LUÂN VĂN THẠC SĨ KHOA HỌC GIÁO DỤC SỬ DỤNG BÀI TẬP ĐÓNG VAI TRONG VIỆC PHÁT TRIỂN KỸ NĂNG NÓI CHO SINH VIỆT NAM CUỐI KHOA DU LỊCH TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KHOA HỌC XÃ HỘI VÀ NHÂN VĂN , ĐAIỤ HỌC QUÔC GIA HÀ NỘI L

Role play is very important in teaching speaking because it gives students anopportunity to practice communicating in different social contexts and in different social roles.. Hattings 2

1 Rationale

English has become the most essential language in the world used by almost all peoplefrom many different countries for international communication The area of English studyhas also become a special interest because of the importance of English in any scope of ourlives

Julian Edge (1996) said: “Since British trade, followed by colonial and imperial expansion,English spread around the world Then the military and economic dominance of the UnitedStates of America has confirmed English as the international language of present historicalperiod

In international relationship, English speaking ability is very important so people must beable to participate in the wider world of work The speaking skill is measured in terms ofthe ability to carry out a conversation in the language This reality makes teachers andparents think that speaking ability should be mastered by their students and children.Based on the above reasons, in recent years, English language teaching has focused onteaching the language rather than teaching about the language The emphasis is not only onlinguistic competence of the language learners but also on the development of theircommunicative ability In order to develop the learners’ communicative ability, the teacherneeds to create a scenario to teach the target language in a vibrant, active and interestingmanner

In learning speaking skill, students often find several problems The problem frequentlyfound is that the influence of their native language makes it difficult to use the foreignlanguage Another reason is the lack of motivation lack to practice the foreign language indaily conversation They are also too shy and afraid to take part in the conversation

Many factors can cause problems of the students’ speaking skills namely the students’interest, the material, and the media among others including the technique in teachingEnglish Many techniques can be applied including role play because many researchfindings say that this technique is effective to use

Role play is very important in teaching speaking because it gives students an

opportunity to practice communicating in different social contexts and in different

social roles In addition, it allows students to be creative and to put themselves in

another person’s place for a while According to Stephen D Hattings (2007) based onhis observation in the conversation class, the role play would seem to be the ideal activity

in which students could use their English creatively and it aims to stimulate a conversationsituation in which students might find themselves and give them an opportunity to practiceand develop their communication skill For these reasons, the writer is interested inanalyzing the use of role play in teaching speaking for the students of Faculty of Tourism

at University of Social Sciences and Humanities She wants to show that using role play indeveloping students’ speaking skill offer a variety of benefits

A very wide variety of experience can be brought into the classroom through role play Therange of functions and structures, and the areas of vocabulary that can be introduced, go farbeyond the limits of other pair or group activities, such as conversation, communicationgames, or humanistic exercises Through role play we can train our students in speakingskills in any situation

Role play puts students in situation in which they are required to use and develop thosephonic forms of language which are so necessary in oiling the works of socialrelationships, but which are so often neglected by our language teaching syllabuses Manystudents obtain information from that language teaching syllabuses Many students believethat language is only to do with the transfer of specific information from one person toanother They have very little small talk, and in consequence often appear unnecessarilybrusque and abrupt It is possible to build up these social skills from a very low levelthrough role play

Some people are learning English to prepare for specific roles in their lives: people whoare going to work or travel in an international context It is helpful for these students tohave tried out and experimented with the language they will require in the friendly and safeenvironment of a classroom For these students, role play is a very useful rehearsal for real

life It enables them not just to acquire set phrases, but to learn how interaction might takeplace in a variety of situations.

