A study on the use of role play to improve speaking skill for the second year tourism students at nghe an trading and tourism vocationl college

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAININGVINH UNIVERSITY TRẦN THỊ MAI HOA A STUDY ON THE USE OF ROLE PLAY TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILL FOR THE SECOND YEAR TOURISM STUDENTS AT NGHE AN TRADING AND

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

TRẦN THỊ MAI HOA

A STUDY ON THE USE OF ROLE PLAY

TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILL FOR THE SECOND YEAR TOURISM STUDENTS AT NGHE AN TRADING AND TOURISM VOCATIONAL

COLLEGE

MASTER‘S THESIS IN EDUCATION

Nghe An, 2015

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify that this thesis is the result of my own study and that it has not been submitted to any other university or institution wholly or partially All statements of the thesis which are not my own are written in quotation and can be shown in the list of references

Vinh, January 21st , 2015

Author’s signature

Tran Thi Mai Hoa

me great help in terms of ideas and materials.

I am also grateful to all lecturers of M.A course at the Foreign Languages Department of Vinh University for their valuable lectures from which I have had such a great motivation and benefited a lot in the writing of this thesis.

My sincere thanks are due to all the colleagues, and students of class 18B7 at Nghe An Trading and Tourism and Vocational College for their cooperation in giving me valuable information

Last but not least, I am in debt to my beloved family who are always by

my side with their constant help and spiritual support during my studying process.

I have made great efforts to complete the study However, I realize that this thesis is far from being perfect To make it better, the author expects any constructive criticism At last, the writer hopes that this research paper will be useful for all

Vinh, January 21st , 2015

Tran Thi Mai Hoa

The research is entitled " A study on the use of role play to improve speaking skill for the second year tourism students at Nghe An Trading and Tourism Vocational College" It aims at describing the implementation of role

play, describing the students’ speaking improvement after they are taught by using role play and describing the students’ responses on the implementation

of role play in teaching speaking The study was conducted at Nghe An Trading and Tourism Vocational College, using action research The researcher took 30 students as the subject of the research The researcher taught speaking English using role play method To collect the data the researcher used interview, observation, questionnaire and tests (pre-test and post-test) The result of the research shows that, by implementing role play in teaching speaking, the students have chance to be active and cooperative in teaching speaking The students motivate themselves to speak and to practice speaking and the students’ speaking achievement is better It can be seen from the result of the students’ activities during action, and the students speaking achievement of speaking The mean of pre-test is 13.5, post-test is 15.7 From the students’ responses in the questionnaire, it is found that most of the students said that they like this technique They could easily learn English speaking The students admitted that their speaking was improved The students could do post-test than pre-test which means that the teaching speaking using role play is successful to improve the students’ speaking skill

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter is written with the purpose of giving the rationale, aims andobjectives of the study, the research questions, the benefits and the scope of thestudy, the methodology of the study and finally introduces the design of theproposed thesis

Speaking is one part of language skill It is a part of the productive skill It isvery important to learn speaking because we need to practice it in our educationalenvironment, especially in English lesson In many situations, productive skill canonly continue in combination with the practice of perceptive skill Productive skillwork is a way for helping students with their perceptive skill When they have tried

to speak within certain genres, they are better accustomed to understand otherpeople speaking in the same context

As a productive skill, speaking is the most difficult one For most people,mastering the art of speaking is the single most important aspect of learning asecond or foreign language and success is measured in terms of the ability to carryout a conversation in the language In terms of dealing with students talking time,the teacher must concern with the development of student-to-student interaction.This section specifically intends to discuss classroom activities that aim atencouraging communication or interaction between students Discussing in theclassroom is the example of the way to get students talk to each other, it is tostimulate information transactions

The productive skill is difficult to achieve because of several reasons One ofthe reasons is that students don’t have courage to explain their opinion in front ofthe class Perhaps, they suffer a fear of making mistakes and therefore losing face infront of the teacher and their peers

The best teaching method is a moment when teacher gives more time tostudents to maximize the speaking ability Using traditional method to teachEnglish can make students feel bored and they do not give any attention to theteacher There are many ways that can be used to improve students speaking skilland to reduce student’s boredom such as using discussion method, pictures tostimulate students participation, using role play and others

I am a teacher at Nghe An Trading and Tourism Vocational College in whichEnglish is focused to help students in their job in the future Among four skills, theteachers in my college spend more time on teaching speaking than others as it isneeded the most in hotel-tourism environment We try to find the effective solution

to improve the speaking skill of the tourism students Role- play is one of thetechniques to teach speaking It is an activity that asks the students to playcharacters based on the topics given in front of the class

Role-play improves the student’s oral fluency performance; many teachershave found that students speak more freely when they are playing a role, when they

do not have to be themselves Role play would seem to be the ideal activity inwhich students could use their English creatively and it aims to stimulate aconversation situations in which students might find themselves and give them anopportunity to practice and develop their communication skill

Based on the explanation above I’d like to do a research entitled “THE USE

OF ROLE PLAY TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILL FOR THE SECOND YEARTOURISM STUDENTS AT NGHE AN TRADING AND TOURISMVOCATIONAL COLLEGE” I hope that it will be useful for the English teachers atthis college or other people as one of teaching strategies among many otherstrategies in improving students’ speaking ability

1.2 Aims and objectives of the Study

The objectives of the study are to know that role play interest students intheir learning processes and to know that role play improve the students‟ speakingskill So that we-the teachers of Nghe An Trading and Tourism Vocational College– can implement in teaching speaking to our tourism students

1.3 Research questions:

1 What are the current speaking activities used at Nghe An Trading and Tourism Vocational College to improve tourism students’ speaking skill?

