BALI'S KECAK DANCE

Kecak (pronounced: /'ke.tʃak/, roughly "KEH-chahk", alternate spellings: Ketjak and Ketjack), a form of Balinese music drama, originated in the 1930s and is performed primarily by men. Also known as the Ramayana Monkey Chant, the piece, performed by a circle of 100 or more performers wearing checked cloth around their waists, percussively chanting "cak" and throwing up their arms, depicts a battle from the Ramayana where the monkey-like Vanara helped Prince Rama fight the evil King Ravana. However, Kecak has roots in sanghyang, a trance-inducing exorcism dance.[1]Kecak was originally a trance ritual accompanied by male chorus. German painter and musician Walter Spies became deeply interested in the ritual while living in Bali in the 1930s and worked to recreate it into a drama, based on the Hindu Ramayana and including dance, intended to be presented to Western tourist audiences. This transformation is an example of what James Clifford describes as part of the "modern art-culture system"[2] in which, "the West or the central power adopts, transforms, and consumes non-Western or peripheral cultural elements, while making 'art' which was once embedded in the culture as a while, into a separate entity."[3] Spies worked with Wayan Limbak and Limbak popularized the dance by traveling throughout the world with Balinese performance groups. These travels have helped to make the Kecak famous throughout the world.

Task 3: Lesson Plan

Let’s Go Holiday!

Level : Form 1

Time : 30 Minutes

Aims : To practice extraction of information from the website

Technical requirements
Computers that fully equip with internet connection and internet browser for students’ usage


Website/s
http://travel.yahoo.com/


Preparation

1. Locate sites available for travelling/holiday
2. Using the information from the sites, prepare a worksheet


Procedure

1. Ask students about beaches and interesting places in Malaysia. Ask them whether they have been to abroad or other interesting places outside Malaysia (such as Mexico or US).
2. Give the worksheet prepared. Ask them to browse into the given website and ask them to complete the worksheet.
3. Students are given time to extract the information from the website and ask teacher if they experience any difficulty while completing the task.
4. When all the students have finished, discuss the answers by asking the students to present what they have collected from the website.
5. From the information, ask students to write about their dream holiday in a paragraph.

TASK 2: ESL WEBSITE EVALUATION

1.What does the application attempt to “teach”?

The website that has been chosen by me is Aadvark’s English Forum. Aardvark’s English Forum attempts to “teach” English and can be considered as a resource centre for teachers and students of English as a Second Language classes. This is because the website provides a lot of interactive English language exercises, online dictionaries and online reference books. In addition, this website also functions as a centre for discussion for ESL students and teachers. This is because Aardvark’s English Forum also provides “message board” for both teachers and students.

2. What sorts of things is the application users expected to do with regards to learning the content?

For this particular website, users are expected to browse through the links provided in the forum to find the suitable resources. This website requires minimal skills in browsing through a website because it generally uses “basic” features of a website and the links which connect the main page to the content is easy to reach. I would say that the most useful part of this page is the exercise content where users can do the exercises featured in the “Exercises” section. In this section, users can choose the level of the questions and the score and answers are given straight away after completing the exercise. Other than that, related notes are also included, which provide more help in students to learn and discover their weaknesses. Another useful feature in this “Exercise” section is the link to Cambridge dictionary. Users can use this link in this section anytime if there are any words in the exercise they don’t understand.

3. What sorts of computer skills is the application users expected to have in order to operate/access/use the application?

From my point of view, the website does not require any specific computer skills from teachers or students to be able to operate access or use the application. Basically, it is a simple and basic interactive website application which only requires minimal skills from its users. Anybody with the basic knowledge and skills of browsing the internet will be able to benefit from the website. In short, the users only need to click the link provided in the website.

4. While you are “playing”/”accessing”/”assessing” the application, does it remind you of anything you do in classroom, or with a teacher, with a fellow classmate or in self-study?

When I browsed through the website, I felt that it doesn’t remind much of anything that students usually do in classrooms except for the direct feedback given in the exercise section where the scores and the answers are given straight away when the exercise is completed. Another advantage is the related notes given when exercises are done. However, it still cannot be compared to the effectiveness of having a real-life teacher roaming around the class to assist students when having difficulties in accomplishing a task.

