Luận văn improving the tenth form students’ speaking ability through role playing technique at bach dang high school hai phong

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNTVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & [INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, FACULTY OF POST — GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYEN THI KIM DUNG IMPROVING THE TENTH FORM STUDENTS’SPEAKING

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST — GRADUATF STUDIES

ANAARAA RRA RARER

NGUYEN THI KIM DUNG

IMPROVING THE TENTH FORM STUDENTS’SPEAKING

ABILITY TIIROUGII ROLE- PLAYING TECIINIQUE

AT BACH DANG HIGH SCHOOL, HAI PHONG

(CẢI THIỆN KỸ NĂNG NOI TIENG ANH CUA HỌC SINH LỚP 10

TRƯỜNG TUOPT BACII DANG THONG QUA IIOAT DONG DONG VAT

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Ila Noi - 2012

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI

UNTVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & [INTERNATIONAL STUDIES,

FACULTY OF POST — GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYEN THI KIM DUNG

IMPROVING THE TENTH FORM STUDENTS’SPEAKING

ABILITY TIIROUGII ROLE- PLAYING TECIINIQUE

AT BACH DANG HIGH SCHOOL, HAI PHONG

(CAT THTEN K¥ NANG NOI TIENG ANH CUA HOC SINH LOP 10 TRUONG TUPT BACH DANG THONG QUA IIOAT DONG DONG VAD

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code : 60.14.10

Supervisor: Dr Lê Văn Canh

Ha Noi - 2012

5 Scope of the study

& Design of the study ¬— ¬— ¬—

CHAPTER 1 ke ke ke

1.1 Introduction

1.2 What is speaking in sccond language learning 7

1.3 Difficulties in teaching speaking skills to high school students

1.3.1 Difficulties from teachers

1.3.1.1 Inappropriate teacher pedagogical practices

1.3.2 Difficulties from students

1.3.3 Difficulies from objective factors

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

1.4, Some effective techniques to teach Linglish speaking skill to Ligh school

sludonls

1.4.1, Some techniques in the “Before you speak” stage ¬—

1.4.2, Some techniques in the “Whils you speak” stage ¬—

1.4.3 Some teckmiques tr the “Aller you spea

1.5.3, The difficultics when using role-play in classroom ¬—

1.5.4 Role-playing activities in language cÌassroom ¬—

1 6 Summary

2.2 An overview of Bach Dang High School

2.3 An overview of the textbook “Tiéng Anh 10" sexy 2.4 The Tenth graders at Bach Dang Iligh School

2.5 The chosen es for pilot teaclang

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

2.6.1 Preparations

2.6.1.1 Teaching plan and teaching materia

2.6.1.2 Class organization and the teacher’s teaching ¬—

2.7 Feedback from students

2.7.1 The questionnaire

2.7.2 Findings and discussion TH se TH se TH se

2.8 Summary

PART TI: CONCLUSION Hee Hee Hee

1 Recapittlatlem tre tre tre

2 Implications for teachers

3 Susgestion for fuither research ¬— ¬—

R.EFERENCES ke ke ke

APPENDIX 1 : Students’ questionnaire

APPENDIX 2: Results from Questionnaure ke ke

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

CƯ Sommunicative Language ‘Leaching

% :per cent

vi

PART T: INTRODUCTTON

1 Rationale

Speaking skill is a very important skill when leaming English The real

situation of English language teaching in Vietnam shows that ins is Ihe skill

students usually neglect and are not good at even though they have very good grammatical knowledge Students’ leaming methods depend much on teachers, studonis slill are quile passwe m their learning process In order to improve the students’ speaking ability, teachers can use many kinds of communicative activities Among them, role play is regarded as a very typical and effective one Role-play

has been widely used as a leaching method in the ESL/ EFL classroom It is widely

agreed that learning takes place when activities are engaging and memorable According (o Jeremy Harmer (1986), role-play is used to leach Fnglish speaking skills for the followme reasons

- It's fun and motivating,

- Quieter students get the chance ta 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 Tls larget 1s Lo help studerls Lo reach an mformational level Tt

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) stales that speaking is an important skill thal a leamer should acquire It is very important in order to enable students to

communicate effectively through oral language because the disability of the

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 ams of most language programs is to develop spoken language skills and most programs aim to integrate both spoken and written language Leaming 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