Role play helps many shy students by providing them with a mask Some more reticentmembers of a group may have a great deal of difficulty participating in conversations aboutthemselves, and in other activities based on their direct experience These students areliberated by role play as they no longer feel that their own personality is implicated

Perhaps the most important reasons for using role play is that it is fun Once studentsunderstand what is expected of them, they thoroughly enjoy letting their imagination rip.Although there does not appear to be any scientific evidence that enjoyment automaticallyleads to better learning, most language teachers would probably agree that in the case ofthe vast majority of normal people this is surely so

Finally, role play is one of a whole gamut of communicative techniques which developsfluency in language students, which promotes interaction in the classroom, and whichincreases motivation Not only is peer learning encouraged by it but also the sharingbetween teacher and student of the responsibility for the learning process Role play isperhaps the most flexible technique in the range, and teachers who have it at their finger-tips are able to meet an infinite variety of needs with suitable and effective role playexercise

In brief, the needs of teaching about the language not the language itself, designinginteresting speaking activities, and getting students to involve in oral activities are thereasons why the writer is interested in conducting this research

2 Aims of the study

The purpose of the study is

 To find out the importance of role play in developing speaking activities used by theteachers at University of Social Sciences and Humanities

 To examine the use of role-playing as a speaking activity in helping develop students’speaking skill

The researcher hopes to change some ways in the choice of speaking activities, which isfor the sake of students, not for the sake of the activity

3 Scope of the study

Because of its small scale, this study tries to examine how using role-play developsspeaking skill in a number of aspects, such as accuracy, fluency, lack of hesitations, turn-taking and negotiations of meaning Also, this study is limited to the context of USSH withthe participation of twenty- five senior students at Department of Tourism

4 Research methods

The study is carried out employing the following techniques: holistic class observationdone via tape recording, keeping diary, interviews and especially discourse analysis

5 Research questions

The study tries to answer the following questions:

1 What are the current speaking activities used at University

of Social Sciences and Humanities to develop students’ speaking skill?

2 How could role-play help developing students’ speaking skill?

3 How could role-play be integrated into the current teaching syllabus to develop the students’ speaking skill?

6 Design of the thesis

The thesis includes three parts The first part: “Introduction” introduces the motivation forthe research, defines the specific aims, scope, methods and research questions

The second part consists of three chapters The first chapter, Chapter 1 “Literature Review” gives an overview of role-play and speaking skill

The second chapter, Chapter 2: “The study” tries to answer the two research questions of

the study In this chapter, background information for the study is given, giving thepremises for the next part Then there is the detailed description of how the study is carriedout, including methods and procedure and summary of the findings of the study

Chapter 3: “Applications” proposes some practical suggestions for teachers at USSH,

including the way to integrate role-play in syllabus In this chapter some difficulties andsome recommended solutions are also presented

The last part of the study is the conclusion, which gives a summary and recommendationsfor the further study.

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, some theories related to role-play are reviewed, including the definitions ofrole-play, their characteristics, and types of role-play as well as the process of carrying out

a role-play as an oral activity Then there is a discussion of what role-plays are Thechapter is ended with the relation between role-play and speaking skill

1 Role-play

1.1 Definition

In Cambridge International Dictionary of English (2004) role is defined as the personwhom an actor represents in a film or play, while role play is a method of acting outparticular ways of behaving or pretending to be other people who deal with new situations

It is used in training courses language learning and psychotherapy

In this case, Gillian Porter Ladousse (1996) illustrated that when students assume a “Role”,they play a part (either their own or somebody else’s) in specific situation “Play” meansthat is taken on in a safe environment in which students are as an inventive and playful aspossible

According to Crookal and Oxford (2007), there is a little consensus on the terms used inthe role playing and simulation, games, role play, simulation-game, role play simulation,and role playing game

There seem to be some agreement; however, simulation is a broader concept than roleplaying Simulations are complex lengthy and relatively inflexible events Role play, onthe other hand, can be a quite simple and brief technique to organize It is also highlyflexible, leaving much more scope for the exercise of individual variation, initiative andimagination Role play is included in simulation as well

In defining role play, Donn Byrne (1976) gave comments that role play is a part of dramaactivity In details, he described that there are three items to cover the drama activities

They are mime (mimicry-memorization), role play and simulation He distinguished theterms as follows:

a Mime, the participants perform actions without using words (although as we shall see,

this activity leads naturally on to talk)

b Role play, the participants interact either as themselves or others in imaginary

situations

c Simulation, this involves role play as defined above However, for this activity the

participants normally discuss a problem of some kind with some setting that has beendefined for them