5. Can you pinpoint some theories of language learning and/or teaching underlying the application?

There are a few learning theories that could be associated with the website, one of them is the Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory. Howard Gardner proposed seven multiple intelligence, learning through this website will help students to develop two of the multiple intelligence (Linguistic Intelligence and Logical-Mathematical Intelligence). Linguistic Intelligence is the most significant area of development since the whole website is based on language-learning content. Students need to have the required level of knowledge and understanding of English language before they can successfully gain the benefits from the website. This is because, in order for them to browse through the content of the website by clicking on the links, they need to understand what does the word on the link means. The activity of clicking on links and solving the problems of finding out which link brings them to which content brings them to the development of the next intelligence which is the Logical-Mathematical Intelligence. Logical-Mathematical Intelligence involves students’ ability to solve mathematical or scientific problems, though the problem solving in this website is not so scientific or mathematical, it is the best students can get from it since this is a language-learning based website.

Another theory that could be associated with the website is the Social Constructivism Theory. This is because principles of constructivism support the use of computers in second language learning classrooms. Aadvark’s English Forum provides a context for collaboration and social interaction in which learners will construct the knowledge of the target language by being engaged in meaningful activities provided.

6. How well is the constructivist theory of learning applied to the chosen website (s)?

Constructivism Theory believes that a learner should initiate and direct their own learning with the help of facilitators and adequate resources. So, in my opinion, this match perfectly with the way this website should be used. The self-directed learning environment has been established by the website for students. Teachers on the other hand could act as facilitators because the website already provided all the exercises and also feedbacks.

7. In 1980s and early 1990s, there was a major debate on ‘whether the computer was “master” of or “slave” to the learning process (Higgins and Johns, 1984). In relation to your evaluation, was the computer a replacement for teachers, or merely an obedient servant to students?

Referring to the arguments on whether the computer is a ‘master’ or a ‘servant’ in the education process, I would say that computer is a “slave” to the learning process. In my humble opinion, computers are a great tool of teaching but it can never be able to replace teachers. Even if one day, we are able to come out with a computerized robot which looks exactly like a human being and can function like a real-life teacher, it is still far away from defeating a real-life teacher in terms of the relationship between teacher and students. Using this website as an example, the computer (which is represented by the website), could both acts as a replacement for teachers, as well as an obedient servant for students. However, the computer (website) does it works well as a servant than a master (teacher). This is because a teacher needs to be aware of a lot of things, especially regarding their students. A teacher knows their students inside-out, motivates and chooses the best way of learning to cater for different students with different learning personality. These human factors ensures that computers can never replace teachers as masters in the teaching and learning process, however computers did a good job as a servant, in the process.

8. Would you like to use the application yourself in your future work?
Yes? Give responds :
No? Give responds :

Aadvark’s English Forum is a very good website for English language learning. I would definitely take this website as an option to be added to the lists of my teaching aids. This is because this website can provide good resources for both teachers and students. There are a lot of things which can be done by using this website as a teaching aid and it can help students to familiarize themselves with the resources from the internet. I think that this website can be a good teaching aid for teachers and excellent studying material for students. However, the usage of this website as a studying material by students still needs guide from teachers because I think it was not specifically designed for students’ self-access. It lacks the interactivity for it to be fully functioning, self-accessed studying material.

9. Suggestions/Recommendations

I would personally recommend the developers of this website to add more differences between the students and teachers section. Currently, there is not much difference between the sections for teachers and students, and students might be lost when browsing through the sections. The exercise section can be further improved by giving immediate feedback after students answer each question. The result which came up after the exercise is done can be improved by providing more details such as the time students took when answering the questions and the number of wrong attempts in getting the right answer. This can provide teachers and students the chance to find out where their weaknesses more specifically and they can work harder on it.

Click here: www.englishforum.com

This is one of the exercise that have been created using microsoft word in orrder for students to learn how to highlight and under words.

Blogging Begins....

Finally after all the "hardwork", i finally got through and start my own blog...never thought it is this simple....no wonder everybody have their own blog these days....

So, i guess in-class task 1 is done...right Dr. Izaham?