Using role play activities in mixed level english speaking classrooms at high school

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY TRẦN THE VINH USING ROLE PLAY ACTIVITIES IN MIXED LEVEL ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSROOMS AT HIGH SCHOOL MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION NGHỆ AN – 2017 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY TRẦN THẾ VINH USING ROLE PLAY ACTIVITIES IN MIXED LEVEL ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSROOMS AT HIGH SCHOOL Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching Code: 60.14.61.11 MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION Supervisor: TRAN BA TIEN, Ph D NGHỆ AN - 2017 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby certify that I am the sole author of this study This study is submitted in partial fulfillment for the Master degree of Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching at Vinh University and has not been submitted elsewhere in any other form for the fulfillment of any other degree or qualification Signature Tran The Vinh i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I really realize that this thesis project is finished with the help of many people around me Therefore, this opportunity I would like to thank people who have given their ideas, times, and everything to me during the writing of this thesis First, I would like to express my special gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Tran Ba Tien for his invaluable time, guidance, insightful comments, patience, encouragement, and suggestion in guiding me during the process of writing this thesis Second, I am grateful to the teachers of English, who answered my questionnaire and interviewing questions and allowed me to carry out my observation and the students at Nguyen Cong Tru High school for what they have done to help me finish the thesis Last but not least, I would like to express my special thanks to my family, my friend and so many others who have given me constant support and love during the completion of the study Vinh, May 2017 ABSTRACT Speaking is one of the most challenging and troublesome skills in our schools and in mixed level classrooms Because of the skill difficulties, our pupils find it difficult to master all the aspects of speaking and use them appropriately in different social contexts Therefore, they not perform acceptable tasks It is our belief that the problem is the result of lack of efficient strategies The present study aimed at shedding the light on communication in classrooms; acting role-play as a good model for bringing real-life situations into mixed level classrooms and promoting students selfconfidence through expressing their ideas during the practice of role plays activities Accordingly, we believe that using role-play activities in the classrooms make pupils of high school feel interesting to speak English and communicate effectively in different social situations In attempting to raise the teachers’ and pupils’ awareness about role play, we have directed the questionnaires, observations, interviews to 11th graders’ high school and all the teachers of English to investigate their attitudes towards using roleplay technique The results from the analysis of those have confirmed the research hypothesis and have shown that teachers and learners hold favorable attitudes towards using role play techniques, the advantages and disadvantages, how to optimise it as well mentioned Thus, we recommend the using of different techniques such as role play activities in teaching speaking to develop pupils’ speaking skill TABLES OF CONTENT STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i ABSTRACT iii TABLES OF CONTENT iv LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF FIGURES viii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Motivation for the study 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Research methods 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Significance of the study 1.6 Identification of the Problem 1.7 Organization of the study CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 The Nature of Speaking 2.2 Speaking Skills and the Aspects of Speaking 2.3 Teaching Speaking 2.3.1 The Roles of the Teachers and the Students in the EFL of Speaking 2.4 Principles of Teaching Speaking 10 2.4.1 The teachers should aware of the differences between second language and foreign language learning contexts 10 2.4.2 The teachers should give students practice with both fluency and accuracy 11 2.4.3 The teachers should provide opportunities for students to talk by using group work or pair work and limiting teacher talk 11 2.4.4 The teacher should plan speaking tasks that involves negotiation for meaning 11 2.4.5 The teacher should design classroom activities that guided and practiced in both transactional and interpersonal function 11 2.5 Criteria for Speaking Tasks 12 2.6 Classroom Speaking Activities 13 2.7 Problems in Teaching Speaking 15 2.8 Assessing Speaking 16 iv 2.9 Role Play Activities 17 2.9.1 What is role-play? 17 2.9.2 Definition of role-play 18 2.9.3 Types and procedures of Role play 19 2.9.3.1 Scripted Role play 19 2.9.3.2 Unscripted Role play 20 2.10 Role-play and simulation 20 2.11 The organisation of a role-play activity 21 2.12 Advantages of role-play 23 2.13 Pair work and group work as patterns of classroom interaction in role-play 26 2.14 The teacher’s roles in role-play 27 2.15 Mixed ability classrooms 28 2.15.1 Definition of a mixed ability class 29 2.15.2 Mixed Ability Teaching 29 2.16 Some Problems in the Mixed Ability Classes 30 2.16.1 Materials 31 2.16.2 Participation 31 2.16.3 Interests 31 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY 35 3.1 Research questions 35 3.1.1 What attitude teachers and students have toward learning English speaking and role-play activities ? 