Year 10

It is the time of year where we begin to help our year ten students plan for the subjects that they will take in the Diploma. Students meet with their university counsellor to help to make subject decisions that will eventually support their university and career goals.

In this month’s Kontak, four year 10 students reflect on subjects that they have been enjoying this year.

My name is Aulia and I’m from 10A. For my art class, I chose to do Film. I chose film because it allowed me to practice more structured video editing, as well as teaching me how to frame video compositions that create more meaning in the film as a product - the story. In semester 1. We’ve learned a lot about shot composition and editing. Shot composition is about the relationship between the camera and the subject. In editing, we learnt how to manipulate those shots we recorded previously, and derive different meanings by organizing them in different ways. As well as this, we learnt basic file structure so that our assets are easy to find. In truth, filmmaking in its common definition isn’t a path I want to go down.

My name is Anniesha from 10C, and I am taking drama.

I chose to take drama because watching people act on-screen and perform on stage makes me interested, and I want to try it myself. I've always wanted to learn theatre and everything that relates to it. I aspired to become an actress and debut in a film or perform on Broadway when I was little. I was a new student in Global Jaya, and when I saw that one of the art subject choices is drama, I considered it an opportunity to finally be able to do what I had always wondered in years.

In semester 1, I find all material that has been taught by the teacher interesting, since this is my first time learning drama. We learned about documentary and verbatim theatre. In that unit, the teacher divided each section into process journals to make it easier for us to do the work.

In week one until three of the lesson, the teacher gave us a detailed explanation of the unit we will learn. In the fourth week of the lesson, we worked in groups and performed a short performance on the meet. Afterward, we created an individual reflection based on our performance. In the fifth week of the lesson, we listed down five keywords we learned from the unit, watched two videos, and analyzed the technique in our understanding. In the sixth week of the lesson, we work in groups to create an artistic intention and explained it in a short paragraph. From week 7 until the end, we just did rehearsals with our groups, made the final performance video, did a reflection, and filled out questions from the table provided by the teacher.

During drama class, I have faced some difficulties. The first one is doing a tableau. Tableau is one of the techniques in drama where we freeze and impersonate a thing or someone. In semester one, I was afraid to use my facial expression and hand gesture in front of my classmates. The second thing I find challenging is improvisation. I've always been the type of student that needs to prepare beforehand. So when a teacher told me to do things that are not planned, I usually blanked and got nervous.

My name is Kayla from 10C and I am taking instrumental music. I chose to do instrumental music because I have always enjoyed music and playing instruments. I also wanted to learn more about music theory. In semester 1 of instrumental class we learned how to create an imitation of traditional songs from a culture of our choice or a fusion of traditional songs from a culture of our choice and other genres such as pop, hip-hop, etc.

Something I find interesting about this class is learning about music theory, such as scales, elements of music, and much more.

I dealt with this challenge by asking for help from Pak Eric and my friends. Asking for help from teachers and friends when you don’t understand something is very helpful. After talking to Pak Eric and my friends I was able to enjoy music class and not feel anxious during class.

My tips for succeeding in this class are to always ask your teacher or friends for help when you don’t understand something. Don’t procrastinate, something that helped me stop procrastinating is making a daily to-do list of what i should do. Planning ahead is also very important, planning ahead makes time management much easier. My last tip would be don’t stress too much about making mistakes or if your final product didn’t come out as good as you wanted it to be, it’s a normal thing you should just enjoy the process and be able to reflect on your mistakes and what you could’ve done better.

(A small part of the chord progression that I did for my group's project this semester).

Another piece of advice I would give is that, you should always ask for feedback from your teacher and always update your teacher on your progress. Always communicate with your teacher when you are confused or have questions as they can give you feedback on what to improve and give suggestions on what to do next. Also art is all about perception, so never think that your artwork looks bad or not up to the standard. This is a picture of my final artwork.