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

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAININGVINH UNIVERSITY TRẦN THE VINH USING ROLE PLAY ACTIVITIES IN MIXED LEVEL ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSROOMS AT HIGH SCHOOL... 1 :Teachers' opinion about their

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

TRẦN THE VINH

USING ROLE PLAY ACTIVITIES IN MIXED LEVEL ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSROOMS AT HIGH SCHOOL

MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION

NGHỆ AN – 2017

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY

Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching

Code: 60.14.61.11

MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION

Supervisor: TRAN BA TIEN, Ph D

NGHỆ AN - 2017

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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby certify that I am the sole author of this study This study is submitted in partial fulfillment for the Master degree of Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching at Vinh University and has not been submitted elsewhere in any other form for the fulfillment of any other degree or qualification

Signature

Tran The Vinh

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I really realize that this thesis project is finished with the help of many people around

me Therefore, this opportunity I would like to thank people who have given their ideas, times, and everything to me during the writing of this thesis

First, I would like to express my special gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Tran Ba Tien for his invaluable time, guidance, insightful comments, patience, encouragement, and suggestion in guiding me during the process of writing this thesis

Second, I am grateful to the teachers of English, who answered my questionnaire and interviewing questions and allowed me to carry out my observation and the students at Nguyen Cong Tru High school for what they have done to help me finish the thesis Last but not least, I would like to express my special thanks to my family, my friend and so many others who have given me constant support and love during the completion of the study

Vinh, May 2017

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ABSTRACT

Speaking is one of the most challenging and troublesome skills in our schools and in mixed level classrooms Because of the skill difficulties, our pupils find it difficult to master all the aspects of speaking and use them appropriately in different social contexts Therefore, they do not perform acceptable tasks It is our belief that the problem is the result of lack of efficient strategies The present study aimed at shedding the light on communication in classrooms; acting role-play as a good model for bringing real-life situations into mixed level classrooms and promoting students self-confidence through expressing their ideas during the practice of role plays activities Accordingly, we believe that using role-play activities in the classrooms make pupils of high school feel interesting to speak English and communicate effectively in different social situations In attempting to raise the teachers’ and pupils’ awareness about role

school and all the teachers of English to investigate their attitudes towards using play technique

role-The results from the analysis of those have confirmed the research hypothesis and have shown that teachers and learners hold favorable attitudes towards using role play techniques, the advantages and disadvantages, how to optimise it as well mentioned Thus, we recommend the using of different techniques such as role play activities in teaching speaking to develop pupils’ speaking skill

TABLES OF CONTENT

iv

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

ABSTRACT iii

TABLES OF CONTENT iv

LIST OF TABLES vii

LIST OF FIGURES viii

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Motivation for the study 1

1.2 Aims of the study 3

1.3 Research methods 3

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Significance of the study 3

1.6

Identification of the Problem 4

1.7 Organization of the study 5

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 The Nature of Speaking 6

2.2 Speaking Skills and the Aspects of Speaking 7

2.3 Teaching Speaking 9

2.3.1 The Roles of the Teachers and the Students in the EFL of Speaking 9

2.4 Principles of Teaching Speaking 10

2.4.1 The teachers should aware of the differences between second language and foreign language learning contexts 10

2.4.2 The teachers should give students practice with both fluency and accuracy 11

2.4.3 The teachers should provide opportunities for students to talk by using group work or pair work and limiting teacher talk 11

2.4.4

The teacher should plan speaking tasks that involves negotiation for meaning 11

2.4.5 The teacher should design classroom activities that guided and practiced in both transactional and interpersonal function 11

