. Journal of Education

and Practice, 8(8).

Megarrity, D. (2015). Musicalising theatre, theatricalising music: Writing and performing

intermediality in Composed Theatre (Doctoral thesis, University of Technology).

Retrieved from https://eprints.qut.edu.au/88953/1/David_Megarrity_Thesis.pdf

Moovendhan, M., & Baskaran, G. (2012). Teaching English through drama. Proceedings of

the International Conference on professional English. Tamil Nadu, India: Vel Tech Dr.

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Nishikawa, Y. (2017). The roles of Drama in English Teaching: Applications and effects of

“Stage Directions” in Neil Simon’s plays. Retrieved from

https://www.soka.ac.jp/files/ja/20170420_215041.pdf
Ustundag, T. (1997). The advantages of using drama as a method of education in

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