Both role play and simulation are commonly used in foreign language classes to facilitatecommunicative competence whereas mime seems to be more appropriate as a languagegame It is performing actions without using words For instance, if someone mimes andaction, the others try to guess what it is

Another definition is stated by Joanna Budden (1999) in British Council Teaching English(BBC) on her article with the title “Role play” She said that role play is any speakingactivity when you either put yourself into somebody else’s shoes, or when you stay in yourown shoes but put yourself into an imaginary situation

What is meant by imaginary people is that students can become anyone they like for ashort time The President, the Queen, a millionaire, a pop star…, the choice is endless.Students can also take on the opinions of someone else “For and against” debates can beused and the class can be split into those who are expressing views in favour and thosewho are against the theme

Functional language for a multitude of scenarios can be activated and practiced throughrole play in imaginary situations “At the restaurant”, “Checking in at the airport”,

“Looking for lost property” are all possible role plays

From those explanation above, the writer views role play as a technique which involvesfantasy or imagination to be someone else or to be ourselves in a specific situation for awhile, improvising dialogue and creating a real world in scenario It aims at the students toencourage thinking and creativity, let the students develop and practice new language and

behavioral skills in a relatively non-threatening setting and can create the motivation andinvolvement necessary for learning to occur.

1.2 Types of role plays

In view of the persons taking an actor, Gillian (1996) explained that there are several types

of role The first is the roles which correspond to a real need in the students’ lives In thiscategory, it involves such roles as doctors dealing with patients, or salesman travelingabroad The second type of role is the students play themselves in a variety of situations ofwhich they may or may not have direct experience The example for this category is acustomer complaining or a passenger asking for information The third type is the type thatfew students will ever direct experience but it is easy to play because the teachers havesuch vast indirect experience of them The television journalist is a good example of thistype and it is very useful kind of role taken from real life The last type is fantasy roles,which are fictitious, imaginary, and possibly even absurd

In case of role play activities, according to Donn Byrne (2007), role play can be groupedinto two forms, scripted and unscripted role play In details, those types of role playactivities are described as follows:

a Scripted Role Play

This type involves interpreting either the text book dialogue or reading text in the form ofspeech The main function of the text after all is to convey the meaning of language items

in a memorable way

For more details, Adrian Doff (1997) gave an example of scripted role play dialogue andreading text and how the process is

Angela: Good morning I want to send a letter to Singapore

Clerk: Yes, do you want to send it by air mail or ordinary mail?

Angela: I think I’ll send it air mail I want to get there quickly How much does it cost?Clerk: To Singapore? That will be 30 pence, please?

Angela: (give the clerk 50 pence) Here you are

Clerk: Here’s your stamp, and here’s 20 pence change.

Angela: Thank you Where is the post office?

Clerk: You want the air mail box It’s over there, by the door

(Adapted from Living English book 2:A.G.A bdalla et al-1999)

To demonstrate a role play activity based on the dialogue, the procedures given by AdrianDoff is as follows:

1) First, the teacher guides the role play by writing these prompts: (Where? / air mail/ howmuch? / post box? / thanks) Talk as you write to show what the prompts mean

2) If necessary, go through the prompts one by one, and get students to give sentences orquestion for each one

3) Call two students to the front: one plays the role of Angela and the other one is the postoffice clerk They should improvise the conversation using the prompts to help them Pointout that the conversation should be similar to the one in the textbook, but not exactly thesame; the conversation can be shorter than the presentation dialogue and it should justcover the main points indicated by the prompts

4) Call out a few other pairs of students in turn, and ask them to have other conversationbased on the prompts

Based on the procedures, the writer views that the ways of organizing this dialogue can becarried out into pairs of students who would improvise a conversation privately with theirpartners before they act it out in front of the class

b Unscripted Role Play

In contrast to scripted role play, the situations of unscripted role play do not depend ontextbooks It is known as a free role play or improvisation The students themselves have todecide what language to use and how the conversation should develop In order to do thisactivity, good preparation from teacher and students is really necessary

The example and procedures of unscripted role play which are adapted from Adrian Doff’sbook are as follows:

One student has lost a bag.