2.5 Criteria for Speaking Tasks 12

2.6 Classroom Speaking Activities 13

2.7 Problems in Teaching Speaking 15

2.8 Assessing Speaking 16

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2.9 Role Play Activities 17

2.9.1 What is role-play? 17

2.9.2 Definition of role-play 18

2.9.3 Types and procedures of Role play 19

2.9.3.1 Scripted Role play 19

2.9.3.2 Unscripted Role play 20

2.10 Role-play and simulation 20

2.11 The organisation of a role-play activity 21

2.12 Advantages of role-play 23

2.13 Pair work and group work as patterns of classroom interaction in role-play 26

2.14 The teacher’s roles in role-play 27

2.15 Mixed ability classrooms 28

2.15.1 Definition of a mixed ability class 29

2.15.2 Mixed Ability Teaching 29

2.16 Some Problems in the Mixed Ability Classes 30

2.16.1 Materials 31

2.16.2 Participation 31

2.16.3 Interests 31

CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY 35

3.1 Research questions 35

3.1.1 What attitude do teachers and students have toward learning English speaking and role-play activities ? 35

3.1.2 What are the advantages and disadvantages of using role-play to enhance 11th graders’ English speaking skill? 35

3.1.3 How can role-play activities be optimized in a mixed level English class? 35

3.2 Research participants 35

3.2.1 The researcher 35

3.2.2 The subjects 35

3.2.3 Research procedure 35

3.2.4 Data collection instruments 36

3.3 Survey questionnaires 36

3.4 Observations 36

3.5 Interview 37

CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 39

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4.1 Results analysis 39

4.1.1 Questionnaires 39

4.1.1.1 Questionnaire for students 39

4.1.1.2 Teacher questionnaire 52

4.1.2 Interviewing 58

4.1.2.1 Teachers' interviewing 58

4.1.2.2 Students' interviewing 60

4.1.3 Observation 57

4.1.3.1 The first observed class 57

4.1.3.2 The second observed class 58

4.1.3.3 The third observed class 59

4.1.3.4 The fourth observed class 60

4 2 Discussion 61

4.2.1 Research question 1: What attitude do teachers and students have toward learning speaking English and role-play activities? 62

4.2.1.1 Students' attitude toward learning speaking English 62

4.2.1.2 Students' attitude toward role-play activities 62

4.2.1.3 Teachers attitude toward role-play activities 63

4.2.2 Research question 2: What are the advantages and disadvantages of using role- play to enhance 11th graders’ English speaking skill? 63

4.2.2.1 The effectiveness of applying role-play 63

4.2.2.2 The difficulties of applying role-play 64

4.2.3 Research question 3: How can role-play activities be optimized in a mixed level English classrooms? 64

4.2.3.1 The advice for teachers 64

4.2.3.2 The advice for students 65

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION 66

1.1 Overview of the thesis 66

1.2 Limitations of the thesis 67

1.3 Suggestions for further research 67

REFERENCES i

APPENDICES I iv

APPENDICES II vi

OBSERVATION SHEET ix

LIST OF TABLES

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Tables of students'questionnaire analysis

Table 1 Students' attitude towards speaking English 39

Table 2 Students' thought about learning speaking 40

Table 3 Students' speaking ability 41

Table 4 Pupils' thinking about Role play 41

Table 5 The frequencies of teachers' applying role - play 42

Table 6 Students' thought about the way that teachers apply role-play 43

Table 7 How does your teacher act during the plays performance ? 43

Table 8 Students' thought about role-play activities 44

Table 9 Students' opinion about the profit of participating in role-play 45

Table 10 Students' benefits when participating in role-play activities 46

Table 11 It gives an opportunity to express emotions freely 46

Table 12 Students' advantages when participating in role-play activities 47

Table 13 Student's difficulties when participating in role-play activities 48

Table.14 The students' concentration on the topics of role-play activities 48

Table 15 Students' opinions about their teacher's instruction 49

Table 16 Pupils satisfaction with the level of speaking 50

Table 17 When performing role plays in your class , do you prefer ? 50

Table 18 The feedback after role play helps to improve further 51

Table 19 The improvement of students' speaking ability 52

Tables of teachers'questionnaire analysis Table 1:Teachers' opinion about their students' attitude about learning speaking 49

Table 2: Teachers" opinion about their students' speaking ability 50

Table 3: Are you sastified with your students level in speaking? 51

Table 4: It is an easy method to communicate with others 51

Table 5: Teachers have applied role-play activities 51

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Table 6: Teachers' difficulties when applying role-play activities 52 Table 7: The usefulness of role-play activities 53 Table 8: Teachers' opinion about whether applying role-play in mixed level classrooms

is difficult or not 54 Table 9: Teachers’ opinion about applying role-play in mixed level english speaking classrooms 54 Table 10: Teachers' opinion about their students' speaking ability improvement - 55

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LIST OF FIGURES Figures of students'questionnaire analysis

