Open Class Observation on Undergraduate Learners (Drama) - Teaching Practicum

We went for an open class observation on one of our Undergraduate English Course of Drama and Poetry in the English Department. Beforehand, we took permission from the course teacher Ms. Rukhsana Rahim Chowdhury to observation her class and explained her purpose of our class observation. She gladly permitted us and gave us the schedule for her next class. So, on Tuesday, 15^th July, we went to the Drama and Poetry class for class observation. As we entered the class, the discussion had already started.

The teacher was discussing about the play by George Bernard Shaw which was “The Arms and the Man”, she was eliciting ideas about the characters from the students. There were a total number of 18 students present in the class. The teacher started by asking them about the play and the main idea of love and war in the play. Then she illustrated on the genre of comedy in relation to the play.

The teacher then used the whiteboard and wrote “Romantic” eliciting the meaning of the word from the students and related it with inner expression and emotion. Then she asked students the meaning of “trivial” and students took part in explaining the meaning of the word to the teacher.

Next, the teacher asked the students about “Romanticism” and they were providing wrong information about the meaning, so the teacher was correcting information about the idea of Romanticism saying, “Romantic in literature is an ideology of one’s created self. It has the tendency to glorify certain ideas, to glorify the dead person for example”. Then she also expressed the idea of “Chivalry for Men” and discussed on the history of the war period. After this, the teacher moved on to the discussion of the main character of the play – Raina and explained that she is a young woman who belongs to an aristocratic family. Describing the atmosphere of the first chapter of the play, the teacher told the students, “What does it say about people who have a library at home? It shows that the family is fond of reading.” Then she moved on to illustrating the main character’s favorite books and writers – Byron, Pushkin and related it with the writers of the Romantic age who focused on writing about the gallant heroes.

Following this discussion, the teacher then asked students about the Romantic notion of War and as students could not reply, she explained, “War bring solutions, any man that goes to war is a hero. Most soldiers encounter ordinary death, those who survive try to hide their stories, because every death is not a heroic solution.” The teacher then explained how the main character Raina had a very glorified notion of war as she was engaged to be married to a soldier whose name was Sergius. 

The teacher then asked students about the opening of the play, the characters and their mindset and students answered one by one. Then she asked students to express the idea of “Altar” and one student volunteered to draw the picture of an altar in the whiteboard. Following this, the teacher described that the altar is a designated space where the religious idol or their photographs is placed. Relating to the idea of the Altar, then teacher then talked about the story and the characters of the play, “Raina has the portrait of her fiancé whom she worships because he went to perform heroic deeds in the war.”

To explain the idea of hero, the teacher further discussed that, “The worshipper thinks that the idol is elevated to a higher level and this person is to be worshipped.” Next, the teacher asked learners to read the lines, “Characters will speak more than they want to speak”. Most of the time the teacher used wonderful dramatic expressions to engage the students’ interest in the discussion. The students also looked eager and attentive and they were less distracting. After students read the certain paragraph, the teacher moved the discussion deeper in the context of the story and the characters.

She asked students about each characters of the play in turns and when any student answered wrong, the teacher corrected their information and explained the idea of that character. The teacher also used hand gestures to illustrate Raina’s character and how she was in doubtful about her fiancé but for practicality agreed to marry him being a good match. The teacher and the students then focused on the conversation of the mother and the daughter’s character. Teacher asked other learners to help understand the ideas of the characters from their peers who understood them well. She again asked about the idea of the “Heroic Soldier” and a few students stood up and discussed on the idea.

There was a supportive and friendly atmosphere in the classroom as the learners were laughing when the teacher said, “The soldier hides in the bedroom of a girl to save his life which is the extreme opposite of what Raina believes in about a heroic soldier, but she still helps the soldier hide in her bedroom”.

The teacher then gives tasks to students for the next class and asks them to read the whole play to discover the character of “Bluntschi”, a mercenary soldier who fights for money that explains the complete opposite of the character of a heroic soldier. Following this, the teacher then compares the characters for both the soldiers – Sergius and Bluntschi for students’ understanding and concludes the first three chapters of the play. After this, the teacher informs the learners that they will have a quiz on the next class based on this discussion.

After this, she divides students in 6 groups with 3 students in each group and gives them the task of reading a particular paragraph from the play for 10 minutes. Assigning them with the task of reading the episode where Bluntschi enters the room, she asks students discuss about it with their group members. The six groups worked for 10 minutes on reading and discussing the certain episode of the play among themselves. Meanwhile, the teacher monitored the groups and provided suggestions when needed. After 10 minutes, the teacher asked if learners have completed reading the episode and when they replied they did. The teacher asked summary of the episode from one group, a presenter from that group made presentation on the episode of the play while the other groups and the teacher listened attentively. The teacher asked the presenter to raise her voice and face the class and helped her with more information during the presentation. After the presenter concluded, everyone clapped for her and the teacher provided feedback on the presentation and the episode from the play.

Finally, the teacher corrected students’ notion of the episode’s texts and notes of which they did not have a clear idea and asked questions. She also gave away some hints about the character contrasts that are to be discussed in the next class. Then she marked attendance and concluded the class. The teacher came to us asking if we have been able to observe the class successfully and whether her class discussion helped on our observation, to which we agreed and thanked her for the opportunity to observe her class.