Not Well Planned On Language Learning

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Po Ting Huen (12002212g)

Play Plan (2)

Lin Xinyu, Liby (12124599g)

Play Plan (3)

Leung Yan, Joyce (12024839g)

Stage History

Focus on the change of themes of the play in productions

(late 16th century) Early productions focused on the fantasy aspect of the play

(17th – 19th) Focus shifted to the power struggle between the authority (political), a colonial struggle with British authority

(19th – 20th) comedy, game with magic, madness & love (freedom approach)

Focus on the ways and methods used to shape the stage and depict the characters: the use of stilts and trapeze on stage, colourful costumes, use of silhouette and puppet to represent the Indian boy, the use of language to represent different status of characters.

No mention about the themes of productions

Focus on the failed aspects of past productions (too much stress on sexuality, ambiguity direction, the bad verse speaking.

No themes mentioned

Seems to find nothing good about the play but it is chosen to do!

Director’s Vision

Not mentioned the particular group of 2nd language Chinese students

Skip the racial, political & ideological issues (too challenging)

Eliminate dark content and unethical views or actions

* (the fantastic reality of the dreamlike fairy world) not agree that 13-18 would find it hard to identify the theme about the loss of one’s individual identity)

* too many new issues are brought in the same play: environmental protection, parenting style & struggle of parental authority

* lack of introducing about how the view of characterization

* how are the protagonists use monologue to clarify the theme of the play after each scene? Will this affect the fluency of the play and distract the flow of the story, in turn hinder audience’s understanding?

* A discussion before or after the play is better than one as an interlude as this would be difficult to handle according to the time constraint and may break the dynamic of the play

Target age group: 13-14

No main theme mentioned in the play plan.

Relate to the stage history to discuss about the ideas on costumes and construction of scenes, but mention about characterization

Discussed about the problems in the play (sexuality, violence and switch of scenes) with adequate solutions

Not mentioned the particular age group

Themes: on romantic young love, friendship and rectifying of errors in a comical way.

Omitting sexualities (problem) and use paralanguage

A clear description on characterisation

Tech & Design

Good: to cooperate with the other Department (say English) to help prepare costumes, but it will be difficult to monitor the progress, fitting and quality. It seems that the director has overlooked the function of the crew in the play or is there any crew team?

Good: to involve the other school clubs to help out in the play, but too many are involved will make the rehearsals and practice difficult to manage (magic club, dance club, juggling team, school choir) => seems to be not very realistic to implement

It is suggested to involve both the Chinese Orchestra and Western Orchestra to assist in producing background music and sound effect. However, can the stage accommodate so many different groups to perform at the same time? The kind of stage is not mentioned. Seems impossible to perform in school hall. But if it is done in a town hall, the cost will be risen.

Publicity hasn’t been mentioned and the budget is not realistic (when involving so that groups, more money will be spent on props, food, etc.)

A clever match of new play set (HK, 1930s) with the original set to show the similar arranged marriage background in both cases.

Good arrangement of props, costumes and make-up

Clever idea to use a "trailer" on Internet to publicise the play but neglect the issue of printing like posters, leaflet, etc. are they intentionally not to be included in publicity?

Budget is written in detail but the estimate cost of some items are not realistic (backdrop, hired projector, costumes, hired mikes, etc.) wonder if the production will be done in school hall, some of the items can be saved and in turn save money for the other items.

A good account of the physical setting but doesn’t mention about the type of stage.

A reasonable budget and well-planned publicity with the use of a blog.

A consideration of the use of music with the care of copyright

Language Learning

* too simple

Not mentioned about the duration of the training and rehearsal.

Not mentioned about the aims and objectives of the play

Not mentioned about what and how the cast and the crew learn during the whole process

Not mentioned about how the teacher-in-charge (director) assess the group constantly.

Not mentioned about how to arrange the practice for all the different groups so that a good performance can be guaranteed.

Not address about how to deal with problem of different abilities

A clear framework of the learning process is mentioned with the duration of training, the possible tasks and activities used and the proposed ways of assessments.

Fail to mention about the aims and objectives of the play and the training in different stages.

Good to consider the safety of the stage.

Propose to involve subject teachers to teach the background of the play, but the play does not involve all the students in classes

Shouldn’t leave the language learning task to the subject teachers.

* not mentioned about how to train the cast with dramatic skills

No aims and objectives are mentioned

Not mentioned about the no. of students involved

The assessment methods and criteria are mentioned but the there is no clear framework about the training and learning.