Imow the language is to use it He further states that students do not know a

sentence until he can speak it

To fact, the English instrackion in some High Schools does not demonstrate a

satisfactory result Many students fail to reach the goal of the Linglish teaching They are not able to communicate with the foreign language either orally or in writlort form allhough they have learned English [or many years (Lestari, 2000: 27) Many of the leamers 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 whure opportunities to speak are severely limited Others were taught in schools where speaking was simply not encouraged

Comparmg to other techniques, role-play scems 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 leamer 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 Lo the students Huang (2008), in her sludy on commumicalive skills,

concludes that role play is really a worthwhile leaming experience for both the student and the teacher Not only can students have more opportunities to "act" and

“interact” with their peers irying to use the English language, but also sludents!

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 wore realistic, more practical way Thus (hey can becorne 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/DIL 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 il lo improve the speaking ability of the tenth year students of Bach Dang

Lligh School ‘Ihis 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 imprave their speaking skill — a macro-skill which scems lo 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 Iligh School, Iai Phong,

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

Tang High School To achieve this aim, the study first allompis to first provide the

teaching and leaming of English at Bach Dang High School in general and the teaching and leaming speaking of its 10 graders in particular ‘Chen, it will explore

the notion of role-play in the foreign Tenguage (caching hterature, Then it will

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

is used to develop speaking skill to 10 graders at Bach Dang Iligh 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 sludy, (he rescarch queslions, 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 schaol students, some efleclive techniques to leach English speaking skill to high school students, the concept of role-play, the difficulties when using role-play in

classroom, the reason lo use role-play, and role-playimg acliviues m language

classroom

Chapter 2 analyses the teaching and learning of Linglish at Bach Dang Lligh School It first takes a look at the textbook “Tiéng 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 Iigh 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 Iligh School 10 graders in

the pilol classes

The Conclusion recapitulates the contents which have been explored, points

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

PART TI: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1

LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Intreduction

In this chapter, an attempt is made to explore the issues conceming speaking

such as whal is spaaking, he difficulties the Frglish learnors in the world in general and in Vietnam in particular face when leaming speaking ‘Then 1 will present some

effective techniques to teach English speaking skill to High school students In the

final section, I will examine (be nolion of role-play in foreign language teaching

1.2 What is speaking in second language lcarning ?

Speaking is “an inleraclive process of constructing meaning thal, mvolves

producing and receiving and processing information” (Florez, 1999: 1) It is “ofton 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 speoch pathology (il'a person slulters or iC bis speech is impaired duc 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 noloworlhy sonsc What we [ail 1o notice on a daily basis, however, are he myriad physical, mental, psychological, social, and cultural factors that must all work

together when we speak Tt is even a more impressive [cal when we hear someone

speaking effectively ina second or foreign language

According to Brown and Yule’s opmions (1983), spoken language consists of short, fragmentary utterances in a range of pronunciation Llowever, speaking is a

skill, which deserves attention as much as Literacy skills in both first and scvond language because our leamers often need to speak with confidence in order to carry oul a Tol of their most basic transactions (Bygale, 1991) Furthermore, speaking is known with two main types of conversation called dialogue and monologue

Speaking requires that leammers not only know how to produce speerfie 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, specch has ils own skills, structures, and

conventions different from written language (Bums & Joyce, 1997; Carter &

MeCarthy, 1995; Cohen, 1996) A good speaker synthesizes this array of skills and knowledge Lo 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 we sources: (1)

from teachers and (2) from students

1.3.1 Difticultics from teachers

1.3.1.1 Inappropriate teacher pedagogical practices

“Inappropnate teacher pedagogical praclices” consisis of the amount of

teacher talk, teacher correction, teacher-leaner relationships, teachers’ deficiency in Lnglish communicative competence and other factors These factors will be

discussed below

‘The amount of Teacher ‘lalk 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 ckassroom talk Teacher talk makes up over 70 percent of the total talk (Cook,

2000; Legarreta, 1977; Chaudron, 1988, Zhao Xiachong, 1998) It is evident that if teachers devote large amounts of time to explanations or management instructions,

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 litle opportunity lo develop their language proficieney

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 Xiachong, 1998;

Zhou Xing & Zhou Yun, 2002) Harmer points out that the best lessons are ones where