He/she is at the police station

The other student is the police officer, and asks for details

To bring out these ideas:

1) The teacher could prepare the whole class, by:

a) Let them discuss together what they may say

b) Let them all try out the role play privately, before calling on one or two pairs to act out

in front of the class

2 Susan House (1999) explained that there are several procedures in using role play:

a Students read and familiarize themselves with the dialogue

b Divide the class in pairs, A and B, give A and B roles from the dialogues

c Let students act out their role play, not just say them but students should read it loudly

d Walk around correcting and checking

e Students swap roles and repeat, those finish first can be asked to make up their ownrole play, using different words to fill gaps

The above procedures do not mean an exact to be used It is flexible; teacher can create ordevelop procedure which is appropriate and suitable with his/ her own class

1.3 Process of role-playing.

According to John (1982:31-37) each role-playing activity has four-part structure:preparation, introduction, activity and debriefing This is set out in Table 1

Table 1: Procedure of a role-playing process

confidence with interactive learningAssessing students’ needs, interests, andabilities

Selecting or writing the role-play activityOrganizing the room and gatheringresources

Learners engage in information collectiontasks

Language input: useful lexis, structures,genres, discussions strategies, researchskills, etc

Work arising from discussions, e.g reportwriting or oral presentations

employed, assessment or performance,possible discussion of cultural aspectsLanguage: analysis of language used,discussion of errors, remedies work, furtherlinguistic input

1.4 Role-playing and current teaching techniques

Role-playing fits well with the recent emphasis on action learning and “task” as both acommunicative instructional technique and a concept of curriculum planning (Candlin

1987; Nunan 1989) This is because they provide a means of integrating various tasks into

a coherent and believable whole Essentially, a task is a complete communicative activitythat involves learners in comprehending and using language while their attention is focused

on meaning rather the form (Nunan 1989:12) Tasks have a particular objective,appropriate content, a specified procedure, and a range of outcomes They are seen as acompelling and effective means for realizing fundamental principles of communicativelanguage learning, such as those discussed by Canale and Swain (1980), Widdowson(1983), and others who stress the importance of pragmatic aspects of communicativecompetence In these terms, a role-play activity provides an optimal environment forcommunicative language learning The technique offers teachers a means of setting uplarge scale tasks and creating a structured context for linking sub-tasks that involve datagathering, problem solving or decision-making

2 Speaking skill

2.1 Oral skills and interaction

On looking more closely at what is meant by “skill”, Bygate, M (1979:5) shows thatmotor-perceptive skills and interaction skills are seen as skills The former involvesperceiving, recalling and articulating in the correct order the sounds and structures of thelanguage This is used to be the conception of second language teaching many years agoand can be seen in audio-lingual approach The learners try to listen and imitate thelanguage in order to be native-like A series of exercises and tasks were chosen for thepurpose of making learners to be good speaker: choosing the right forms, putting them inthe correct order, sounding like a native speaker, even producing the right meaning(Mackey 1965:266)

Some years later, people recognized that those types of exercises and tasks could notanswer some problems arising during the course of teaching speaking as those ways ofteaching are context-free teachings It is like teaching a person to dive and never lettinghim know what actual driving means Wilkins (1975:76) realized that “If all his languageproduction is controlled from production he will not be able to transfer his knowledge from

a language-learning situation to a language-using situation”

Besides motor-perceptive skills, interaction skills need to be developed So what areinteraction skills? Bygate, M (1975:5) supposes that these skills refer to the ability of usingknowledge and basic motor-perception skill to achieve communication Interaction skillsinvolve making decision about communication, such as what to say, how to say it, andwhether to develop it, in accordance with one’s intentions, while maintaining the desiredrelations with others.