Figure 2.0.1 Advantages of Role play - 25

Figure 2.0.2 Advantages of Role plays - 26

Figure l.Students' attitude towards speaking English - 39

Figure 2 Students' thought about learning speaking - 40

Figure 3 Students' speaking ability - 41

Figure 4 Pupils' thinking about Role play - 41

Figure 5 The frequencies of teachers' applying role - play - 42

Figure 0.6 Students' thought about the way that teachers apply role-play - 43

Figure 7 How does your teacher act during the plays performance ? - 43

Figure 8 Students' thought about role-play activities - 44

Figure 9 Students' opinion about the profit ofparticipating in role-play - 45

Figure 10 Students' benefits when participating in role-play activities - 46

Figure 11 It gives an opportunity to express emotions freely - 46

Figure 12 Students' advantages when participating in role-play activities - 47

Figure 13 Student's difficulties when participating in role-play activities - 48

Figure 14 The students' concentration on the topics of role-play activities - 48

Figure 15 Students' opinions about their teacher's instruction - 49

Figure 16 Pupils satisfaction with the level of speaking - 50

Figure 17 When performing role plays in your class, do you prefer ? - 50

Figure 18 The feedback after role play helps to improve further - 51

Figure 19 The improvement of students' speaking ability - 52

Figures ofteachers'questionnaire analysis Figure 1 :Teachers' opinion about their students' attitude about learning speaking - 49

Figure 2: Teachers " opinion about their students' speaking ability - 50

Figure 3: Are you sastified with your students level in speaking? - 51

Figure 4: It is an easy method to communicate with others. - 51

Figure 5: Teachers have applied role-play activities - 51

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Figure 6: Teachers' difficulties when applying role-play activities - 52 Figure 7: The usefulness of role-play activities - 53 Figure 8: Teachers' opinion about whether applying role-play in mixed level english speaking classrooms is difficult or not - 54 Figure 9: Teachers’ opinion about applying role-play in mixed level english speaking classrooms - 54 Figure 10: Teachers' opinion about their students' speaking ability improvement - 55

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Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter introduces some very first parts of the thesis; there are seven parts in this chapter: (1) rationale for the study; (2) aims of the study; (3) research methods; (4) scope of the study; (5) significance of the study; (6) identification of the problem and (7) organization of the study

1.1 Rationale for the study

English becomes the most essential language in the world Almost all the people from many different countries around the world use it to communicate The area of English has always become a special interest It’s because of the importance of English in any scope of our lives

Julian Edge said: “Since British trade, followed by colonial and imperial expansion, English spread around the world Then the military and economic dominance of the United States of America has confirmed English as the international language of present historical period As a consequence, English serves for many times many more people as a barrier between themselves and those some fields of interest, many people in their own countries will not be able to become doctors, for example if they cannot learn enough English.”

In the international relationship, English speaking ability is very important to be able to participate in the wider world of work The speaking skill is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in the language This reality makes teachers and parents think that speaking ability should be mastered by their students and children

Based on the reasons above, in recent years, English language teaching has focused on teach the English language rather than teach about the English language The emphasis is not only on linguistic competence of the language learners but also

on the development of their communicative ability In order to develop the learners' communicative ability, the teacher needs to create a scenario to teach the target language in a vibrant, active and interesting manner

In learning speaking skill, the students often find some problems The

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problem frequently found is that their native language causes them difficult to use the foreign language Other reason is because of motivation lack to practice the second language in daily conversation They are also too shy and afraid to take part

in the conversation Many factors can cause the problem of the students’ speaking skills namely the students’ interest, the material, and the media among others including the technique in teaching English Many techniques can be applied including role play because many research findings say that this technique is effective to use in teaching speaking

In Vietnam, especially in many countryside schools, speaking skill usually is neglected Teachers spend almost all class time for teaching grammar; therefore, students lack the chances to practice speaking (Nguyen Quoc Hung, M.A) In others case, speaking classes are the time for learning by heart dialogs or practicing repetition of drills Students cannot cavalier this drills in their real conversations The result is more and more students lose their belief in their ability

of speaking English

Role play is very important in teaching speaking because it gives students an opportunity to practice communicating in different social contexts and in different social roles In addition, it also allows students to be creative and to put themselves

in another person’s place for a while According to Stephen D Hattings based on his observation in the conversation class, the role play would seem to be the ideal activity in which students could use their English creatively and it aims to stimulate

a conversation situation in which students might find themselves and give them an opportunity to practice and develop their communication skill

How to use role-play in speaking skills for the mixed level classrooms suitably and usefully to help students create the more effectiveness in oral skills, take advantages of developing this activity and overcome difficulties is the target Role- play activity is one of the best ways that can help teachers carry out this Since teachers apply role- play activities in class, students are activated because they are set into an interesting speaking environment

For these reasons, the writer is interested in analyzing the use of role play in teaching speaking for the students of the eleventh grade in Nguyen Cong Tru High

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school with the thesis name “Using role play activities in mixed level english

speaking classrooms at High school He also wants to know the advantages and the problems encountered by learners and teachers in using it

