Cải thiện kỹ năng nói tiếng Anh của học sinh lớp 10 Trường THPT Bạch Đằng, Hải Phòng thông qua hoạt động đóng vai

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** NGUYỄN THỊ KIM DUNG IMPROVING THE TENTH FORM S

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

NGUYỄN THỊ KIM DUNG

IMPROVING THE TENTH FORM STUDENTS’SPEAKING

ABILITY THROUGH ROLE- PLAYING TECHNIQUE

AT BACH DANG HIGH SCHOOL, HAI PHONG

(CẢI THIỆN KỸ NĂNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10

TRƯỜNG THPT BẠCH ĐẰNG THÔNG QUA HOẠT ĐỘNG ĐÓNG VAI)

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code : 60.14.10

Ha Noi - 2012

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

NGUYỄN THỊ KIM DUNG

IMPROVING THE TENTH FORM STUDENTS’SPEAKING

ABILITY THROUGH ROLE- PLAYING TECHNIQUE

AT BACH DANG HIGH SCHOOL, HAI PHONG

(CẢI THIỆN KỸ NĂNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10

TRƯỜNG THPT BẠCH ĐẰNG THÔNG QUA HOẠT ĐỘNG ĐÓNG VAI)

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code : 60.14.10

Supervisor: Dr Lê Văn Canh

Ha Noi - 2012

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Background to the study 1

3 Aim of the study 3

4 Research Questions 3

5 Scope of the study 3

6 Design of the study 4

CHAPTER 1 5

1.1 Introduction 5

1.2 What is speaking in second language learning ? 5

1.3 Difficulties in teaching speaking skills to high school students 6

1.3.1 Difficulties from teachers 6

1.3.1.1 Inappropriate teacher pedagogical practices 6

1.3.2 Difficulties from students 10

1.3.3 Difficulties from objective factors 11

1.3.4 Difficulties in teaching English speaking skill to students in Vietnam 12

1.4 Some effective techniques to teach English speaking skill to High school students 12

1.4.1 Some techniques in the “Before you speak” stage 12

1.4.2 Some techniques in the “While you speak” stage 13

1.4.3 Some techniques in the “After you speak” stage 14

1 5 Role-play 15

1.5.1 What‟s role-play? 15

1.5.2 Why use role-playing? 16

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1.5.3.The difficulties when using role-play in classroom 15

1.5.4 Role-playing activities in language classroom 17

1 6 Summary 18

CHAPTER 2 20

2.1 Introduction 20

2.2 An overview of Bach Dang High School 20

2.3 An overview of the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” 21

2.4 The Tenth graders at Bach Dang High School 23

2.5 The chosen classes for pilot teaching 23

2.6 Using role-play to teach speaking to students of the pilot classes 23

2.6.1 Preparations: 23

2.6.1.1 Teaching plan and teaching materia 23

2.6.1.2 Class organization and the teacher‟s teaching 25

2.7 Feedback from students 33

2.7.1 The questionnaire 33

2.7.2 Findings and discussion 35

2.8 Summary 35

PART III: CONCLUSION 36

1 Recapitulation 36

2 Implications for teachers 37

3 Suggestion for further research 38

REFERENCES 39 APPENDIX 1 : Students‟ questionnaire I

APPENDIX 2: Results from Questionnaire II

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Ss : Students

T : Teacher

TTT: Teacher talking time

STT: Student talking time

EFL: English as Foreign Language

ESL: English as Second Language

CLT: Communicative Language Teaching

% : per cent

- It's fun and motivating;

- Quieter students get the chance to express themselves in a more forthright way

- The world of the classroom is broadened to include the outside world, thus offering a much wider range of language opportunities

- Real situations can be created and students can benefit from the practice

- Mistakes can be made with no drastic consequences

2 Background to the study

English as a foreign language in Viet Nam is taught in high schools as a compulsory subject The implementation of English teaching at present is based on the content standard Its target is to help students to reach an informational level It means that school leavers are expected to be able to have adequate knowledge to use it to communicate with others in English (Depdiknas, 2006)