As the focus of this study is on the interaction skills (oral interaction skills), perceptive skills will not be detailed in the following parts

motor-2.2 Types of interaction skills

As developing interaction skills has become the centre of discussion in the course ofteaching and learning the second language, many linguists have tried to classify them.Nunan (1989:32) suggests that to achieve good communication, a speaker should have thefollowing skills:

 The ability to articulate phonological features of the language comprehensibly

 Mastery of stress, rhythm, intonation pattern

 An acceptable degree of fluency

 Transactional and interpersonal skills

 Skills in taking short and long speaking turns

 Skills in negotiating meaning

 Conversational listening

 Skills in knowing about and negotiating purposes for the conversation

 Using appropriate conversational formulae and fillers

Bygate, M (1982: 4) states that interactions skills involve two sub-skills: routines andnegotiation skills The former are the skills used when participants have to communicate intypical patterns He further discusses that there are two types of routines namelyinformational routines and interaction routines Examples of informational routines arestories, descriptions, and instructions The second type of routines is interactional routine,

which can be characterized in broad terms to include the kinds of turns typically occurring

in given situations, and the order in which the components are likely to occur Examples ofthese skills are telephone conversations, interview situations, casual encounter,conversations at parties, and conversations around the table

The second of interaction skills are negotiation skills which can be seen from two aspects:management of interaction and negotiation of meaning

Management of interaction refers to the freedom of participants when taking part inconversation They can function as they wish in the conversation without any externalintervention

Interaction management has at least two aspects: agenda management and turn-taking.Agenda management refers to the topic chosen by the participant and turn taking relates tothe turns taken by whom and for how long in the conversation Efficient turn takingrequires five abilities which can be seen in the following:

 Knowing how to signal that one wants to speak using phrases, sounds, gestures

 Recognizing the right moment to get a turn

 Use appropriate turn structure in order to use the turn properly

 Recognize others’ signal of their desire to speak

 How to let someone else have fun

Negotiation of meaning refers to the skill of communicating ideas clearly and Bygate, M(1982:27) supposes that level of explicitness” and “procedures of negotiation” are twofactors affecting the understanding in any oral interactions

The first factor which is called “level of explicitness” refers to the speakers’ choices ofexpression in the light of what our interlocutor knows, what he or she needs to know or canunderstand So it is suggested that it is not advisable to talk to two people in the same wayabout the thing that one of them knows a little while the other knows a lot Thus it is ofgreat importance for a speaker to foresee what the listener has already known and what hehas not known about or known just little In this situation, the speaker must decide to

choose how much information should be delivered to each listener because no one wantstoo much or too little information.

We have just discussed the first aspect of negotiation skills, which refers to the skills that aspeaker needs to have, that is, knowing how much background information processed bythe listener Based on that premises, he/ she will know how much information should beinformed to the listener However, negotiation skills also concern the factor of decidinghow specific we are in what we say Bygate, M (1982:32) lists some strategies needed.They are paraphrase, metaphor, the use of vocabulary to vary the degree of precision Theclassification of interaction skills by Bygate, M (1982:32) can be charted as follows:

Table 2: Types of interaction skills

Interaction skills

Informative routines: describing, story

telling

Interactional routine phone onversations

Management of interaction: agenda management turn taking

Negotiation of meaning: how much and how specific information of something is mentioned

I have reviewed two ways of classification of interaction skills and find each way has itsown advantages However, in my study, to assess the interaction skills achieved anddeveloped, I will base on the criteria given out by Bygate since I found the classificationvery detailed and there is a discussion of things related to each skill

In the above parts, much space was spent for discussing two terms “role-play” and

“interaction skills” and related issues However, some may wonder if they have anyrelations and why much effort has been done to study them

3 Using role-play in class to develop students’ speaking skills.

3.1 Is Role play for language learning or language practice?

“It is likely that you view the learning a process of language acquisition” (Gillian PorterLadousse, 1996) In this sense, teachers present their students with some new items, theydrill students with these items, and then they expect their students to be able to use them.However, students have seldom acquired complete mastery of a new set of language items

at the end of one lesson Exactly how and when learning takes place is still a mystery.What is certain is that a variety of mental processes go on before the new language is usedspontaneously To see it in terms of learning itself and then practice is perhaps only aquestion of definition, but these are unfortunate definitions because they do not openlyacknowledge a whole area of the complex business of learning which often involves

“doing” as much as “thinking”

Of course what teachers think learning is, and what their students think it is, are importantmatters for consideration It is essential for them as teachers to see the validity of theactivities that they are proposing in their own terms, and for them to be able to demonstratethis validity to students so that, however loose-ended and unstructured a role play mayappear, it may be stopped at any point so that the language that the students are using, orcould, or should be using, can be analyzed in terms of structures, functions and lexis, etc.Learning should not only take place, but should be seen to be taking place In absoluteterms this may be an impossible task, for no one yet has any set answers to the question