1.2 Aims of the study

The thesis aims to identify how to clarify the problem in the use of role play activities in teaching speaking in the mixed level classrooms, the basic concept of speaking, some types and procedures in using role play The thesis, in addition, aims

to find out the effect of using role-play in speaking classes Also, it is intended to find out difficulties from using role-play activities so that the researcher can suggest some solutions to these difficulties

1.3 Research methods

During studying process, there are three research methods which are going to collect valuable data and information: questionnaires, observation and interview Firstly, the questionnaires are employed In order to collect the data, two types of questionnaires are designed: one in English and the other in Vietnamese The English questionnaire is delivered to four teachers, who teach in grade 11 and the Vietnamese one is used for students Collected data will be analyzed to realize how role-play is applied and the effect of using role-play in class Next, personal observations are also carried out in some classes, which role-play is applied to observe teachers and students' role-play activities Furthermore, interview is use to find out teachers and students difficulties from using role-play

1.4 Scope of the study

The scope of study is about using role play activities in mixed level english speaking classrooms at High school

1.5 Significance of the study

Hopefully, the findings of the study may make a contribution to speaking English for student toward using role-play activities What are the advantages and

disadvantages when teacher applying role-play are found in this thesis Furthermore, not only does it help to find out the difficulties when using role- play but also some suggestions will be given to help teachers and students overcome these difficulties

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1.6 Identification of the Problem

Speaking is extremely crucial to be learned by students to develop their skills in studying English To share and to express the ideas is its functions In the real classroom situations when teaching, I find that teaching speaking skill has many shortcomings

The first frequent problem found is that little opportunity to practice speaking English in the real communication activity in their daily conversation are done by the students Using their mother tongue to answer the questions from their teacher are usually appearerd An opportunity is an important factor to improve the students’ speaking skill According to Nunan (2003:54), learning the speaking skill

is very challenging for learners in the foreign language context, because they have very few opportunities to use the target language outside the classroom Without practicing language that they learnt, the students’ speaking skill cannot improve Role play is one of activities which encourage the students to speak-up, it can be applied by the teacher to motivate their students

The second problem is that a little vocabulary is mastered since the students learn English as a foreign language They do not find English anywhere outside the classroom They are unfamiliar with a lot of vocabularies, which caused problems because the communication only happens when both of the speaker and the listener understand what they are talking about The students need to enrich their vocabulary much more to get the conversation to run well communicatively

The next problem is related to the students’ motivation They fear of being laughed

by their friends and have less confidence with their own ability when they studied in the class, especially in mixed level classrooms It makes bad effect for them

The last problem is the method used by the teacher The teacher gives little opportunity to students to express their idea The materials learnt by students are not appropriate too How to organise the tasks which is relevant to students’competence

in mixed level classrooms It is not suitable with the basic competence topic of eleventh grade, because the teacher mainly teaches grammar Basing on the reality above, the writer decides to conduct classroom action research to overcome the problems of the students in learning English, especially in practicing speaking

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English and the role play activities are conducted to students’mixed speaking ability

As one of activities for speaking, role play activities give the students lots of opportunity to communicate in different social contexts and roles

1.7 Organization of the study

The thesis consists of five

chapters

Chapter 1: Introduction, which presents an overview of the thesis in which motivation for the research, aims, research methods, scope, significance, the organize of the study are briefly presented

Chapter 2: Literatures review, this chapter provides the theoretical background relevant to the study including theory of teaching and learning English speaking and role-play in teaching speaking

Chapter 3: Methodology, this chapter focuses on presenting research questions, research participants, research procedure, data collection as well as methods of analysis

Chapter 4: Results and discussions, this part stresses the results of survey questionnaires, observation and interview about teachers and students' attitudes towards teaching and learning English speaking and using role-play activities in speaking classes

Chapter 5: Conclusions, this chapter contains overview of the study, presents the limitations of the study and provides some suggestions and implications for further research

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Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 The Nature of Speaking

Speaking is one of the skills that has to be mastered by students in learning English Some experts have various definitions about speaking According to Louma (2009:10), speaking is a process of person who uses their voice to speech meaningfully In the same point, Chaney (1998:13) in Kayi (2006) states that speaking is the process of building, sharing meaning, expressing ideas through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts In line with the statement above, Thornbury (2005:2) asserts that the first point to underline is that speech production takes place in real time Words follow words and phrases follow phrases Similarly at the level of utterance, speech is produced utterances by utterances