O‟Malley and Pierce (1996) states that speaking is an important skill that a learner should acquire It is very important in order to enable students to communicate effectively through oral language because the disability of the

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students to speak may lead them to be unable to express their ideas even in a simple form of conversation In addition, Burn and Joyce (1997: 54-55) state that one of the aims of most language programs is to develop spoken language skills and most programs aim to integrate both spoken and written language Learning a language means using it in communication in oral or written form, and being able to express feeling, thoughts, and experiences in various contexts Lado (1964: 51) states that to know the language is to use it He further states that students do not know a sentence until he can speak it

In fact, the English instruction in some High Schools does not demonstrate a satisfactory result Many students fail to reach the goal of the English teaching They are not able to communicate with the foreign language either orally or in written form although they have learned English for many years (Lestari, 2000: 27) Many of the learners in a speaking class are reluctant speakers This reluctance is partly due to their prior learning experience Many of them are educated in a large class in schools situated in noisy neighborhoods where opportunities to speak are severely limited Others were taught in schools where speaking was simply not encouraged

Comparing to other techniques, role-play seems to be the interesting one for the students In role-playing technique, the students act or pretend to be someone else in the actual world situation that is brought into the classroom Utilizing the technique, peer learning is also encouraged and sharing of responsibility between the teacher and the learner when the learning process takes place Besides, for the shy learners, for instance, role play helps them by providing a mask where learners with difficulty in conversation are liberated

Role-playing technique is one of the effective tools for teacher to teach speaking skill to the students Huang (2008), in her study on communicative skills, concludes that role play is really a worthwhile learning experience for both the student and the teacher Not only can students have more opportunities to "act" and

"interact" with their peers trying to use the English language, but also students'

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English speaking, listening, and understanding will improve Role play lightens up the atmospheres and brings liveliness in the classes Students learn to use the language in a more realistic, more practical way Thus they can become more aware

of the usefulness and practicality of English Role play is indeed a useful teaching technique which should be experimented and applied by ESL/EFL teachers more often in the ESL/EFL classrooms

Based on the theoretical background and the findings of some previous studies about the effectiveness of role-playing, the researcher chose this technique and used it to improve the speaking ability of the tenth year students of Bach Dang High School This technique is chosen as the object of study of this thesis as it is thought that is employed effectively it will help high school students to improve their speaking skill – a macro-skill which seems to be neglected by both high school students and teachers in Vietnam in general and students and teachers at Bach Dang High School in particular

3 Aim of the study

The aim of this study is to use role-play to develop speaking skill to the 10 graders at Bach Dang High School, Hai Phong

2 What is role-play in foreign language teaching?

3 How is role-play employed to develop 10 graders‟ speaking skill at Bach Dang High School?

5 Scope of the study

As stated above, the aim of the study is to explore what is meant by the term role play in foreign language teaching and to use it to teach 10 graders at Bach Dang High School To achieve this aim, the study first attempts to first provide the

4

teaching and learning of English at Bach Dang High School in general and the teaching and learning speaking of its 10 graders in particular Then, it will explore the notion of role-play in the foreign language teaching literature Then it will

present some sample speaking lessons taken from Tiếng Anh 10 in which role play

is used to develop speaking skill to 10 graders at Bach Dang High School And finally, in order to see how effective role-play is in teaching speaking to the

students, a small survey is conducted to get the pilot students‟ opinion

6 Design of the study

Apart from table of contents and appendices, this paper is structured in three

main parts namely, Introduction, Development and Conclusion

The Introduction presents the rationale, the aim of the study, scope of the

study, the research questions, and the design of the study

The Development” includes two chapters Chapter 1 provides a review on

the concepts such as speaking , difficulties in teaching speaking skills to high school students, some effective techniques to teach English speaking skill to high school students, the concept of role-play, the difficulties when using role-play in classroom, the reason to use role-play, and role-playing activities in language classroom