3.2 Role play is language work.

Role play belongs to the category of language learning techniques sometimes referred to aslow input-high input This means that the teachers-centered presentation phase of thelesson is very short and not at all the same as it would be for a controlled practice drill.After a brief introduction, the students plunge into an activity in which accomplishing thetask is more important than using the exact word, in which fluency predominates overaccuracy Obviously, the language the students use may not necessarily have been acquired

at an earlier stage

In fact, there are two ways of looking at language work in role play Either studentsmanage with the language they know, or they practice structures and functions that havebeen presented to them at an earlier stage of the lesson or the course, in a free anduncontrolled way In the first situation, when the students just cope as best they can, the

teacher’s aim is to bring them to the point of awareness at which the necessity of acquiringcertain structures is evident, as these structures are of immediate relevance Students cansee how they could have put them to good use They will retain them all the more easilybecause they are rooted in a meaningful context In the second situation, role play is theactive phase of learning and offers an opportunity for students to make personal use oflanguage and offers an opportunity for students to make personal to make personal use oflanguage Role play can be used in this way right from the start in elementary classes.

Suggestions for precise language work are made under the heading Language in each role

play, but it will be up to you to decide exactly how you go about this, and how you link it

to the rest of your course work As for the kind of language work to be done, role playlends itself to almost every type: structure, lexis, functions, intonation pattern, and so on.You will find most of the role plays particularly suitable for familiarizing students withregisters, an aspect of language-learning which is neglected in many course books

Ultimately, we want our students to be both fluent and accurate in the way they speak.Being accurate does not just mean using the right thing in the right place, at the right time.The appropriacy of the message to the given social (professional) situation is a matter ofcultural context as well as the choice of linguistic terms The more different the students’culture is, the more difficult it will be to cope with the concept of register The wayformality or informality of social relationships govern the choice of language can usefully

be discussed before or after many of the role plays

3.3 Role play is language learning, not a theory

The common association of the role play with the therapeutic professions means somestudents are reticent because they think they will in some way lose their own identity Itshould by now be clear to the reader that role play is far more akin to child’s play than todeeply disturbing psychological experiences We are teachers, not therapists, and any one

of us who ventures into highly charged emotional role plays without suitable training maywell cause a great deal of distress Choosing subjects that are safe though not boring ortrivial and placing the emphasis on “play” rather than “role” will reduce this resistance onthe part of anxious students

A related problem is psychological problem that many people feel when they are asked to

be someone else Paradoxically, other people excel in this very situation I have oftenasked a group of students, who have carried out a role play for the first time, to evaluatetheir feelings during the activity They use this five point scale: very embarrassed, slightlyembarrassed, uneasy, natural, very natural

The variety of responses never fails to astonish the students who usually imagine that otherpeople react in the same way they themselves do The more extrovert students oftenmanage to convince the anxious ones that students in any class are more or less inhibitedduring the first few role-play activities This can be done very simply by providing roleplays that are task-based For example, an information transfer exercise can be placedwithin the context of a role play The inhibited students will carry it out just as aninformation transfer exercise Then they will start looking around the class and learn formthe bustle going on in other groups how they can get more out of the activity

4 Teachers prepare students for role play

4.1 Different roles for different students

The teacher assigns roles to students in classroom There are different types of role thatstudents may take during role playing process Students may take roles in which they dohave experience or they may take others in which they do not have experience In the firsttype, students find it easy to play roles as a real need In the second type, students find itmotivating if the situations are relevant

Many teachers feel that students will not see the point of this type of role because it hasnothing to do with real life This sad fact may explain the dull and prosaic nature of mostpublished collection of role plays Therefore, teachers should have a thoroughunderstanding about characteristics of students in order to assign students with appropriateroles Once students understand what they are trying to do in role, their imagination isoften liberated and the fantasy becomes a very enriching and useful linguistic experience.Imagination, which is surely as real as the rest of us, has been banished from the classroomfor far too long