2 How could role play help improving students’ speaking skill?

1.4 Benefits of the study:

This study has two major benefits: practical and theoretical benefits

1 Theoretical benefits

a This research will enrich the study on teaching speaking especially use role play

b The results can contribute to applied linguistics, particularly language teachingand speaking

2 Practical benefits

a It helps the teacher increase the students speaking comprehension and help thestudents in increasing their speaking ability

b The teacher can adopt the technique to be implemented in their speaking class

c The students can expect to have more attentions and interest in learning speakingbecause they have an interesting way in learning and they have a chance to practicetheir English ability

d The students will try to use the language to express something in their own way

1.5 Scope of the study:

To clarify the problem, I limit those problems in the use of role-playactivities in teaching speaking to tourism students at Nghe An Trading and TourismVocational College

1.6 Method of Study

The method that is used in this study is a quantitative and qualitative method.

In the field research, I collected the data by using interview, class observation, test,and questionnaire Each instrument had its own function in this research

- The interview was carried out with ten teachers to find out what current speakingactivities employed to develop students’ speaking skill

- The pre- test was in a form of oral test where the students were asked to speakbased on a role and a situation that was given to them Then, post-test: the studentswere taught by using role play technique and took the cycle I test in same form oforientation test but with a different role and situation

- Questionnaires were given to the students in the last meeting of the research Itwas done to know the students’ response about the technique used in the research

1.7 Definition of terms

In this thesis, the researcher gives some explanation of some key terms thatpredominantly appear in this thesis These key terms explanation’s function is tomake the readers understand exactly about the words or phrases The following termwill be dealt with during the study:

1 Speaking is the process of building and sharing meaning through the use

of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts (Chaney, 1988,p.13)

2 Role-play: “Role” means actor’s part in play (person’s task or duty in anundertaking) (Hornby, 1995, p.1018) “Play” means what is done for amusement orrecreation; drama for the stage (Hornby, 1995, p.884)

Role-Play in this study means the technique that is used in this research, thestudents are asked to express dialogue and imagine it based on the simulation given

by the teacher They may imagine a role and situation.

1.8 Design of the study

This thesis is systematically divided into five chapters The following is shortdescription about what each chapter contains

Chapter One: Introduction

It will introduce rationale, aims and objectives, methods, research questions,benefits, definition of terms, scope and design of study

Chapter Two: Literature review

It discusses about speaking: definition of speaking, basic types of speaking,teaching speaking, activities to promote speaking, and guidance for teachers inteaching speaking It also discusses about role-play: definition of role-play, role-playing in current teaching techniques, using role play in class and the preparation

of teachers for students

Chapter Three: Research Methodology

It will present place and the participants of study, the problem, instrumentation ofdata collection, technique of data analysis

Chapter Four: Research Findings

It will deal with description of data findings and discussion

Chapter Five: Conclusion and Suggestions

It contains conclusion and implication, the limitation of the study and suggestionfrom the writer based on the previous discussion

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter gives a discussion about speaking; definition of speaking,basic types of speaking, teaching speaking, activities to promote speaking, andguidance for teachers in teaching speaking It also discusses about role-play;definition of role-play, and role-playing in current teaching techniques, using roleplay in class and the preparation of teachers for students

According to Bygate, speaking is the oral interaction that can becharacterized in terms of routines, conventional ways of presenting informationwhich can either focus on information or interaction (in Nunan, 1991, p 40)

2.1.2 Basic types of speaking

According to Brown (2004, p.141) there are three basic types of speaking asfollows:

c Responsive

Interaction and test comprehension but the somewhat limited level of veryshort conversation, standard greetings and small talk, simple request and comments,and the like

2.2 Teaching Speaking

2.2.1 Explanation of Teaching Speaking

Speaking is a complex skill requiring the simultaneous use of a number ofdifferent ability, which often develops at different rates Either four or fivecomponents are generally recognized in analyses of the speech process:

a Pronunciation

Pronunciation is producing the sounds of speech, including articulation,stress, and intonation, often with reference to some standard of correctness oracceptability: sound of words that can be listening with the communicant whensomeone speaks English pronunciation is difficult to learn because it is not related

to the spelling of words

b Grammar

Grammar is study or science of, rules for, the combination of words intosentences (syntax), and the forms of words (morphology) in the other hand,explained that grammar is the study of structural relationships in language or in alanguage, sometimes including pronunciation, meaning, and linguistic history

c Vocabulary

Vocabulary is the stock of words used by people or particular uses or person,

or a list of collection of the word of a language, book, author and branch of science

or like that, in alphabetical order and define Someone always needs vocabulary tocommunicate effectively or express his/her ideas in oral communication

d Fluency

Fluency is quality or condition of person to speak a language easily and well.Adequate preparation before delivering a speech increases fluency, as ideas areorganized ahead of time and can be effectively presented Disfluencies occur when

speakers vocalize pauses Typical speech disfluencies include "um," "uh" and "youknow." When overused, disfluencies can become distracting to audience members

d Comprehension

When speaking you are able to:

- use different part of the mouth and body from those needed in your own language