According to Brown and Yule (1989) in Nunan (1989:26), spoken language consists

of short, often fragmentally utterances in a range of pronunciation It is related to an ability to express meaning through words pronounced by a speaker In addition, this

is a skill which generally has to be learned and practiced There are two functions in speaking, transactional and interpersonal function According to Thornburry (2005:13), the purpose of a transactional function is to deliver certain information and to facilitate the exchange of goods or services The example of the transactional function is handling a traveler in travel agency Additionally, the purpose of an interpersonal function is to establish and to maintain social relation

As a speaker, consciously or unconsciously, people use their speech to create an image of themselves to others According to Louma (2009:10), the speakers create a texture for their talk that supports and enhances what they are saying They use speed and pausing, and variations in pitch, volume, and intonation, when they are saying

The above explanation is strengthened by Nunan (1989:32) who indicates ten components which build in successful communication They are the ability to articulate phonological features of the comprehensibly, mastery of stress, rhythm,

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intonation pattern, an acceptable degree of fluency, transactional and interpersonal skills, skills in taking short and long speaking terms, skills in management of interaction, skills in negotiating meaning, conversational listening skills (successful conversation acquire good listener as well as good speakers), skills in knowing about and negotiating purpose of conversation, using appropriate conversational formulae and fillers Those are important components that should be mastered by a communicator to make successful communication

Based on the experts above, the students can use a language for communicating The students can share their opinion with others Furthermore, they can communicate both verbal and non-verbal communication for making their image in the social relationship Therefore, the students should be mastered some components to make successful communication

2.2 Speaking Skills and the Aspects of Speaking

To speak means to interacting with others It is an activity involving two or more people in which are hearers and speakers have to react what they speak (Johnson and Morrow, 1981:70) From the definition above, speaking does not mean an easy activity to do According to Brown (2001:270-271), there are eight factors that make speaking difficult The factors are clustering, redundancy, reduced forms, performances variables, colloquial language, rate of delivery, stress, rhythm, and intonation, and the last one is interaction The factors above are described as follows

The first is clustering The characteristics of clustering refer to fluent in speech It makes speaking difficult, because a fluent speech is a phrasal not word by word The second is redundancy Redundancy tells about the opportunity of the speaker to provide the clearer meaning The third is reduced forms Students should learn the reduced forms in order to make their speaking better Afterwards, when the students

do not learn about colloquial construction, it will be make a poor quality of speaking The colloquial construction means that the students reasonably well acquainted with their daily conversations’ words

The next factor is performance variables Students can show their performance of hesitations, pauses, backtracking and correction, such as the use of “fillers” like uh,

hm, a, and, okay, as we know, etc The teacher should give the students “time” to

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pause and then continue their performance

The other factors are stress, rhythm and intonation English has its own stress, rhythm, and intonation which belong to the pronunciation aspect which differs from other languages Those are important in English because different stress, rhythm and intonation convey different meaning and are thus important to give the message clearly Finally, the last factor is interaction which needs the creativity of conversational negotiation

In this regard, Brown (2004:142) divides sixteen skills of speaking The skills are divided into two kinds of categories, microskills and macroskills They are mentioned as follows:

rhythmic structure and intonation contours

strategic like pauses, fillers, self-correction, backtracking - to enhance the clarity of the message

agreement, pluralization), word order, patterns, rules and reduced forms

groups, breath groups and sentences

participants and goals

face-to-face conversations

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relations as focal and peripheral ideas, events and feeling, new information and given information, generalization and exemplifications

with verbal language

rephrasing, providing a context for interpreting the meaning of words, appealing for help and accurately assessing how well you interlocutor is understanding you

In addition, Spratt, Pulverness and Spare (2005:34) state that when people are speaking, they usually use a different aspect of speaking There are two main aspects of speaking, fluency and accuracy Fluency means being able to communicate with a language easily and well In addition, accuracy in speaking is the ability to produce correct sentences using correct grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation

The macro and micro skills above show that the students need to learn the forms of language as well as the functions of language In the teaching of speaking, they are introduced to the pieces of language to see the whole part of it It is expected that showing the macro and micro skills of speaking to them could help them convey and negotiate meanings of language

2.3 Teaching Speaking

2.3.1 The Roles of the Teachers and the Students in the EFL of Speaking

Teachers and students are playing actors during teaching learning activities in the classroom They have their own role in the teaching learning process According

to Harmer (2001:347-348), there are three important roles of teacher to make the students speak fluently The described as follows