35 3.1.2 What are the advantages and disadvantages of using role-play to enhance 11th graders’ English speaking skill? 35 3.1.3 How can role-play activities be optimized in a mixed level English class? 35 3.2 Research participants 35 3.2.1 The researcher 35 3.2.2 The subjects 35 3.2.3 Research procedure 35 3.2.4 Data collection instruments 36 3.3 Survey questionnaires 36 3.4 Observations 36 3.5 Interview 37 CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 39 4.1 Results analysis 39 4.1.1 Questionnaires 39 4.1.1.1 Questionnaire for students 39 4.1.1.2 Teacher questionnaire 52 4.1.2 Interviewing 58 4.1.2.1 Teachers' interviewing 58 4.1.2.2 Students' interviewing 60 4.1.3 Observation 57 4.1.3.1 The first observed class 57 4.1.3.2 The second observed class 58 4.1.3.3 The third observed class 59 4.1.3.4 The fourth observed class 60 Discussion 61 4.2.1 Research question 1: What attitude teachers and students have toward learning speaking English and role-play activities? 62 4.2.1.1 Students' attitude toward learning speaking English 62 4.2.1.2 Students' attitude toward role-play activities 62 4.2.1.3 Teachers attitude toward role-play activities 63 4.2.2 Research question 2: What are the advantages and disadvantages of using role- play to enhance 11th graders’ English speaking skill? 63 4.2.2.1 The effectiveness of applying role-play 63 4.2.2.2 The difficulties of applying role-play 64 4.2.3 Research question 3: How can role-play activities be optimized in a mixed level English classrooms? 64 4.2.3.1 The advice for teachers 64 4.2.3.2 The advice for students 65 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION 66 1.1 Overview of the thesis 66 1.2 Limitations of the thesis 67 1.3 Suggestions for further research 67 REFERENCES i APPENDICES I iv APPENDICES II vi OBSERVATION SHEET ix vi LIST OF TABLES Tables of students'questionnaire analysis Table Students' attitude towards speaking English 39 Table Students' thought about learning speaking 40 Table Students' speaking ability 41 Table Pupils' thinking about Role play 41 Table The frequencies of teachers' applying role - play 42 Table Students' thought about the way that teachers apply role-play 43 Table How does your teacher act during the plays performance ? 43 Table Students' thought about role-play activities 44 Table Students' opinion about the profit of participating in role-play 45 Table 10 Students' benefits when participating in role-play activities 46 Table 11 It gives an opportunity to express emotions freely 46 Table 12 Students' advantages when participating in role-play activities 47 Table 13 Student's difficulties when participating in role-play activities 48 Table.14 The students' concentration on the topics of role-play activities 48 Table 15 Students' opinions about their teacher's instruction 49 Table 16 Pupils satisfaction with the level of speaking 50 Table 17 When performing role plays in your class , you prefer ? 50 Table 18 The feedback after role play helps to improve further 51 Table 19 The improvement of students' speaking ability 52 Tables of teachers'questionnaire analysis Table 1:Teachers' opinion about their students' attitude about learning speaking .49 Table 2: Teachers" opinion about their students' speaking ability .50 Table 3: Are you sastified with your students level in speaking? 51 Table 4: It is an easy method to communicate with others 51 Table 5: Teachers have applied role-play activities 51 Table 6: Teachers' difficulties when applying role-play activities 52 Table 7: The usefulness of role-play activities .53 Table 8: Teachers' opinion about whether applying role-play in mixed level classrooms is difficult or not 54 Table 9: Teachers’ opinion about applying role-play in mixed level english speaking classrooms .54 Table 10: Teachers' opinion about their students' speaking ability improvement - 55 question that the use of role play in teaching speaking is quite effective To serve for the purpose of the study, observation sheets, interview questions and questionnaires were employed to collect the necessary information The results of the research show that most eleventh grade teachers of English here have applied role-play activities in teaching They also admit of the usefulness of role-play Role-play can help students increase their confidence as well as their imagination and creativity Moreover, it can