Chapter 2 analyses the teaching and learning of English at Bach Dang High

School It first takes a look at the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” Then it mentions briefly the tenth graders at Bach Dang High School, the classes chosen for carrying out the pilot teaching using role-play to develop speaking skill to Bach Dang High School 10 graders Then it will present in some detail how role-play is used to teach speaking skill to the pilot classes The final section is devoted to exploring and discussing how effective role-play is to the Bach Dang High School 10 graders in the pilot classes

The Conclusion recapitulates the contents which have been explored, points

outs the limitations of the study and make some suggestions for future research

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PART II: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1

LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Introduction

In this chapter, an attempt is made to explore the issues concerning speaking such as what is speaking, the difficulties the English learners in the world in general and in Vietnam in particular face when learning speaking Then I will present some effective techniques to teach English speaking skill to High school students In the final section, I will examine the notion of role-play in foreign language teaching

1.2 What is speaking in second language learning ?

Speaking is “an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information” (Florez, 1999: 1) It is “often spontaneous, open-ended and evolving” (ibid.:1), but it is not completely unpredictable Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking

Speaking is such a fundamental human behavior that we don‟t stop to analyze it unless there is something noticeable about it For example, if a person is experiencing

a speech pathology (if a person stutters or if his speech is impaired due to a stroke or

a head injury), we may realize that the speech is atypical Likewise, if someone is a particularly effective or lucid speaker, we may notice that her speech is atypical in a noteworthy sense What we fail to notice on a daily basis, however, are the myriad physical, mental, psychological, social, and cultural factors that must all work together when we speak It is even a more impressive feat when we hear someone speaking effectively in a second or foreign language

According to Brown and Yule‟s opinions (1983), spoken language consists of short, fragmentary utterances in a range of pronunciation However, speaking is a

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skill, which deserves attention as much as literacy skills in both first and second language because our learners often need to speak with confidence in order to carry out a lot of their most basic transactions (Bygate, 1991) Furthermore, speaking is known with two main types of conversation called dialogue and monologue

Speaking requires that learners not only know how to produce specific points

of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary (linguistic competence),

but also that they understand when, why, and in what ways to produce language

(sociolinguistic competence) Finally, speech has its own skills, structures, and

conventions different from written language (Burns & Joyce, 1997; Carter & McCarthy, 1995; Cohen, 1996) A good speaker synthesizes this array of skills and knowledge to succeed in a given speech act

1.3 Difficulties in teaching speaking skills to high school students

Difficulties in teaching speaking skill to students come from two sources: (1) from teachers and (2) from students

1.3.1 Difficulties from teachers

1.3.1.1 Inappropriate teacher pedagogical practices

“Inappropriate teacher pedagogical practices” consists of the amount of teacher talk, teacher correction, teacher-leaner relationships, teachers‟ deficiency in English communicative competence and other factors These factors will be discussed below

The amount of Teacher Talk According to second language acquisition theories,

both teachers and students should participate in language classes actively Teachers have

to face two tasks in language classrooms: (1) offer enough high-quality English language input; (2) offer more opportunities for students to use the target language Researches in language classrooms have established that teachers tend to do most

of the classroom talk Teacher talk makes up over 70 percent of the total talk (Cook, 2000; Legarreta, 1977; Chaudron, 1988; Zhao Xiaohong, 1998) It is evident that if teachers devote large amounts of time to explanations or management instructions,

7

student talk will be indeed severely restricted Teacher-initiated talk will dominate the classroom, allowing little opportunity for extended student talk In such an environment, students have little opportunity to develop their language proficiency