First of all is as a prompter In this case the teacher cannot help the students when they lost their idea Sometimes students are silent during their conversation Without disrupting them, it will stop the sense of frustration for some students when they lose their language or ideas

The second role of teacher is as a participant In this case the teacher can be participant among the students The teacher can join one or two groups as an ordinary participant during the teaching learning process Even if, the teacher can join the activity, the teacher cannot interrupt the activity too much

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The last is feedback provider The teacher can give feedback to students, when they have completed their activity The teacher will tell and respond to the students concerning to the content of the activity as well as the language used

The students’ roles are as communicators to be actively engaged in negotiating meaning This is done to make them understand and also the others even when their knowledge of the target language is complete Since the teacher’s role is less dominant, students are seen as more responsible managers of their own learning Based on the teacher’s and students’ role in the teaching learning activity, the writer concludes that the roles should be optimised to speak independently without disrupting from the teacher and also the teachers give them feedback without over-corrected the students’ mistakes unless it de-motivate them to speak during the activity It is believed that the students’ speaking skill will improve after the teacher and the students obey their own roles

2.4 Principles of Teaching Speaking

In the speaking activities, it is very important for the teacher to acquire the ability to teach appropriately According Shumin in Richards and Renandya (2002:208), speaking is one of the central elements of communication Io n EFL teaching, speaking is an aspect that requires special attention and instruction In order to provide effective instruction, it is necessary for EFL teachers to carefully examine the factors, conditions, and components that underlie speaking effectiveness In addition, interaction in teaching speaking is also key improve EFL learners’ speaking ability

In addition, Nunan (2003:54) stated that there are some principles of teaching speaking that should be mastered by the teacher of language Those principles are as follows

2.4.1 The teachers should aware of the differences between second language

and foreign language learning contexts

The difference context between second language and foreign language is very crucial In the foreign language context is very challenging, because the students only have few opportunity to speak in their environments Most of the people around them use their mother tongue rather than the foreign language Meanwhile,

in the second language context, English is used to communicate in the society like

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English in UK and Singapore

2.4.2 The teachers should give students practice with both fluency and accuracy

Fluency and accuracy are important in speaking skills Teachers need to develop their students’ fluency and accuracy by giving a lot of practice of speaking

2.4.3 The teachers should provide opportunities for students to talk by using group work or pair work and limiting teacher talk

Teacher should be limitation her/his talk in the class, in order to give the students opportunity to speak during teaching-learning process in the class Teacher can make a group work or a pair work for the students to speak effectively

2.4.4 The teacher should plan speaking tasks that involves negotiation for meaning

Speaking tasks mean activities to communicate appropriately and effectively with others in the target language The negotiation for meaning happens when the students try to understand what others said by asking clarification, confirmation or explanation

2.4.5 The teacher should design classroom activities that guided and practiced in both transactional and interpersonal function

There are two purposes in the speaking function They are transactional and interpersonal functions The purpose of a transactional function is to deliver certain information and to facilitate the exchange of goods or services The example of the transactional function is handling a traveler in travel agency Additionally, the purpose of an interpersonal function is to establish and to maintain social relation

In line with the texts above, Brown (2001:275) states that there are some principles for designing techniques in teaching speaking He said that the speaking techniques should use techniques that covers learners need, carried out the accuracy, fluency and meaning It means that the tasks should include techniques, but do not bore the students Then, the techniques should provide intrinsically motivations After that, the techniques should encourage the use of authentic language in meaningful contexts Next, the technique should provide appropriate feedback and correction Also, the technique should take advantage of the natural link between speaking and listening After that, the technique should give learners opportunity to initiate oral communication Then, the last, the techniques should encourage the development of speaking strategies

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In addition, Harmer (2001:87) argues that there are three basic reasons to give students speaking tasks which encourage them to see all and any language at their control The first is the activities give the students a chance to discuss and rehearse the material outside the classroom It is way for students to get a feel of what communicating in the foreign language really is like The second is the activities of giving feedback to the learners Then, the good speaking activities can and should

be highly motivating for the students Those reasons can encourage the students’ language need if the teachers do all the components well

In conclusion, there are some principles in teaching speaking that should be mastered in order to be a good English teacher By keeping the principles in teaching speaking, the problems that usually happen in the teaching-learning process

of speaking can be minimized and the students can learn English maximally in the class