- make individual sounds and combine them

- produce correct stress on individual word and on longer stretches depending on themeaning you want to convey

- use intonation (including tones across discourse)

- work with appropriate rhythm and pace’s express your own meaning and yourown personality by choosing from a range of physical and verbal expression

- Interact with people appropriately, repairing breakdown of messages, taking turnsand speaking alone for short and long periods (Woodward,1988, p.93)

2.2.2 Stages of a Teaching Speaking

2.2.2.1 Pre-Speaking Stage

According to Regina, Sik (1997), pre-speaking stage is a stage for planningand organizing Pre-speaking begins before students actually speak Students'experiences, observations, and interactions inside and outside of the classroom have

an impact upon what they say and how they say it Pre-speaking activities involvethought and reflection, and provide opportunities for students to plan and organizefor speaking

This stage is aimed at preparing students with everything necessary forspeaking Some activities are:

 Warming up the class The teacher may motivate the class, graduallysetting up a context for speaking topic to be presented by using some shortactivities or games, asking questions to elicit students’ experience or by usingsome sort of visual aids or their imagination

 Introducing the topic of speaking lesson The teacher briefly introduces the

topic of speaking lesson so that the students may get their mind ready for it.

 Presenting important new words or new structures relating the topic tostudents

2.2.2.2 While- Speaking Stage

Regina, Sik (1997) uses the term “Go Public” for this stage The speakingactively engages students in interactions with peers and other audiences Studentswho have been provided with supportive, collaborative environments andopportunities to prepare for their informal and formal speaking experiences aremore likely to have the confidence needed to "go public" with their ideas andinformation

In this stage, the students will practice the new language in a controlled waybased on structures given in pre- speaking stage The teacher can provide somecontrolled practice activities to help students practice the new language such as:repetition, prompted sentences, single- word substitution, multiple- positionsubstitution, songs, etc

After controlled practice, the teacher let the students use the language theyhave learned in a free or creative speech This is called language exploitation Theteacher can use some activities such as: story telling, picture description, role plays,interviews, etc to help students to make creative speech

2.2.2.3 Post- Speaking Stage

The aim of this stage is to help students summarize what they have learned

or remember new vocabularies, or simple as making animated atmosphere in classafter the whole speaking lesson In this stage, the students can do such activities as:role- play activities, picture description, competition games, and drama games and

so on Regina, Sik (1997) considers post-speaking stage as a time when studentshave reflected upon their own speaking performance Peers may be invited tocomment Peers may comment through a structure similar to a writing conferenceand may give oral feedback, written feedback, or a combination of the two

Conferences may be guided by specific questions determined by the teacher or maytake the form of conversation between peers.

2.3 Speaking Activities

2 3.1 Factors of a Successful Speaking Activity

It is not easy to carry out successfully a speaking activity in classroom if weare not sure about the characteristics of its model Successful speaking activities inclass can result in great improvement of students’ speaking skills The teachershould try to design and administer such activities As discussed in Ur (1996), theyhave four characteristics

The first characteristic is that students talk a lot Teachers should know howimportant to get students talk in the target language as much as possible in the time

of the activity However, often most time is taken up with teacher talk or pauses.Therefore, teachers should only play the role of guiders, and let students be free toexpress their understanding in their own ways

Secondly, participation is even It is one of the most important criteria toevaluate a speaking activity If class time is dominated by a minority of talkativeparticipants and no chance of talking is used by the worse during the time ofactivities, of courses, these can not be seen as successful speaking activities.Therefore, the teacher should let all students get a chance to speak, andcontributions are fairly evenly distributed

Thirdly, motivation is high When the students are interested in the topic andhave something new to say about it or they want to contribute to achieving a taskobjective they will be very eager to speak

Last but not least, it is necessary for teachers to remember that language orspeaking activities must be at the acceptable level In other words, their languageshould be relevant to students’ degree, easily comprehensible to students and of anacceptable level of language accuracy

2.3.2 Problems with Speaking Activities

The teacher often encounters many problems in getting students to talk in theclassroom Ur (1996) discusses four common problems

The first problem is inhibition Unlike reading, writing and listeningactivities, speaking requires some degree of real time exposure to an audience.Students are often inhibited about trying to say things in a foreign language in theclassroom: worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face, orsimply shy of the attention that their speech attracts

The second problem is that the learners have nothing to say Even if they arenot inhibited, you often hear learners complain that they cannot think of anything tosay They have no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that theyshould be speaking

In addition, they are low or uneven participation Only one participant cantalk at a time if he or she is to be heard In a large group this means that each onewill have only very little talking time This problem is compounded by the tendency

of some learners to dominate while others speak very little or not at all

Mother tongue use is also a problem happening in speaking class That is oneproblem that teachers should care about In classes where all, or a number of, thelearners share the same mother tongue, they may tend to use it because it is easier

In addition, they feel unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language andthey feel less ‘exposed’ if they are speaking their mother tongue If they are talking

in small groups it can be quite difficult to get some classes, particularly the lessdisciplined or motivated ones, to keep to the target language

When preparing activities for a speaking class, teachers should pay muchattention to above problems, so that the speaking activities will be successful anduseful to students

2.3.3 Solutions to the Problems with Speaking Activities

Ur (1996) suggested some solutions to the problems above

The first solution is to use group work This lowers the inhibitions ofstudents who are unwilling to speak in front of the full class, and this also increasesthe sheer amount of student talk going on in limited period of time However, whenstudents work in group, the teacher cannot supervise all student speech, so that notall utterances will be correct and students may occasionally slip into their nativelanguage The advantage of group work is that the amount of time remaining forpositive, useful oral practice is still likely to be far more than in the full-class set up.