4.2 Role card

Teachers complain that role play has no life in it because students are glued to the rolecard This can only be because the information on the card is too complex to grasp rapidly,

or because it has not been made plain to the students that they should have mastered theinformation on the card before they began the activity Role cards should be concise andcontain only essentials If linguistic structures are suggested for use they should be onesthat the students are already familiar with When the students have read their role card theycan either return it to the teacher or turn it over and refer to it only when completely stuck.Then they are free to explore the possibilities of the role in a more spontaneous manner.Some role cards say things like: “You are Mrs Smith You are angry.” Imposing emotionalstates in this way can be very inhibiting for students If you wish them to learn how toexpress strong emotions, it is much better to ensure that these stem naturally out of thesituation you have set up

It is often difficult to decide how to distribute the role cards You can decide who is who,the students can choose, or the distribution can be done at random In a class in which theteacher is attempting to shift some of the responsibility for learning from her ownshoulders to those of the students, the second and third solutions are infinitely better thanthe first In the second, the negotiation about who will play which role may well give rise

to an opportunity for authentic communication, which is a too rare occurrence in theclassroom However, it may also mean that a very weak student gets a key role, and therole play falls apart Teachers soon acquire the necessary judgment to which is the bestsolution on each occasion

4.3 Doing about mistakes

More and more teachers are adhering to the view that, mistakes are integral part of thelanguage-learning process, and that an opportunity to make them in a free phase in anylesson ultimately enhances learning, rather than hinders it Some mistakes do “fossilize”,but most of them just seem to indicate certain stages in the acquisition of the language.They disappear gradually as the students become more competent and confident

Although you may be convinced of the validity of these recent theories on errors, yourstudents may still worry about the mistakes they make as they carry out a role play Theyare likely to question the usefulness of the exercise, or beg you to stay close to them and

correct them every time they make a mistake It is essential to explain to these students thaterrors will be dealt with, that you are aware of the ones they are making, and that you willnot forget about them.

Students at a given level make similar kinds of mistakes in role play as they do with anyother teaching material, and will soon be able to predict which will be the most obviousones by considering which functions, structures, and lexical items are likely to crop up inthe role play you have chosen The Language section in each role play in the book suggestsareas in which error will probably occur A second solution, which should be considered as

an additional method, rather than as an alternative, is to walk round the classroom listening

to the students talking, and noting down the mistakes you would like to deal with After therole play, you can correct the mistakes immediately by eliciting the correct forms from thestudents, by writing them on the blackboard, or by providing some kind of remedialexercise that you had predicted would be necessary You can also simply incorporateremedial work into a later lesson, but in this case it is a good idea to let the students knowhow and when you intend to do this, as many of them believe correction to be a vital issue.Whatever the procedure you adopt, do not let the consideration of errors stifle the role playwhile it is in progress

4.4 Debriefing

Debriefing is the term used to refer to the analytical discussion which may take place after

a role play or simulation The kinds of questions that are raised are:

a Who participated?

b Who did not?

c Why not?

d Who was very good?

e Who could have done better?

In many areas of education where these techniques are used, this interrogative phase is asimportant as the main activity In language learning, intermediate or advanced studentswho are self-confident and used to role play will benefit from a debriefing session which

will offer an opportunity for authentic and spontaneous communication The teachershould insist on evaluation rather than criticism, and make sure that the students talk aboutwhat went well before they get on to what went badly This encourages positive thinkingabout the experience As the students discuss the parts they played, they will probablynotice that one or two people seem to have participated very little This fact may be areflection of the fairly silent roles that these students play in real life, or it may reveal alack of self-confidence or linguistic ability in the target language Whatever the reason, it isimportant to discuss the issue with understanding, and to make sure the silent students donot feel under pressure I have often noticed that giving a quite or reticent student a morepassive part to play for a while- a listening role or a shared role- enables him or her tobuild up sufficient confidence to blossom at later stage.