2.5 Criteria for Speaking Tasks

Task design begins with the assessment of the students’ need The purposes of the test and the practical circumstances in which it will be arranged the general guidelines, the most important factor in the task designed is the score users need to know about the examines’ speaking skills, Louma (2009:29) Furthermore, Thornburry (2005:90) states that there are some criteria that needed to make good speaking tasks First of all is productivity It means that speaking tasks should give a big opportunity to the students to speak in the target language The teachers should make a good task to invite the students join to speak activity It indicates that many students join speak-up in the speaking activity

The second is purposeful In this case, the tasks from the teacher should have purposes in the speaking activity The Productivity of the tasks can be increased if there are some purposes that the teachers want to achieve The example of the tasks should be meaningful, that is group discussion activity and it can be maximally the participation all of the members in the class

The third is interactivity It means that the tasks should build interaction among the students in the speaking activity It is the basic goal of speaking activity The goal of speaking activity is to communicate or to interact with others So, good speaking tasks can make interaction among the students in the speaking activity

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The fourth is challenge The speaking tasks should be challenging for the students It

is in order to force the students’ creativities, ideas, knowledge and also abilities These will help them to increase their speaking skill and to achieve the goal of teaching-learning process

The next is safety The tasks of the students should be safety - while it should be challenging They should feel safe and confident when doing the tasks, in order to achieve the goal of teaching-learning process The classroom atmosphere and the teacher attitude very determined in this case

The last is authenticity The speaking tasks should be implemented in the real life communication It in order to make students can achieve easily the goal of the communication The students’ experience in the real life communication can help them to make great communication, because it is the best effect in choosing and analyzing the best answer of the tasks

From those explanations above, the writer concludes that task is a tool to measure and evaluate the students’ understanding and ability The suitable task with the objective in the school’s curriculum should be designed In the speaking learning activity, there are many kinds of task can be designed by the teacher to increase the students’ speaking skill The task components with the aim of obtaining the purpose

of why the students have to do the tasks should be concerned with So, the goals of the teaching and learning activity can be achieved by the students

2.6 Classroom Speaking Activities

In the teaching and learning process the teacher should be innovative to make the interesting materials, practicing various techniques of teaching and also using interesting media These are suitable for the students in order to help them to speak

in the language Harmer (2001: 348) delineates that there are many classroom speaking activities that can be used in teaching speaking The activities are described as follows The first of all is acting from the script In this activity, the teacher asks the students to act out scenes from plays, their dialogues are made by themselves The students are asked to act out in front of the class The teacher should give students time to prepare their dialogues The second is communication games There are many communication games The purpose is to get student speak-

up in the teaching-learning process, which is speak as quickly and fluently as

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possible Two particular categories are information-gap games and television and radio games where the student has to be a partner in order to solve a puzzle, draw a picture (describe and draw), put things in the right order (described and arrange) or find similarities and differences between pictures

The next activity is discussion Discussion can be performed in the form of highly formal, whole group stage events and informal small-group interactions One of the reasons that discussions may be failed is that students are unwilling to give an opinion in front of the whole class, particularly if they do not have any idea to say The examples of the activities are buzz group, instant comment, formal debates, unplanned discussion and reaching a consensus After that is prepared talks In this activity, students should make a presentation on a topic of his or her choice Such talks are not designed for informal spontaneous conversation but more writing-like because they are prepared Prepared talk represents definable and useful speaking activity When students are doing this activity the teacher should give to others, who

do not perform prepared talk, task to give attention as they listen Then they can give feedback to performers

Harmer (2001:348) also states that questionnaires are useful activities By being planed, the questionnaires ensure that both questionnaire and respondent have something to say to each other Questionnaires may well encourage the natural use

pre-of certain repetitive language pattern and then be situated in the middle pre-of the communication continuum The results obtained from questionnaires actually can form the basis for written work, discussions, or prepared talks Another activity is simulation and role-play The students can reach the benefits of using simulation and role-play Those kinds of activities can be used to encourage the students’ speaking skill or to train students for specific situations Those are real life activities, as they do so in the real world Teachers may also use them to assess students’ speaking performance

The statements above are strengthened by Kayi (2006) Kayi argues that there are many activities to promote speaking There are thirteen activities to promote speaking Those are discussion, role play, simulations, information gap, brain storming, storytelling, interviews, story completion, reporting, playing cards, picture narrating, picture describing, and then find the differences

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Basing on the explanations of kinds of classroom speaking activities, the writer concludes that many kinds of classroom speaking activities can be conducted in teaching learning activity of speaking The activities are made by the teacher in order to make the students join the speaking activities Also, the students can improve their speaking skill easily