not only help students use English in natural way but also talk about daily- life topic that students are interested in In fact, both teachers and students conform that they get difficulties when using this activity The most crucial difficulty that teachers meet is students' speaking ability limitation That lead to the fact that they flinch to apply this activity often Meanwhile most of students get difficulties in their confidence and their vocabulary Problems that the students faced mostly in role play are lack of confidence and lack of vocabulary are dealt with.They seem to be hard to express their character in confident way However, during the observation, students display to be excited participating in role-play activities and their speaking interest also seem to be increased The use of role play makes the speaking and learning activity more enjoyable and interesting It’s because role play helps the shy students by providing a mask, where students with difficulty in conversation are liberated In addition, it is fun and most students will agree that enjoyment leads to better learning In role play, the world of the classroom is broadened to include the outside world This offers a much wider range of language opportunities So, the students can be anyone and in any situation they wish The use of role play makes the class more active and alive Students are willing to participate without any forces from the teacher It can be concluded that communicative approach in general and role-play activities in particular should be often use in teaching English because of the effectiveness in learning speaking It is expected that role-play activity will be more helpful and will be applied more and more frequently 5.2 Limitations of the thesis The study contains some limitations that should be noted Firstly, because of limit of time, the researcher just can interview some teachers and students about using role- play activities, there are some other teachers and a lot of students can not have a chance to 66 express their opinion; therefore, the results are not various Moreover, it is limitation at time of observing teachers' teaching There are just four periods of three classes were observed so the scopes of the study is limited Next, the research needs to experiment in reality In other words, the researcher need to really teach some classes those using roleplay activities Finally, the study would be more profound if the researcher has perfectly good knowledge about role-play 5.3 Suggestions for further research The success in teaching doesn’t depend on the lesson program only, but more important is how the teacher presents the lesson and uses various techniques to manage the class more lively and enjoyable Regarding to the teaching speaking by using role play, the writer gives some suggestion for the teacher and students as follow: For the teacher: - The teacher should choose the materials that are appropriate and not too difficult for the students - Before assigning the role play to the students, the teacher should make sure that the students have fully understood and have the information they need - The teacher should keep control the students’ activities - The teacher should present the language in an enjoyable, relaxed and understandable way For the students: - The students are hoped not to be shy in acting out their role - The students are hoped to be active and creative in enriching their vocabularies - The students are hoped to use English when they practice role play activities although it is hard for them - The students should take part much in acting out role play - The students should ask to the teacher if there is something that they don’t understand regarding to the role play activities Hopefully, the mentioned limitations will help other researchers have some useful experiences in their further related studies First of all, the researchers should enlarge the amount of research participants The more research participants' answers researchers collect the more reliable results they get, for example, further studies can involve more 67 teachers and students in interview so that they can get more information about their research participants' attitude toward research object In addition, the effectiveness of role-play will be recognized easily if researchers spend much time on observing more lessons taught by high school teachers It is also better if further researchers have a chance for real teaching time that role-play is applied It is hoped that these suggestions will help further researchers have better experience for their studies In brief, though thesis contains certain limitations, it has been completed with greatest efforts, therefore, sympathetic comments and suggestions are highly appreciated 68 REFERENCES Brown, H D (2004) Language Assessment, Principles and Classroom Practices.New York: Pearson Education, Inc Brown, H D (2001) Teaching by Principles: an Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy New York: Addison Wesley Longman.Inc Budden, Joanna (2004) “Roleplay”, British Council(http://www.teachenglish.org uk/think/articles/role-play) (date of access: April 2013) Chaney, A.L., T.L Burke, Teaching Oral Communication in Grades K- 8.Boston: Allyn and Bacon, (1998) Dakowska, Maria.