Debriefing is not, however, an absolutely essential part of language-learning simulation orrole play Putting the performance under the microscope has a distinctly inhibiting effect

on many students, even on some seasoned role-players At a low level, the languageneeded to analyze the role play will be much complex than language of the role play itself

It is acceptable to consider that the objective of the role play or simulation has been met asthe activity itself was carried out, and to move straight on to a completely different phase

of the lesson You will rapidly develop your own judgment as to when a debriefing is, or isnot, useful

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

This chapter addresses the first two questions First background information is provided tohelp readers know about the teaching and learning context at University of Social Sciencesand Humanities These are premises for the later study to find how role play could helpdevelop the senior students’ speaking skill In the next part, the procedure, the dataanalysis, presentation, discussion and the summary of the findings are mentioned,respectively

1 Background to the Study

1.1 The settings

1.1.1 The syllabus

The study is conducted at the Tourism Faculty, USSH-VNU These students have to takepart in a four-year course in which English is taught during the first three years in a formalsetting with two stages During the first stage (consisting of the first three terms), studentsstudy general English with four macro skills namely: speaking, listening, reading andwriting In the second stage (the rest of three terms), students join an ESP course.

The first stage is considered to be the most important to students’ development of the fourmacro language skills since they have more time and opportunities to practice their skillsbasically and systematically than in second one However, class time allocation for the fourskills in general and for speaking in particular is not always sufficient English is taught in

15 weeks each term For three first terms, there are 8 periods (two-school days) per week(each period is 50 minutes long) In the next term (the 4th term), students start learning ESP(5 periods per week)

All English teaching and learning materials are compiled under the tendency of based and task-based approach The course book Lifelines Elementary, Pre-Intermediateand Intermediate is chosen for the first stage which satisfies a number of factors such asthe students’ needs, objectives of each school year and teaching time available Thematerial for the second stage is “ English for Tourism” designed by a group of teachersworking in English Department based on some textbooks about Tourism consisting of twovolumes with 16 units Each unit is one selected topic that is supposed to meet thestudents’ needs in real life

theme-1.1.2 The teachers

There are quite a lot of teachers working at English Department teaching for 13 differentFaculties, USSH-VNU Among them only some teachers are always in charge of teachingESP for Tourism Faculty Most of these teachers graduated from English Department atCFL, VNU or Hanoi University The head of this group has got MA degree in Australia.Aged from 23 to 33, all of them are still young, except the group leader, who is in her earlyforties They are always eager for knowledge and willing to adjust to new ways ofthinking, to collect useful supplementary materials for their students to help them improvetheir general knowledge and English as well

1.1.3 The students

Senior students at Tourism Faculty are aged from 20-22, mainly female There are 8 malestudents among 80 students Their English levels are not the same Many of them havelearnt English since they were 6th graders, but their level of English proficiency is still quitelow and varies a lot due to the fact they come from different places of Vietnam Many ofthem come from the countryside where there are no favorable English learning conditions.The others come from towns and cities and have better chances for learning English.However, during the years at secondary schools as well as at high schools, most studentsdid not have adequate English learning strategies They only focused on grammarexercises; they hardly acquired any effective skills, especially speaking skill in realsituations and contexts As a result, when they enter the university, their learning strategiesare not good enough to become responsible learners, especially their speaking competenceThey need a lot of practice to improve their English proficiency in general and speakingability in particular in order to motivate them in speaking lessons The students underinvestigation have finished the stage of general English, and they are in the second stage,learning ESP.

1.2 The problems

In fact, the teaching and learning English at Tourism Faculty is affected by someconstraints such as the big size, poor school facilities, passive ways of learning, and boringexercises in the text book The average class size is 33-38 students, so it is too crowded forcommunicative English Besides, not many classrooms are specially arranged for languageclasses Therefore, classroom interaction is not always varied

Although students have learnt English for several years, their knowledge of vocabulary andgrammar structure as well as their background knowledge is still very poor With regards

to speaking strategies, the researcher realizes that they do not often feel confident to speak

in front of other students and are having difficulties finding out ideas when speaking Theydepend on too much on samples in the text, but can hardly make sense of the sample todevelop new ideas As a result, they are reluctant to speak in class and not active inspeaking lesson

Moreover, speaking activities in the text book are always the same, so the speaking tasksare monotonous even when the topics vary The kinds of speaking tasks in the textbook