The second suggested solution is basing the activity on easy language Ingeneral, the level of language needed for a discussion should be lower than thatused in intensive language-learning activities in the same class It should be easilyrecalled and produced by the participants, so that they can speak fluently with theminimum of hesitation The teacher should review essential vocabulary before theactivity starts

In addition, the teacher should make a careful choice of topic and task tostimulate interest On the whole, the clearer the purpose of the discussion is themore motivated participants will be

Moreover, the teacher should give some instruction or training in discussionskills If the task is based on group discussion, then include instructions aboutparticipant when introducing it

Finally, the teacher should keep students speaking the target language Theteacher might appoint one of the group members as monitor The monitor remindsparticipants to use the target language, report the teacher how well the groupmanaged to keep to it However, the best way to keep students speaking the targetlanguage is simply to be there themselves as much as possible, reminding them andmodeling the language use yourself: there is no substitute for nagging

2.3.4 Activities to promote Speaking

There are many activities to promote speaking As Hayriye Kayi inferredfrom many linguistics on her article in the internet on Teaching English as A

Second Language (TESL) Journal, there are thirteen activities to promotespeaking, which are:

b Role Play

Students pretend they are in various social contexts and have a variety ofsocial roles In role-play activities, the teacher gives information to the studentssuch as who they are and what they think or feel Thus, the teacher can tellthe student "You are David, you go to the doctor and tell him what happened lastnight, and…." (Harmer, 1984)

c Simulations

Simulations are very similar to role-plays but what makes simulationsdifferent than role plays is that they are more elaborate In simulations,students can bring items to the class to create a realistic environment For instance,

if a student is acting as a singer, she brings a microphone to sing and so on

d Information Gap

In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs Onestudent will have the information that other partner does not have and the partnerswill share their information Information gap activities serve many purposes such

as solving a problem or collecting information Also, each partner plays animportant role because the task cannot be completed if the partners do not providethe information the others need

e Brain Storming

On a given topic, students can produce ideas in a limited time.Depending on the context, either individual or group brainstorming iseffective and learners generate ideas quickly and freely The goodcharacteristic of brainstorming is that the students are not criticized for theirideas so students will be open to sharing new ideas

f Storytelling

Students can briefly summarize a tale or story they heard fromsomebody beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell theirclassmates Story telling fosters creative thinking It also helps students expressideas in the format of beginning, development, and ending, including the charactersand setting a story has to have

g Interviews

Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people It is

a good idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they know whattype of questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students should preparetheir own interview questions After interviews, each student can present his orher study to the class Moreover, students can interview each other and

"introduce" his or her partner to the class

h Story Completion

For this activity, a teacher starts to tell a story, but after a fewsentences he or she stops narrating Then, each student starts to narrate from thepoint where the previous one stopped Each student is supposed to add from four toten sentences Students can add new characters, events, descriptions and so on

i Reporting

Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper ormagazine and, in class, they report to their friends what they find as the mostinteresting news Students can also talk about whether they have experiencedanything worth telling their friends in their daily lives before class

j Playing Cards

In this game, students should form groups of four Each suit will represent atopic For instance: diamonds represent earning money, hearts represent love andrelationships, spades represent an unforgettable memory, and card representbest teacher Each student in a group will choose a card Then, each student willwrite 4-5 questions about that topic to ask the other people in the group Forexample: if the topic "diamonds: earning money” is selected, here are some possiblequestions: Is money important in your life? Why? or What is the easiest way ofearning money? or What do you think about lottery? Etc

However, the teacher should state at the very beginning of the activity thatstudents are not allowed to prepare yes-no questions, because by saying yes

or no students get little practice in spoken language production Rather,students ask open-ended questions to each other so that they reply in completesentences

k Picture Narrating

This activity is based on several sequential pictures Students are asked totell the story taking place in the sequential pictures by paying attention to thecriteria provided by the teacher as a rubric Rubrics can include the vocabulary

or structures they need to use while narrating

l Picture Describing

For this activity, students can form groups and each group is given adifferent picture Students discuss the picture with their groups, then aspokesperson for each group describes the picture to the whole class This activityfosters the creativity and imagination of the learners as well as their publicspeaking skills

m Find the Differences

For this activity students can work in pairs and each couple is given twodifferent pictures, for example, picture of boys playing football and anotherpicture of girls playing tennis Students in pairs discuss the similarities and/ordifferences in the pictures

2.3.5 Guidance for Teachers in Teaching Speaking

Here is some guidance for English language teachers while teaching orallanguage:

a Provide maximum opportunity to students to speak the target language byproviding a rich environment that contains collaborative work, authentic materialsand tasks, and shared knowledge

b Try to involve each student in every speaking activity; for this aim,practice different ways of student participation

c Reduce teacher-speaking time in class while increasing student-speaking time.Step back and observe students

d Indicate positive signs when commenting on a student's response

e Ask eliciting questions such as "What do you mean? How did you reach thatconclusion?" in order to prompt students to speak more

f Provide written feedback like "Your presentation was really great It was a goodjob I really appreciated your efforts in preparing the materials and efficient use ofyour voice…"

g Do not correct students' pronunciation mistakes very often while they arespeaking Correction should not distract student from his or her speech

h Involve speaking activities not only in class but also out of class

i Circulate around classroom to ensure that students are on the right track and seewhether they need your help while they work in groups or pairs

j Provide the vocabulary beforehand that students need in speaking activities

k Diagnose problems faced by students who have difficulty in expressingthemselves in the target language and provide more opportunities to practice thespoken language

2.4 Role-play

2.4.1 Definition of Role-play

In Cambridge International Dictionary of English (1996) role is defined asthe person whom an actor represents in a film or play, while role play is a method of

acting out particular ways of behaving or pretending to be other people who dealwith new situations It is used in training courses language learning andpsychotherapy.