In order to avoid the overuse of teacher talk, many scholars tend to maximize student talk time (STT) and minimize teacher talk time (TTT) (Zhao Xiaohong, 1998; Zhou Xing & Zhou Yun, 2002) Harmer points out that the best lessons are ones where STT is maximized Getting students to speak to use the language they are learning

is a vital part of a teacher‟s job (Harmer, 2000:4) However, Fillmore argued the amount

of TT should not be decreased blindly

Teacher's Correction Inevitably learners will make mistakes in the process of

learning “A learner‟s errors are significant in (that) they provide to the researcher evidence of how language is learned or acquired, what strategies or procedures the learner is employing in the discovery of the language” (Brown, 2002: 205) It is a

vital part of the teacher‟s role to point out students‟ mistakes and provide correction

In correction, some specific information is provided on aspects of the learners‟ performance, through explanation, or provision of better or other alternatives, or through elicitation of these from the leaner (Ur, 2000) Correction helps students to clarify their understanding of meaning and construction of the language

One of the crucial issues is how correction is expressed: gently or assertively supportively or as a condemnation, tactfully or rudely Ur (2000) points out that

we should go for encouraging, tactful correction The learner has reliable intuitive knowledge about what kind of correction helps most, that is, learner preferences are

on the whole reliable guide So teachers have to be careful when correcting, if teachers do it in an insensitive way, the students will feel upset and lose their confidence

Furthermore, it is worth pointing out that it is just as important to praise students for their success, as it is to correct them when they fail Teachers can show their praise through the use of encouraging words and noises („good‟, „well done‟,

„fantastic‟, „mmm,‟ etc.) when students are doing really well (Harmer, 2000)

8

Teacher-learner relationship The relationship between the teacher and

students plays a part in evoking problems in teaching speaking skill A necessary prerequisite for creating a favorable learning atmosphere in the class is to establish a good relationship between the teacher and his students

One of the possible ways of pursuing this aim is to talk with students about their feelings and help them rationalize their anxiety about speaking, which results

in difficulties in teaching speaking skill (Tsui, 1996) The teacher may decide to talk

to individual students outside the classroom, as students may feel inhibited about discussing their feelings in front of their classmates This “step” may contribute to the creation of trust and “partnership” between the student and the teacher In addition, students always feel more comfortable when learning with the teachers who have a good sense of humor, friendly, relaxed and patient (Young, 1991)

Teachers’ deficiency in English communicative competence This can be

another constraint in teaching speaking skill which is related to teachers‟ deficiency

in English communicative competence For many years, language teaching was seen as helping learners to develop linguistic competence-that is, helping students master the sounds, words, and grammar patterns of English The idea was that by studying bits and pieces of a language, students could eventually put them all together and communicate

Below is Hedge‟s description of communicative competence which probably considered as the most elaborate

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Linguistic

competence

- to achieve accuracy in the grammatical forms of the language

- to pronounce the forms accurately

- to use stress, rhythm and intonation to express meaning

- to build a range of vocabulary

- to learn the script and spelling rules

- to achieve accuracy in syntax and word formation

Pragmatic

competence

- to learn the relationship between grammatical forms and functions

- to use stress and intonation to express attitude and emotion

- to learn a scale of formality

- to understand and use emotive tone

- to use the pragmatic rules of language

- to select language forms appropriate to topic, listener, etc

- to be able to use cohesive devices in reading and writing texts

- to be able to cope with authentic texts

Strategic

competence

- to be able to take risks in using both spoken and written language

- to use a range of communication strategies

- to learn the language needed to engage in some of these strategies, e.g

“What do you call a thing that/person who…”

Fluency

- to deal with the information gap of real discourse

- to process language and respond appropriately with a degree of ease

- to be able to respond with reasonable speed in “real time”

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From the description of communicative competence mentioned above, to teach teaching speaking skill, teachers might have been required to have language teaching competence including five interrelated fields, that is, linguistic competence, pragmatic competence or sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, strategic competence and fluency This can be understood that linguistic competence (syntactic structures, vocabulary, and pronunciation) is not the only requirement of teaching speaking skill However, in English oral classes teachers only spend teaching time in providing the knowledge of linguistic competence, which causes students‟ failure to unsuccessfully communicate