SIT is maximized Getting students to speak to use the language they are leaming —-

is a vital part of a teacher`s job (Iarmer, 20004) Ilowever, 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 leamer’s errors are significant in (that) they provide to the researcher ovidence of how language is leamed er acquired, whal slralegies or procedures the leamer 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

Tn 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 (Cr, 2000) Correction helps students Lo

olanfy thew 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 ‘Ihe leamer has reliable intuitive Imowledge about what kind of correction helps most, that is, leamer 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

Teacher-learner relationship The relationship between the teacher and

students plays a part in evoking problems in teaching speaking skill A necessary prerequisile (or creating a favorable learning atmosphere int (he class is Lo 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 ('sui, 1996) ‘Ihe teacher may decide to talk

to individual students outside the classroom, as students may feel inhibited about

discussing (heir feelings in front of their classurales This “siep” may contribute Lo

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 urnor, Irioudly, relaxed and pationt (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 commumealive compelonee For many years, language leaching was seen as helping learners to develop linguistic competence-that is, helping students inaster the sounds, words, aud grammar patterns of Fnglish, The idea was that by studying bits and picces 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.

|Area

Linguistic

competence

‘The aims for learners

~ lo achieve accuracy in the grammatical forms of the language

~to build a range of vocabulary

- to learn the script and spelling mules

- to understand and use emotive tone

~ lo use the pragmatic rules of language

~to select language forms appropriate Lo lopic, listener, ele

- to be able to cope with authentic texts

~to be able 1a take risks in using both spoken and waillen language

“What do you call a thing thal/person who ”

- to deal with the information gap of real discourse

From the description of communicative competence mentioned above, to teach teaching speaking skill, teachers might have been required to have language leaching compolenee 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 Imowledge of linguistic

competence, which causes sluderts’ failure to uusuccessfully communicale:

1.3.2 Difficulties from students

There exist many student-related problems in teaching speaking skill in Rnglish classes Many learners, as reporled by sludies into speaking (eg Tsui

“Retivence 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 leaching speaking skill

Kirst and foremost, many reasons for learners’ unwillingness to speak can be

enumeraled Burns and Joyce identified three groups of factors thal are Likely to

cause reluctance with learners These encompass cultural, linguistic, and affective factors (Bums 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 Bums and Joyce, difficulties in the phonetics and phonology of the target language, poor Inowledge of grammatical pattems 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 cullure shock are ranked among possible affective factors (Burns

and Joyee, 1997: 134)

Based on six interviews of Japanese students at the University of Edinburgh,

Dwyer and Heller-Mirphy (1996) concluded that the students were reticent, in

10

EFL/ESL classrooms due to fear of public failure, tear of making mistakes, lack of

confidence, low Lnglish proficiency, and inability to keep up with native speakers,

incompelence m the rules and norms of English conversation, disoricnlation, ote

This conchision was supported by Jones’ (1999) review of research on NXS

students’ oral behavior in Inglish 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 Ilowever,

since wide differences exist in SL/FT, language learning situations, to beller

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 nieeded wilh different groups of leamers in various SFI learning

situations

1.3.3 Difficulties from objective factors

The objective factors like large and multilevel classes, time constraint and text

book alse result in the difficulties in teaching speaking skill

Recently, in their minor study, Julie Mathews-Aydinli and Regina Van Ilome (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 Frnly Thrush (2003) have the same opiroon of the large classes Lhat teachers trị

HEL settings often find classes of 40-70 students to be the nonm Even though they may be common, large classes challenge even well-trained and experienced

teachers The task of Leaching oral slalls im large classes can be daunting, and EST

teachers may question how oral exercises other than drills can be integrated into a

language class of so many students

1.3.4

ficulties in teaching English speaking skill to students in Vietnam

Difficulties from teachers

According to Pham Hoa Hiep (2005), many Victnamose leachors are conflicted, feeling that the circumstances oppose, or at least, militate against

attempts to use communicative practices lor example, they have to prepare

students for a grammar-based examination, and have to finish certain content in the

textbook in a certain amoum of time ‘They may have classes of GU students, many

of whom are more cancemed about the immediate goal — to pass exams, to get a

degree, rather than the long term goal — 10 develop commumicalive competence

Difficulties from students

The real situation of English language teaching shows that this is the skill

sludsnis usually neglect and are nol, good al, 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 concem how to

pass cxams, have good marks in paper-lesls which are relalcd to Grammar, Vocabulary,and a little in Promunciation Speaking English is umimportant without going abroad

1.4, Some effective techniques ta teach English speaking skill Lo 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 thal 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

telaled (o these pictures.