( 2005) Teaching English as a foreign language: A guide for professionals Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN Doff, Adrian (1988) Teach English: A training course for teachers: Trainer’s Handbook Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Dummett, Paul (1994) “Simulations and realistic tasks”, Modern English Teacher 3(1), 41-43 Fisher, R (2001) Teaching Children to Learn Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes Ltd GolGbiowska, Aleksandra 1987 Let’s talk: A book for teachers Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Szkolne i Pedagogiczne 10 Good, T L (1988) "Observational Research Grounding Theory in Classrooms “Educational Psychologist ,25” 275-379 Hallam, S., & Toutounji, I (1996) What we know about the Grouping of Pupils by Ability? London: Institute of Education 11 Handouts McGraw: Hill Companies.p54 12 Harmer, Jeremy.( 2001) The practice of English language teaching Harlow: Longman 13 Harmer, Jeremy (2001) The practice of English language teaching Harlow: Longman Harmer, Jeremy (2012) Essential teacher knowledge Harlow: Pearson Education Limited 14 HMIE (2007) Modern Languages: A Portrait of Current Practice in Scottish 15 Huang, Irene Y (2008) “Role play for ESL/EFL Children in the English Classroom” 16.Ireson, J., & Hallam, S (2001) Ability Grouping in Education London: Paul i Chapman Publishing 17 Johnson, K, and K, Morrow (1981) Communication in the Classroom:Applications andMethods for A Communicative Approach London:Longman Group Ltd Julian Edge, Essential of English Language Teaching, (Longman: 1993), P 18 25 19 Kayi, H 2006 Teaching Speaking: Activities to Promote Speaking in A Second Language, http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Kayi-TeachingSpeaking.html 20 Louma,Sari,(2009).AssessingSpeaking.Cambridge; Cambridge University.p10 21 McKeown, S (2004) Meeting SEN in the Curriculum: Modern Foreign Languages London: David Fulton Publishers 22 Ments, V M (1999) The effective use of role-play: practical techniques for improving learning (2nd ed.) Retrieved May 12, 2012 , fro http://books.google.com.bd/books/about/The Effective Use of Role Play html?id=GbXOYf8aTIC&redir_esc=y Nunan, (2003) Practical English Language Teaching: Teachers Text Book 23 24 Nunan, D (1989) Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom Cambridge:Cambridge University Press Porter-Ladousse, Gillian (1987) Role play Oxford: Oxford University 25 Press 26 Richards, J and W Renandya (2002) Methodology in Language Teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 27 Richards, Jack C and David Bohlke (2011) Creative effective language lessons.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 28 Rivers, W, M (1981) Teaching Foreign Language Skills Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 29 Scrivener, Jim 2005 Learning teaching Oxford: Macmillan Publishers Ltd 30 The Differentiated Classroom: responding to the Needs of AllLearners Alexandria: ASCD 31 The Internet TESL Journal.(http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Huang-RolePlay.html) (date of access: April 2013) 32 Thombury, S (2005) How to Teach Speaking, Essex: Pearson Educational ii Limited 33 Thornbury,S.(2005) How to Teach Speaking, Essex:Pearson EducationalLimited 34 Thornbury, Scott 2005 How to teach speaking London: Pearson Education Limited 35 Tomlinson, C (1999) 36 Ur, Penny 1996 A course in language teaching: Practice and theory Cambridge :Cambridge University Press iii APPENDIX I QUESTIONNAIRE (For teachers) This questionnaire is designed for our research on using role-play activities in teaching speaking at high schools for mixed level classrooms Your assistance in completing the following items is highly appreciated Please feel free to complete this questionnaire as you will not be identified in any discussion of the data Thank for your cooperation! Please circle A, B, C, or D where applicable Question 1: Do you like learning English speaking? A Like very much B Like C Like a little D Do not like Question : How you think about your students' speaking ability ? A Very good B.Good C.Pretty good D.Not good Question : Are you sastified with your students level in speaking? A Yes B No Question 4:Is role -play an easy method for your studets to communicate with others ? A Strongly agree B.Agree C.Neutral D.Disagree E.Strongly disagree Question Have you ever have applied role-play activities ? A.Yes B No Question 6: What are your difficulties when applying role-play activities ? A T ime limitation preparation B.Strange activity C.Cannot involve all students D.The student speaking ability Question 7: Why you think that role-play activities are useful? A D evelop their imagination and creativity B.Can use English in free way C.Talk about daily-life topics D.Increase students ' confidence E.All of the usefulness Question Do you think whether using role-play in mixed level classrooms is difficult or not ? iv A Very difficult B Difficult C Normal