1.3.2 Difficulties from students

There exist many student-related problems in teaching speaking skill in English classes Many learners, as reported by studies into speaking (e.g Tsui:

“Reticence and anxiety in second language learning”), are unprepared or unwilling

to speak Their reluctance and reticence in English oral classes pose a big challenge for teaching speaking skill

First and foremost, many reasons for learners‟ unwillingness to speak can be enumerated Burns and Joyce identified three groups of factors that are likely to cause reluctance with learners These encompass cultural, linguistic, and affective factors (Burns and Joyce, 1997) Cultural factors follow from students‟ prior learning experiences and consequently from the expectations that are formed on their basis Examples of linguistic factors limiting speaking may be, according to Burns and Joyce, difficulties in the phonetics and phonology of the target language, poor knowledge of grammatical patterns or low awareness of cultural background and social conventions that are necessary for processing meaning in the target language A low motivation level, timidity or anxiety in class, negative social experiences, and culture shock are ranked among possible affective factors (Burns and Joyce, 1997: 134)

Based on six interviews of Japanese students at the University of Edinburgh, Dwyer and Heller-Murphy (1996) concluded that the students were reticent in

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EFL/ESL classrooms due to fear of public failure, fear of making mistakes, lack of confidence, low English proficiency, and inability to keep up with native speakers, incompetence in the rules and norms of English conversation, disorientation, etc This conclusion was supported by Jones‟ (1999) review of research on NNS students‟ oral behavior in English speaking countries such as Australia, New Zealand and the United States

All these findings reveal that reticence is a widely-observed phenomenon in SL/FL classrooms and that various factors contribute to student reticence However, since wide differences exist in SL/FL language learning situations, to better understand the issue of reticence and enhance the oral proficiency of the target language by promoting students‟ actual participation in classroom activities, more research is needed with different groups of learners in various SL/FL learning situations

1.3.3 Difficulties from objective factors

The objective factors like large and multilevel classes, time constraint and text book also result in the difficulties in teaching speaking skill

Recently, in their minor study, Julie Mathews-Aydinli and Regina Van Horne (2006) have pointed out that multilevel classes can present challenges to teachers, as

it is very difficult to design or organize speaking activities for many learners with different levels and interests

The suggested solutions are also presented in their study As for them, there are some things that teachers should follow in order to promote success of multilevel classes not only in speaking lessons but also in other ones Teresa Dalle and Emily Thrush (2003) have the same opinion of the large classes that teachers in EFL settings often find classes of 40-70 students to be the norm Even though they may be common, large classes challenge even well-trained and experienced teachers The task of teaching oral skills in large classes can be daunting, and ESL teachers may question how oral exercises other than drills can be integrated into a language class of so many students

of whom are more concerned about the immediate goal – to pass exams, to get a

degree, rather than the long term goal – to develop communicative competence

Difficulties from students

The real situation of English language teaching shows that this is the skill students usually neglect and are not good at, even though they have very good grammatical knowledge Students‟ learning methods depends much on teachers, students are quite passive in their learning process Most of them concern how to pass exams, have good marks in paper-tests which are related to Grammar, Vocabulary,and a little in Pronunciation Speaking English is unimportant without

going abroad

1.4 Some effective techniques to teach English speaking skill to High school students

1.4.1 Some techniques in the “Before you speak” stage

Depending on the knowledge and level of each student, at this stage, the teacher may either: (i) to ask questions related to subject(s) which students are going to say, or (ii) give them some words that they do not know, write these words on the board, read aloud and ask students to repeat, then meaning (probably explain the language as to find synonyms ,,antonyms, interpretation, or Vietnamese equivalent) so that they know and can use them in the early stages ofspeaking Teachers can also make pictures related to the topic or situation that students

prepare to speak, ask questions and ask students to answer a number of questions related to these pictures

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1.4.2 Some techniques in the “While you speak” stage