In this case, Gillian Porter Ladousse (1995) illustrated that when studentsassume a “Role”, they play a part (either their own or somebody else’s) in specificsituation “Play” means that is taken on in a safe environment in which students are

as an inventive and playful as possible

According to Crookal and Oxford (1990), there is a little consensus on theterms used in the role playing and simulation, games, role play, simulation-game,role play simulation, and role playing game

There seem to be some agreement; however, simulation is a broader conceptthan role playing Simulations are complex lengthy and relatively inflexible events.Role play, on the other hand, can be a quite simple and brief technique to organize

It is also highly flexible, leaving much more scope for the exercise of individualvariation, initiative and imagination Role play is included in simulation as well

In defining role play, Donn Byrne (1986) gave comments that role play is apart of drama activity In details, he described that there are three items to cover thedrama activities They are mime (mimicry-memorization), role play and simulation

He distinguished the terms as follows:

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

shall see, this activity leads naturally on to talk)

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

situations

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

the participants normally discuss a problem of some kind with some setting that hasbeen defined for them

Both role play and simulation are commonly used in foreign language classes

to facilitate communicative competence whereas mime seems to be more

appropriate as a language game It is performing actions without using words Forinstance, if someone mimes and action, the others try to guess what it is.

Another definition is stated by Joanna Budden (1999) in British CouncilTeaching English (BBC) on her article with the title “Role play” She said that roleplay is any speaking activity when you either put yourself into somebody else’sshoes, or when you stay in your own shoes but put yourself into an imaginarysituation

What is meant by imaginary people is that students can become anyone theylike for a short time The President, the Queen, a millionaire, a pop star…, thechoice is endless Students can also take on the opinions of someone else “For andagainst” debates can be used and the class can be split into those who are expressingviews in favour and those who are against the theme

Functional language for a multitude of scenarios can be activated andpracticed through role play in imaginary situations “At the restaurant”, “Checking

in at the airport”, “Looking for lost property” are all possible role plays

From those explanation above, the writer views role play as a techniquewhich involves fantasy or imagination to be someone else or to be ourselves in aspecific situation for a while, improvising dialogue and creating a real world inscenario It aims at the students to encourage thinking and creativity, let the studentsdevelop and practice new language and behavioral skills in a relatively non-threatening setting and can create the motivation and involvement necessary forlearning to occur

2.4.2 Types of role play

In view of the persons taking an actor, Gillian (1995) explained that there areseveral types of role The first is the roles which correspond to a real need in thestudents’ lives In this category, it involves such roles as doctors dealing withpatients, or salesman traveling abroad The second type of role is the students playthemselves in a variety of situations of which they may or may not have directexperience The example for this category is a customer complaining or a passenger

asking for information The third type is the type that few students will ever directexperience but it is easy to play because the teachers have such vast indirectexperience of them The television journalist is a good example of this type and it isvery useful kind of role taken from real life The last type is fantasy roles, which arefictitious, imaginary, and possibly even absurd.

In case of role play activities, according to Donn Byrne (1986), role play can

be grouped into two forms, scripted and unscripted role play In details, those types

of role play activities are described as follows:

a Scripted Role Play

This type involves interpreting either the text book dialogue or reading text

in the form of speech The main function of the text after all is to convey themeaning of language items in a memorable way

For more details, Adrian Doff (1988) gave an example of scripted role playdialogue and reading text and how the process is

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

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

Angela: I think I’ll send it air mail I want to get there quickly How much does itcost?

Clerk: To Singapore? That will be 30 pence, please?

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

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

Angela: Thank you Where is the post office?

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

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

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

1) First, the teacher guides the role play by writing these prompts: (Where? / airmail/ how much? / post box? / thanks) Talk as you write to show what the promptsmean

2) If necessary, go through the prompts one by one, and get students to givesentences or question for each one.

3) Call two students to the front: one plays the role of Angela and the other one isthe post office clerk They should improvise the conversation using the prompts tohelp them Point out that the conversation should be similar to the one in thetextbook, but not exactly the same; the conversation can be shorter than thepresentation dialogue and it should just cover the main points indicated by theprompts

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

Based on the procedures, the writer views that the ways of organizing thisdialogue can be carried out into pairs of students who would improvise aconversation privately with their partners before they act it out in front of the class

b Unscripted Role Play

In contrast to scripted role play, the situations of unscripted role play do notdepend on textbooks It is known as a free role play or improvisation The studentsthemselves have to decide what language to use and how the conversation shoulddevelop In order to do this activity, good preparation from teacher and students isreally necessary

The example and procedures of unscripted role play which are adapted from AdrianDoff’s book are as follows:

One student has lost a bag

He/she is at the police station

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

To bring out these ideas:

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

a) Let them discuss together what they may say

b) Let them all try out the role play privately, before calling on one or two pairs toact out in front of the class

2 Susan House (1997) explained that there are several procedures in using roleplay:

a Students read and familiarize themselves with the dialogue

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

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

d Walk around correcting and checking

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

The above procedures do not mean an exact to be used It is flexible; teachercan create or develop procedure which is appropriate and suitable with his/ her ownclass

2.4.3 Significance of Role Play in Teaching Speaking

It has been mentioned before in the above discussion that role play is one ofthe activities to promote speaking Through role play activities the students learnhow to express ideas, opinions, or feeling to others by using words or sounds ofarticulation

Larsen Freeman explained that role plays are important in the communicativeapproach because they give learners an opportunity to practice communicating indifferent social contexts and different social roles

A role play is a highly flexible learning activity which has a wide scope forvariation and imagination According to Ladousse, role play uses differentcommunicative techniques and develops fluency in the language, promotesinteraction in the classroom and increases motivation Here peer learning isencouraged and sharing of responsibility between teacher and the learner inthe learning process takes place

Role play can improve learners’ speaking skills in any situation, and helpslearners to interact As for the shy learners, role play helps by providing a

mask, where learners with difficulty in conversation are liberated In addition, it isfun and most learners will agree that enjoyment leads to better learning

Several reasons for using role play in teaching speaking quoted fromLadousse as follows:

a A very wide variety of experience can be brought into the classroom and wecan train our students in speaking skill in any situations through role play

b Role play puts students in situation in which they are required to use anddevelop those phatic forms of language which are so necessary in oiling theworks of social relationships, but which are so often neglected by our languageteaching syllabuses

c Some people are learning English to prepare for specific roles in theirlives It is helpful for these students to have tried out and experimented withthe language they will require in the friendly and safe environment of a classroom

d Role play helps many shy students by providing them with a mask

e Perhaps the most important reason for using role play is that it is fun

In conclusion, role play is a technique which can develops students’fluency in target language, promotes students to speak or interact with others in theclassroom, increases motivation and makes the teaching ñ learning processmore enjoyable

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

2.5.1 Is Role play for language learning or language practice?

“It is likely that you view the learning a process of language acquisition”(Gillian Porter Ladousse, 1995) In this sense, teachers present their students withsome new items, they drill students with these items, and then they expect theirstudents to be able to use them However, students have seldom acquired completemastery of a new set of language items at the end of one lesson Exactly how andwhen learning takes place is still a mystery What is certain is that a variety ofmental processes go on before the new language is used spontaneously To see it interms of learning itself and then practice is perhaps only a question of definition, but

these are unfortunate definitions because they do not openly acknowledge a wholearea of the complex business of learning which often involves “doing” as much as

“thinking”

Of course what teachers think learning is, and what their students think it is,are important matters for consideration It is essential for them as teachers to see thevalidity of the activities that they are proposing in their own terms, and for them to

be able to demonstrate this validity to students so that, however loose-ended andunstructured a role play may appear, it may be stopped at any point so that thelanguage that the students are using, or could, or should be using, can be analyzed

in terms of structures, functions and lexis, etc Learning should not only take place,but should be seen to be taking place In absolute terms this may be an impossibletask, for no one yet has any set answers to the question

2.5.2 Role play is language work.

Role play belongs to the category of language learning techniques sometimesreferred to as low input-high input This means that the teachers-centeredpresentation phase of the lesson is very short and not at all the same as it would befor a controlled practice drill After a brief introduction, the students plunge into anactivity in which accomplishing the task is more important than using the exactword, in which fluency predominates over accuracy Obviously, the language thestudents use may not necessarily have been acquired at an earlier stage

In fact, there are two ways of looking at language work in role play Eitherstudents manage with the language they know, or they practice structures andfunctions that have been presented to them at an earlier stage of the lesson or thecourse, in a free and uncontrolled way In the first situation, when the students justcope as best they can, the teacher’s aim is to bring them to the point of awareness atwhich the necessity of acquiring certain structures is evident, as these structures are

of immediate relevance Students can see how they could have put them to gooduse They will retain them all the more easily because they are rooted in ameaningful context In the second situation, role play is the active phase of learning

and offers an opportunity for students to make personal use of language and offers

an opportunity for students to make personal to make personal use of language.Role play can be used in this way right from the start in elementary classes

Suggestions for precise language work are made under the heading

Language in each role play, but it will be up to you to decide exactly how you go

about this, and how you link it to the rest of your course work As for the kind oflanguage work to be done, role play lends itself to almost every type: structure,lexis, functions, intonation pattern, and so on You will find most of the role playsparticularly suitable for familiarizing students with registers, an aspect of language-learning which is neglected in many course books

Ultimately, we want our students to be both fluent and accurate in the way theyspeak Being accurate does not just mean using the right thing in the right place, atthe right time The appropriacy of the message to the given social (professional)situation is a matter of cultural context as well as the choice of linguistic terms Themore different the students’ culture is, the more difficult it will be to cope with theconcept of register The way formality or informality of social relationships governthe choice of language can usefully be discussed before or after many of the roleplays

2.5.3 Role play is language learning, not a theory

The common association of the role play with the therapeutic professionsmeans some students are reticent because they think they will in some way losetheir own identity It should by now be clear to the reader that role play is far more akind to child’s play than to deeply disturbing psychological experiences We areteachers, not therapists, and any one of us who ventures into highly chargedemotional role plays without suitable training may well cause a great deal ofdistress Choosing subjects that are safe though not boring or trivial and placing theemphasis on “play” rather than “role” will reduce this resistance on the part ofanxious students

A related problem is psychological problem that many people feel when theyare asked to be someone else Paradoxically, other people excel in this verysituation I have often asked a group of students, who have carried out a role playfor the first time, to evaluate their feelings during the activity They use this fivepoint scale: very embarrassed, slightly embarrassed, uneasy, natural, very natural.