Comments

It seems to be a big project to do involving the whole school. If it is a production for the school anniversary or special function, it is reasonable to involve the whole school to participate in it. But as the educational concern, can the whole group be benefited from the "once and only one" performance in language learning and dramatic skills. Since too many students from different clubs are involved, it is doubted that the learning of the actual drama group may somehow be hindered or sacrificed to the coordination of different groups in the practice stage.

Lack of consideration about how to involve both cast and crew in the play production

No mention of using music but music can be a valuable way to construct the atmosphere of dream.

"Chi-pao" is mentioned to be the costumes of the actresses. But what about the actors and fairies?

Not well-planned on language learning

Lack of detailed consideration of the involvement of the subject teachers and the scale of students involved

The language learning part is too general

Setting a theme for a play is very important. It will affect teaching and learning. A good theme can lead to a meaningful discussion among learners and help them link the issue with their own world.

At the planning stage, it is unrealistic to decide what music will be used. But if it will be used, it is necessary to mention it in the plan as this will affect the estimation of production cost.

It is important to mention about the number of cast and crew involved in then play plan so that

It is important to include the aims and objectives of the play to give directions on the training and learning.

It is a good practice to involve the other expert teachers and students from school clubs to help out but if their number is outweighed than the number of students in the drama group, it will affect the learning of the students in the drama group. The teacher-in-charge needs to keep a balance between the learning needs of his/her students and the coordination with the other parties.

Play Plan (2)

Poon Chi Keung Eddie (12025972g)

Play Plan (3)

Wu Tianling (12124539g)

Stage History

Link the recent productions (in the 20th century) with the use of play in education to show the importance of the play on both stage and education. => fail to mention the theme in the play plan after the discussion

Discuss different themes, like family love, power, religion and war, employed in various productions in the past

Director’s Vision

No effort is tried on the director’s vision

No mention about the age group of students, the characterization and problems in the play

Theme: family relationship

No characterization

Wrong focus on problem (conflicts between teenager and parent, gender issue)

Tech & Design

A very tailed description about how to make the backdrop and decorate the stage, but the time period chosen to use in the play hasn’t been mentioned explicitely

Good to attach useful documents, like letter to parents, actor contract and safety regulation

The budget for costumes ($1500) is not realistic considered the types of clothes and the no. of cast.

It is innovative to ask students to compose their music/songs, but wonder if it is applicable as no other support is mentioned to help achieve the task and the time constraint may not allow this to happen.

The choice of time period is an ordinary contemporary family but it will be incompatible with the events like disapproval of burial of a relative. Sth should be cut from the original script but it is not mentioned in the play plan.

The set design is carefully described. The 4 scenes of the play will be set on stage at the same time, but this will confine the acting area in each scene. Blocking and viewing problems may be caused.

The director only describes the general criteria for choosing costumes only, but does not provide pictures of costumes to help visualize them.

The plan fails to give any details about the estimated budget on different proposed items.

Language Learning

A rather clear framework about the training but fail to start with the aims/ objectives of the training and the production.

However, the director emphasizes mainly the learning on writing and speaking skills, but reduce the value of dramatic techniques => a balance should be made

Lack of vision in assessing continually during the process.

Fail to consider ability level

No details about aims/objectives of the training.

No framework about the training and rehearsal of the production.

No idea about how to execute the training

No mention about how the cast and crew are trained separately

No rationale given to support the different ways to assess the cast (Q n A) and the crew (written feedback)

Comments

The plan is a bit mess with too many sub-items put in an incoherent way\

Missing of useful and important information that it is difficult to visualize the outcome of the play

Rough and careless play plan

Setting a theme for a play is very important. It will affect teaching and learning. A good theme can lead to a meaningful discussion among learners and help them link the issue with their own world.

At the planning stage, it is unrealistic to decide what music will be used. But if it will be used, it is necessary to mention it in the plan as this will affect the estimation of production cost.

It is important to mention about the number of cast and crew involved in then play plan so that

It is important to include the aims and objectives of the play to give directions on the training and learning.

It is a good practice to involve the other expert teachers and students from school clubs to help out but if their number is outweighed than the number of students in the drama group, it will affect the learning of the students in the drama group. The teacher-in-charge needs to keep a balance between the learning needs of his/her students and the coordination with the other parties.