There are many different techniques to develop speaking skills for high school students at the stage of speaking During this stage , the ideas of learner-centered direction to teach language and communication needs to be exploited thoroughly

a) Individual Work: As a way of organizing the classroom so that each student can

prepare themselves and then speak in front of their classmates According to Harmer (1998), this organization has many advantages:

First, it allows students to work on its own speed and intensity

Second, and more importantly, it allows the students as real individuals, students can feel relaxed and back to consider the individual needs as well as your progress (Harmer ibid.: 21): because there is no competition, so students may obtain their studied knowledge in their mind

Work the individual is conducted in the classroom by the forms: oral reports, interviews and question and answer

b) Oral report: Is an important individual activity in language learning This

activities is consistent with the development of speaking skills at an advanced stage With this activity students are given a task with the given suggestions, prepared at home and brought to the presentation to the class with a time interval of 1-2 minutes

in the next lesson While speaking, the students may be allowed to look at these suggestions which are brief notes or use other supporting means such as the board, tables or charts Oral report can also be exploited in the classroom In pairs or in groups, students are assigned a certain task, for example : work in pairs, find out five things you need to bring along with you when you need to bring along with you when you go across a desert, expain why and then report the result(s) of your group

to other groups

c) Question-Answer: Each student or assigned to prepare a list of questions, or for a

list of questions to communicate These questions are not necessarily related to each other on the content and not necessarily always have to be dialogue.Students are

14

told how to answer and encouraged to spend all their time The questions which the teachers give or prepared by students are written in the small card and exchanged them to others The way encourges students to practice speaking english

in classroom

d) Interview: Is an interesting activity which combines dialogue and question –

answer, carried out in two –forms : either the student is the interview, the teacher is the interviewer, or student A interviews and student B is interviewed Comparing Question- Answer , the interview is structured clearly In this activity, the interviewer plays an important role to control the theme and the development of the conservation For highschool students, teachers must help them more much to prepare and answer questions before the interview

e) Discussion: which is a communicative activity, has many benefits for students of

foreign languages, especially the speaking lesson It is used to practise students‟fluency This technique is considered successful when more and more students participate in the discussion of a certain topic as possible With this activity, the class can be divided into many sides representing various streams of thought Each member of the class can contribute in the development of his own views on the aspects that they particularly care about This makes the discussion more interesting than other communicative activities

f) Other techniques: In addition to the above techniques, there are other effective

techniques in the speaking lesson such as language games, filling in an information gap, debating, solving problems,……

1.4.3 Some techniques in the “After you speak” stage

The purpose of the stage is the continued development of the ideas or the contents mentioned in the while speaking stage , and relate what has been learned or practiced with real life In this stage the teacher can tell a funny story for students

to listen , or use of language games (if appropriate) which relate to the theme or situation for students to participate in order to reduce their stress after a period

in an artificial environment This may give the pupil an understanding of a situation

or relationship among real life participants of a social process He will gain some perceptions of the actions, attitudes and insight of persons or situations It is a way

of bringing situations from real life into the classroom Employing role play into the classroom adds variety, opportunities for a lot of language production and also a lot

of fun

1.5.2 Why use role-playing?

Considering how important a teacher should make his or her lesson classroom activity enjoyable, active, secure, and full of more exposure to language input and more choice to practice the languages, he or she needs to develop his or her teaching techniques One of the techniques to be used in teaching the speaking

skill is role-play

The purpose of role-play is “ to improve students‟ verbal and non- verbal communication skills and to link and use preciously built schemas, in both structured and improvised situations” (Maxwell, 1997: 1) Teachers use role-play

as one of the teaching methods to force students to speak in public The common

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weakness of Vietnamese students is their speaking ability They seldom have the chance to practice conversation, even in the second language classroom Therefore, role-play could improve students in verbal and non- verbal communication while

they are acting out the roles in the dialogue

Role play allows students to explore their inner resources, empathize with others, and use their own experiences as scaffolds upon which credible action As a result, students can improve their ability to produce the target language, acquire many of its nonverbal nuances, improve the ability to work cooperatively in group situations, and effectively deal with affective issues Role play has high appeal for students because it allows them to be creative and to put themselves in another person‟s place for a while (Richard-Amato, 2003: 214- 222)

