Pre & While Reading

I decided to focus on the element of characters and personality traits of as for the pre and while reading tasks in simulated teaching. My main objective was to get my students to identify the personality traits of the characters given in the extract. The extract I chose was a conversation between the two main characters of the play Dance like a Man, Jairaj and Ratna, in order to show the state of relationship between them and also to identify the personality traits of both the characters based on the extract.

As I expected, my students were able to answer the questions given in the pre reading task. I stressed the use of exclamation marks which indicate the argument between the characters. The students were able to respond well when asked of the state of their relationship according to the extract.

For my while reading activity, I divided the students in four groups and assigned on various tasks which mainly related to the personality traits of the two major characters of the play. The students took part effectively and then presented their work. They were able to identify the personality traits of the two characters based on the extract and also relate it to the state of relationship of Jairaj and Ratna.

Although was nervous, I managed to complete these two activities as I planned. This play was new for my students as they never read it before. It was an advantage to avoid the students from getting bored as they have never read the play before. There is a negative aspect I felt when doing this pre and while reading tasks. We felt the time constraint and therefore had to rush through our presentation just because we did not have enough time. If we had more time, the situation during the mock teaching would have been much more interesting and fun. Anyway, I did learn my mistakes from this simulated teaching and determined to do better next time.

~raNjiNi~