The variety of responses never fails to astonish the students who usuallyimagine that other people react in the same way they themselves do The moreextrovert students often manage to convince the anxious ones that students in anyclass are more or less inhibited during the first few role-play activities This can bedone very simply by providing role plays that are task-based For example, aninformation transfer exercise can be placed within the context of a role play Theinhibited students will carry it out just as an information transfer exercise Thenthey will start looking around the class and learn form the bustle going on in othergroups how they can get more out of the activity

2.6 Teachers prepare students for role play

2.6.1 Different roles for different students

The teacher assigns roles to students in classroom There are different types

of role that students may take during role playing process Students may take roles

in which they do have experience or they may take others in which they do not haveexperience In the first type, students find it easy to play roles as a real need In thesecond type, students find it motivating if the situations are relevant

Many teachers feel that students will not see the point of this type of rolebecause it has nothing to do with real life This sad fact may explain the dull andprosaic nature of most published collection of role plays Therefore, teachers shouldhave a thorough understanding about characteristics of students in order to assignstudents with appropriate roles Once students understand what they are trying to do

in role, their imagination is often liberated and the fantasy becomes a very enrichingand useful linguistic experience Imagination, which is surely as real as the rest of

us, has been banished from the classroom for far too long

2.6.2 Role card

Teachers complain that role play has no life in it because students are glued

to the role card This can only be because the information on the card is toocomplex to grasp rapidly, or because it has not been made plain to the students thatthey should have mastered the information on the card before they began theactivity Role cards should be concise and contain only essentials If linguisticstructures are suggested for use they should be ones that the students are alreadyfamiliar with When the students have read their role card they can either return it tothe teacher or turn it over and refer to it only when completely stuck Then they arefree to explore the possibilities of the role in a more spontaneous manner

Some role cards say things like: “You are Mrs Smith You are angry.”Imposing emotional states in this way can be very inhibiting for students If youwish them to learn how to express strong emotions, it is much better to ensure thatthese stem naturally out of the situation you have set up

It is often difficult to decide how to distribute the role cards You can decidewho is who, the students can choose, or the distribution can be done at random In aclass in which the teacher is attempting to shift some of the responsibility forlearning from her own shoulders to those of the students, the second and thirdsolutions are infinitely better than the first In the second, the negotiation about whowill play which role may well give rise to an opportunity for authenticcommunication, which is a too rare occurrence in the classroom However, it mayalso mean that a very weak student gets a key role, and the role play falls apart.Teachers soon acquire the necessary judgment to which is the best solution on eachoccasion

2.6.3 Doing about mistakes

More and more teachers are adhering to the view that, mistakes are integralpart of the language-learning process, and that an opportunity to make them in afree phase in any lesson ultimately enhances learning, rather than hinders it Somemistakes do “fossilize”, but most of them just seem to indicate certain stages in the

acquisition of the language They disappear gradually as the students become morecompetent and confident.

Although you may be convinced of the validity of these recent theories onerrors, your students may still worry about the mistakes they make as they carry out

a role play They are likely to question the usefulness of the exercise, or beg you tostay close to them and correct them every time they make a mistake It is essential

to explain to these students that errors will be dealt with, that you are aware of theones they are making, and that you will not forget about them

Students at a given level make similar kinds of mistakes in role play as they

do with any other teaching material, and will soon be able to predict which will bethe most obvious ones by considering which functions, structures, and lexical itemsare likely to crop up in the role play you have chosen The Language section in eachrole play in the book suggests areas in which error will probably occur A secondsolution, which should be considered as an additional method, rather than as analternative, is to walk round the classroom listening to the students talking, andnoting down the mistakes you would like to deal with After the role play, you cancorrect the mistakes immediately by eliciting the correct forms from the students, bywriting them on the blackboard, or by providing some kind of remedial exercise thatyou had predicted would be necessary You can also simply incorporate remedialwork into a later lesson, but in this case it is a good idea to let the students knowhow and when you intend to do this, as many of them believe correction to be avital issue Whatever the procedure you adopt, do not let the consideration of errorsstifle the role play while it is in progress

d Who was very good?

e Who could have done better?