1.4.2 Some techniques in the “While you speak” stage

‘There are many different techniques to develop speaking skills for high school studenis at the stage of speaking Durirys this slage 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

Tlarmer (1998), this organization has many advantages

First, iL allows students lo work on ils own speed and miensily

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 obtai their

studied knowledge in ther mind

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

b) Oral report 1s an important individual activity in language leaming ‘This

achivilies is consistent with the development of speaking skills al an advanced stage

With this actwwity 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

©} 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 Ihe content and net necessarily always have to be dialogue Studenls are

13

told how to answer and encourapcd to spend all their time The questions which the teachers give or prepared by students are written in the small card and exchanged Uhom Lo others The way eneourges sludenis Lo practice speaking english

in classroom

đì 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 imporlant role to control the theme and the development of the

conservation Mor highschool students, teachers must help them more much to prepare and answer questions before the interview

c) Discussion: which 1s a communicative

tivity, has many benefils 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 siudenls partiepale in the discussion of a cerlain lopic as possible With this activity, the class can be divided into many sides representing various streams of

thoughL Each member of the class can contnbule m the development of his own

views on the aspects that they particularly care about This makes the discussion

more interesting than other communicative activities

£) 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 leamed 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

actor plays in a performance.” And role playing is “a technique in which

participants assume and act out roles as to resolve conflicts, entertain, or to practice

appropriate behavior for various situations” According to Kochhar (1992), role play is “a technique in which the process of teaching is displayed artificially and an effort is made to practice some important skills of communication through this

1echmaque`” The pupil-teacher and the students sumulale the particular role of a

person or actual life-situation ‘'he whole programme, thus, becomes training in role perception and role playing One of the exercises which enhances communication

and fluency in expresston is “ROLE PLAY’ The role, false or actual, 1s performed

in an artificial environment his 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, altitudes and insight of persons or situations It is a way

of bringing situations from real life into the classroom Kmploying role play into the

classroom adds vanely, opporlurities 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 hor lesson classroom aotivity 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 hnk and use preciously built schemas, in both

structured and improvised situations” (Maxwell, 1997: 1) Teachers use role-play

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

15

weakness of Victnamese students is the 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 corumunication while they are acting out the roles in the dialogue

Role play allows students to explore their inner resources, empathize with

others, and nse their own experiences as sealolds upon which eredible 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 clfectively deal with alfective issues Role play has high appeal for

students because it allows them to be creative and to put themselves im another

person’s place for a while (Richard-Amato, 2003: 21 4- 222),

To reach the objectives of the role-play technique, some important aspects should be considered hose aspects are learning and teaching activities, role of

imstructional materials, the procedure of role-play, the media and the setling 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.:

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 lo 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 warried about what others will think of

tom, 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

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 silushon incorporale more siudents, 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 levet of competence as the role player is often useless, and does nol further leaning, Unfortmately, 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 lo consider the tradeoff between the use of role plays and the discom(ort 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 actmg performances, or, the performance becomes too artificial and sounds funny It's hard, for example, for leamners to pretend to be very angry without going over the top or starting to giggle This is less of a concer 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

1 Controlled role play based on a dialogue or text

3 Free tole play activities

All these activities are carried in pairs and groups

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,

¢) Provision of costumes;

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

e) Setting of room physically ie., 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

cach student can get an opportunity to speak oul Wher shy and weak student will

perform and enact hissher 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 fecl 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 rale play

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

be made more effective

1 6 Summary

In this chapter, 1 have provided the theoretical foundation for the study First

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

T examined the dilfeulties teachers and studeuts offen expericnees when teaching

and learning speaking skills Having examined all these issues [ tumed 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 foous of the study, 1 devoted a separate section to it, examining in some detail the nolion of role-play, the difficulties in using role-play to tcach spoaking and the various role-play activities employed in the classroom Now that I have finished the tasks set for the chapter, I tum 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