D Easy Question 9.How you think about applying role-play in mixed level classrooms ? A.Very useful B Useful C Normal D.Useless QuestionlO: How you think about their students' speaking ability improvement? A.Be improved very much B.Be improved C.Be improved a little D.Be not improved v APPENDIX II QUESTIONNAIRE (For students) Chúng thiết kế câu hỏi nhằm thu thập thông tin cho nghiên cứu có tựa đề “Sử dụng hoạt động nhập vai để dạy kỹ nói cho học sinh Trung học có trình độ khơng đồng đều” Chúng tơi đánh giá cao hỗ trợ em hoàn thành mục câu hỏi Chúng cam kết bảo mật thông tin cá nhân, không nêu danh em nghiên cứu Cám ơn giúp đỡ em! Please circle A, B, C, or D where applicable Xin vui lòng chọn phương án phù hợp A, B, C, D Câu hỏi 1: Các em có thích học nói Tiếng Anh khơng ? A.Rất thích B.Thích C Hơi thích D.Khơng thích Câu hỏi 2: Các em có cho học mơn nói Tiếng Anh quan trọng không? A.Rất quan trọng B.Quan trọng C.Không quan trọng D.Không quan trọng Câu hỏi 3: Các em cho biết khả nói Tiếng Anh có tốt khơng ? A.Rất tốt B.Tốt C.Khá tốt D.Khơng tốt Câu hỏi : Các em có nghĩ hạt động đóng vai vui khơng? A.Có B Khơng Câu hỏi 5: Các thầy(cơ) có thường sử dụng hoạt động đóng vai tiết học Tiếng Anh không? A.Thường xuyên B.Thỉnh thoảng C.Hiếm D.Chưa Câu hỏi 6: Cách tổ chức hoạt động đóng vai giáo viên nào? A.Rất thú vị B Thú vị C Cũng thú vị D Buồn chán Câu hỏi 7: Trong bạn đóng cặp giáo viên trợ giúp bạn với vai tò nào? A.Người tạo điều kiện thuận lợi B Người hướng dẫn C.Người bạn D Người đóng vai trị khác Câu hỏi 8: Các em thích hoạt động đóng vai khơng? A.Rất thích B Thích C.Thích D Khơng thích Câu hỏi 9: Hoạt động đóng vai có đưa lại lợi ích cho em khơng? A.Rất có lợi B Có lợi ích C Có chút lợi ích Câu hỏi 10: Những lợi ích tham gia hoạt động đóng vai ? A Có thể phát huy trí tưởng tượng khả nẽng sáng tạo trở thành người khác B Có thể sử dụng ngơn ngữ cách tự do, từ làm cho việc học ngơn ngữ trở nên tự nhiên C Có hội để nói đề tài quen thuộc sống hàng ngày D Tất lợi ích Câu hỏi 11: Các bạn có đồng ý rằng: Hoạt động đóng kịch đưa lại cho em hội thể tình cảm cách tự A Rất đồng ý B đồng ý C Khơng có ý kiến D Khơng đồng ý E Hồn tồn khơng đồng ý Câu hỏi 12: Thuận lơi em tham gia hoạt động đóng vai? A Có đủ tự tin vào khả trình bày trước đám đơng B Có hứng thú với hoạt động giao tiếp học C Thích trải nghiệm vào nhân vật, dạng người khác sống Câu hỏi 13: K hi tham gia vào hoạt động đóng vai, khó khăn em gì? A Khơng đủ tự tin để thể vai diễn trước lớp B Khơng có đủ vốn từ vựng để diễn đạt nhân vật đóng muốn nói C Khơng có hứng thú vời đề tài đưa D Tình đưa q khó, khơng phù hợp với khả nơng thân Câu hỏi 14: Khi tham gia vào hoạt động đóng vai, em thích chủ đề có liên quan đến nội dung sách giáo khoa hay chủ đề bên giáo viên đưa ra? A Chủ đề có liên quan đến nội dung sách giáo khoa B Chủ đề bên liên quan đến sống hàng ngày giáo viên đưa C Các chủ đề mang tính tưởng tượng D Cả hai loại chủ đề Câu hỏi 15.Việc hướng dẫn để thực hoạt động đóng vai thầy (cơ) em vii hiểu hay không? A.Rất dễ hiểu B Dễ hiểu C Khá dễ hiểu D Không dễ hiểu Câu hỏi 16: Các em có hài lịng trình độ kỹ nói em khơng? A.Có B Khơng 17: Hoạt động đóng cặp lớp bạn thích vào vai với tư cách hơn? A chọn vai B giao vai giáo viên Câu hỏi 18: Các bạn có đồng ý phản hồi sau hoạt động đóng cặp giúp cải thiện kỹ nói khơng? A Rất đồng ý B đồng ý C Khơng có ý kiến D Khơng đồng ý E Hồn tồn khơng đồng ý Câu hỏi 19: Khi tham gia vào hoạt động đóng vai, khả nói Tiếng Anh em có đượ cải thiện khơng? A Có nhiều B.Có C.Có D.Khơng viii APPENDIX III OBSERVATION SHEET Teacher's name: School: Grade: Number of students: Observer: Date: Type of lesson Time: Management and control of the class Excellent Very Good Average Poor Good Average Poor Good Average Poor good Instructions are clear and understood The teacher monitors the class The teacher controls the role-play activity The teacher"s time using for role-play activity is appropriate The stage that teacher applies role-play is appropriate Students learning and involvement Excellent Very good The teacher establishes rapport with the students in the role-play activity The teacher involves the students and keeps them interested in the role-play activity The teacher encourages and praises The effectiveness of applying role- play Excellent Very good Students are enthusiastic and active in the activities Students are interested in their characters Students can use English to express what their character feel/ think Students interest in the activities 10 ...MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY TRẦN THẾ VINH USING ROLE PLAY ACTIVITIES IN MIXED LEVEL ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSROOMS AT HIGH SCHOOL Field: Theory and Methodology of English. .. problem in the use of role play activities in teaching speaking in the mixed level classrooms, the basic concept of speaking, some types and procedures in using role play The thesis, in addition,... is interested in analyzing the use of role play in teaching speaking for the students of the eleventh grade in Nguyen Cong Tru High school with the thesis name ? ?Using role play activities in mixed