In many areas of education where these techniques are used, this interrogativephase is as important as the main activity In language learning, intermediate oradvanced students who are self-confident and used to role play will benefit from adebriefing session which will offer an opportunity for authentic and spontaneouscommunication The teacher should insist on evaluation rather than criticism, andmake sure that the students talk about what went well before they get on to whatwent badly This encourages positive thinking about the experience As the studentsdiscuss the parts they played, they will probably notice that one or two people seem

to have participated very little This fact may be a reflection of the fairly silent rolesthat these students play in real life, or it may reveal a lack of self-confidence orlinguistic ability in the target language Whatever the reason, it is important todiscuss the issue with understanding, and to make sure the silent students do not feelunder pressure I have often noticed that giving a quite or reticent student a morepassive part to play for a while- a listening role or a shared role- enables him or her

to build up sufficient confidence to blossom at later stage

Debriefing is not, however, an absolutely essential part of language-learningsimulation or role play Putting the performance under the microscope has adistinctly inhibiting effect on many students, even on some seasoned role-players

At a low level, the language needed to analyze the role play will be much complexthan language of the role play itself It is acceptable to consider that the objective ofthe role play or simulation has been met as the activity itself was carried out, and tomove straight on to a completely different phase of the lesson You will rapidlydevelop your own judgment as to when a debriefing is, or is not, useful

2.7 Conclusion

As it has been known that the role of English is very important or badlyneeded in many aspects of life, English teaching is aimed at providing anddeveloping the students’ communicative competence either orally or in writing as it

is really used by English native speakers.

However, the fact shows that many tourism students of the second year ofNghe An Trading and Tourism Vocational College have low motivation in learningEnglish One of the reasons is that the learning-teaching activity is boring Thetechnique of learning-teaching used so far is not interesting and challenging Theteacher uses conventional and monotonous technique of teaching The monotonousteaching strategy used so far not only makes the students get bored but also makesthem feel awkward in using the language which in turn affects their interest andability in the subject To overcome this problem, the teacher needs to find thestrategy or teaching technique that can provide a good classroom atmosphere inoder to increase students’ motivation in learning English The personality andenthusiasm of the teacher is probably the most important single factor in enlivening

a lesson, but the learning process itself should be interesting and enjoyable since thestudents will be motivated to study if the situation is interesting

Researches in recent years indicate that English learning-teaching process isfocused on teaching model that makes students more active, creative, andcooperative Besides, it should encourage the students’ motivation Based on theabove explanation, the writer believes that Role-play has a big role in motivatingthe students if it is applied in English learning-teaching activity The writer’s belief

is based on the following considerations:

- A role in a scenario which created based on everyday situations is able tomotivate the students because they immediately feel the benefit of the exercises

- In mini-role-plays, the students have the most freedom to use what theyhave learned Some expressions are suggested, but they feel free to suggest others

- Role-Play helps to bring the language to life and to give the learners someexperience of its use as a means of communication Children in general like any sort

of play-acting the characters of a story and they also like the role of what they take

to be ‘real life’, such as a doctor, a nurse, a policeman, a seller, etc

From the above descriptions, it can be concluded that Role-Play technique

can be implemented in English learning-teaching activity to encourage the students’motivation

Speaking is a very important skill when someone learns a foreign languagebecause the main target in learning a foreign language is in speaking ability Based

on the researcher’s observation, the speaking ability of the second year tourismstudents at Nghe An Trading and Tourism Vocational College is still low and farfrom the expectation Their speaking ability is unsatisfying Most of them still haveproblems in communicating orally although they have been learning English sincethey were in lower secondary school

One of the causes that influence the students’ success in their Englishspeaking depends on the teachers’ role in managing the class and using the teachingtechnique in the classroom Therefore, the teacher has to be able to decide theappropriate teaching technique to facilitate the students learning English speakingactivity In this case, one of the appropriate teaching techniques that can be applied

by the teacher to overcome the students’ problem dealing with English speakingskill is Role-Play The reasons why Role-Play technique is considered to be able toovercome the students’ problem in English speaking skill are as follows:

- Role-Play is an activity for which the context and the roles of the studentsare determined by the teacher, but in which students have freedom to produce theirown language which they feel appropriate to the context

- Role-Play is a kind of “learning by doing” In this activity, the studentsmust actively apply knowledge, skills, understanding to successfully speak and actfrom a different, assigned perspective They are demanded to use their imaginationsbut they get fun They act out their parts in a nonthreatening environment

- Role-Play is able to engage students in a creative, participatory activity thatrequires them to apply course concept as they assume fictional identities or envisionthemselves in unfamiliar situation

- Role-Play is one of the communicative techniques which developesfluency, promotes interaction, and increases motivation in the classroom

Based on the above explanations, it can be concluded that Role-Playtechnique has many contributions to encourage the students’ interest in learningEnglish speaking and therefore it is assumed that it can improve their Englishspeaking skill

Chapter 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter provides information about place and the participants of study, theproblem, instrumentation of data collection, technique of data analysis

3.1 The settings of the study

3.1.1 Place of Study

This research was taken in a vocational college which was established in

1996, located in Cua Lo town, Nghe An Nghe An Trading and Tourism VocationalCollege mainly trains students in tourism and commercial fields Because of thedevelopment of tourism and service industry, the number of students choosing thesesubjects is increasingly To meet that demand, the college usually improves thequality of training by enhancing the proficiency of teachers and the quality offacilities

3.1.2 The teachers of Foreign Language Department

There are 10 teachers in our Foreign Language Department Most of these teachersgraduated from English Department at HaNoi National University, Hue Universityand Vinh University They are always eager for knowledge and willing to adjust tonew ways of thinking

3.1.3 Participants

Thirty students participated in this study They were in hotel-tourism class Theywere all the second- year students in Nghe An Trading and Tourism VocationalCollege Most of them have been learning English since they were in high school.However, during the years at secondary schools as well as at high schools, moststudents did not have adequate English learning strategies They only focused ongrammar exercises; they hardly acquired any effective skills, especially speakingskill in real situations and contexts As a result, when they enter the college, theirlearning strategies are not good enough to become responsible learners, especially