To reach the objectives of the role-play technique, some important aspects should be considered Those aspects are learning and teaching activities, role of instructional materials, the procedure of role-play, the media and the setting of role-play, the students‟ role, and the teacher‟s role According to Brown (2001: 183), role-play minimally involves (a) giving a role to one or more members of a group and (b) assigning an objective or purpose that participants must accomplish He suggests that role-play can be conducted with a single person, in pairs or in groups, with each person assigned a role to accomplish an objective

1.5.3 The difficulties when using role-play in classroom

Role playing situations might not flesh out quite like you hope because some students are embarrassed and thus tentative about acting out a part in a dramatic fashion This will cause a role playing situation to be awkward and unproductive because one or more students will not be able to participate When a student feels self-conscious, he will be more likely to be worried about what others will think of him, rather than how the situation can be solved

In larger classes, role playing cannot be done effectively because not all of the students have the option to participate Many role playing scenarios use only

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two or three individuals in a situation, so the rest of the students just have to watch This will cause them to become disinterested and stop paying attention If you try to make the situation incorporate more students, the role playing might become a chaotic mess

The power of role playing is only harnessed when the role player receives EXPERT feedback Inexpert feedback or feedback from group members who are at the same level of competence as the role player is often useless, and does not further learning Unfortunately, most role plays in training sessions are done in small groups, and most feedback given by other, less than competent group members

While trainers may like role plays, many people who attend training actually hate them and feel exceedingly uncomfortable in roleplay situations This does not necessarily mean that people who hate them cannot benefit by them, but trainers need to consider the tradeoffs between the use of role plays and the discomfort and anxiety they create

The role playing of highly emotionally charged situations tends to be less effective in large groups, since the role playing tends to take on the characteristic of acting performances, or, the performance becomes too artificial and sounds funny It's hard, for example, for learners to pretend to be very angry without going over the top or starting to giggle This is less of a concern in therapeutic settings, but is a factor in training

1.5.4 Role-playing activities in language classroom

There are two types of role play:

l Controlled role play based on a dialogue or text

2 Free role play activities

All these activities are carried in pairs and groups

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Before the role play

Before enacting role play learners have to plan carefully for integration of all

language processes in the role play:

a) Choice of the topic or theme;

b) Dialogue formation;

c) Provision of costumes;

d) Time management (to enact in a fixed time);

e) Setting of room physically i.e., rearranging the desks to make class more spacious

Role Allocation

Role should be allocated to each member, slow or active, of the group so that each student can get an opportunity to speak out When shy and weak student will perform and enact his/her role, he or she will be confident to talk in front of others

It is argued that teenagers can best play the part of teenagers because they understand how they themselves feel Students will enjoy the part of a character, distant from their everyday experience, more

During the role play

During the role play students should observe attentively the performances

of the performers and note down the flaws or short comings to avoid them for the next time

After the role play

Through discussion, assessment and feed back of the listeners, role plays can

be made more effective

1 6 Summary

In this chapter, I have provided the theoretical foundation for the study First

I examined the notion of speaking in foreign language teaching methodology Then

I examined the difficulties teachers and students often experiences when teaching and learning speaking skills Having examined all these issues I turned to explore some useful techniques which have been commonly used in the foreign language

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classroom Realizing that role play was the activity which would constitute the focus of the study, I devoted a separate section to it, examining in some detail the notion of role-play, the difficulties in using role-play to teach speaking and the various role-play activities employed in the classroom Now that I have finished the tasks set for the chapter, I turn to chapter 2 where I shall present how I have used role-play as a communicative activity to develop speaking skill to the 10 graders at

my school - Bach Dang High School