2.7 Problems in Teaching Speaking

There are many problems in teaching speaking In line with the statement, Rivers (1981:88) argues that teaching speaking is more demanding on the teacher than the teaching of any other language skills The problem may come from learning the language itself, and also from the technical problems in teaching speaking Based on the texts above, the teacher should be aware of the elements of speaking that make it difficult

In line with the argument, according to Thornbury (2005:28), there are some problems in speaking English as second language/foreign language The first is L2 speakers’ knowledge When students speak English, students should have more input vocabulary and grammar It is in order to increase the students’ speaking ability Many students inhibit in speaking English, students cannot speak fluently when they do not have any input (vocabulary and grammar) The students prefer using the same vocabulary or keep silent when the teacher asked them to speak English

The second is the process of arranging grammar In this case, the students complain when the students cannot speak English naturally The reason is the students often translate their mother tongue into their L2

The last is lack of opportunities for practice It is the factor that students cannot speak fluently Here, practice is not only deals with the vocabulary and grammar, but practice in an interactive speaking itself The effects of this problem are lack of confident and anxious of the students

However, the teacher may find more problems in teaching speaking which relates to the functional problems The problems in learning speaking that faced by the students are different from one and others It may come because of the age, self-esteem, anxiety, attitude motivation, opportunities, and so on Those factors will affect the students’ background knowledge of speaking skills The teacher should

Imitative is type of speaking performance demands learners simply to imitate words, phrases, or even sentences Commonly, it is called as pronunciation The assessment can be in the form of repetition task Test takers repeat the stimulus, whether it is a pair words, a sentence or perhaps a question to test for intonation prediction Then, the assessment of intensive speaking performance includes the production of short activities of oral language design to demonstrate competence in a narrowband of grammatical phrasal, lexical or grammatical relationship (such as intonation, stress, rhythm, and juncture) Examples of intensive assessment tasks are directed response tasks (test administrator elicits a particular grammatical form and test takers are expected to produce the correct grammatical output), reading aloud such as reading dialogue with partner in turn, sentence and dialogue completion, limited picture-cued tasks including simple sequences, etc

After that, Responsive assessment tasks include brief interactions, it is different from intensive asks It is kind of very short conversation, standard greeting and small talk, simple request and comments, the assessment can be in the forms of questions and answers, giving instructions and directions, and paraphrasing Afterwards is interactive speaking performance The difference between interactive and responsive speaking performance is the length and complexity of the interactive, which sometimes includes multiple exchanges or participants Interactive speaking

is divided into transactional dialogue which aims at exchanging information and

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interpersonal dialogue which aimed at maintaining social relationships The assessment can be done through interviews, role plays, discussions, conversations and games The last is extensive speaking tasks It involve complex relatively lengthy stretches of discourse usually in the form of various monologues which minimal verbal interaction The assessment can be done through speeches, oral presentations and story-telling

Based on the explanation above, before assessing speaking, the teacher needs prepare students with sufficient pronunciation, vocabulary, and language functions

to be used in communication According to Brown (2004: 142-143), there are sixteen components that is used to make up criteria for assessment students’ speaking skills In line with Brown, the assessment used is based on its type of speaking performance itself Through those conditions, it is expected that students can speak fluently and accurately and students’ achievements in speaking can be assessed optimally as well

2.9 Role Play Activities

2.9.1 What is role-play?

Role-play can be a very successful tool in the teacher’s hands As its prime goal is to boost students’ interaction in the classroom, educators should not forget about incorporating such a speaking activity to reflect learners’ theoretical knowledge of a language in practice

2.9.2 Definition of role-play

For the reason that there is no one precise definition of role-play and various authors see it in a different way, the beginning of this chapter deals with three different explanations of this speaking exercise

According to Ments (1999 (p 6)), the word ‘role’ came ‘from the word that was used to describe the roll of parchment on which an actor’s part was written’ He also stated, “The concept of role acts as a short hand way of identifying and labeling a set of appearances and behaviours on the assumption that these appearances and behaviours are characteristic of a particular person and predictable within a given situation”

According to Porter-Ladousse (1987: 3), “ role play activities range from highly- controlled guided conversations at one end of the scale, to improvised drama

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activities at the other; from simple rehearsed dialogue performance, to highly complex simulated scenarios.” The author of these words puts a lot of emphasis on

a wide scope of role-play activities Such a speaking task may be a limited one and

be supported by prepared cues, for example by dialogues; or, conversely, role-play might be an activity where students rather improvise than rely on the practised dialogue Porter-Ladousse also points out that role-play may differ in complexity, that is, some performances may be very short and simple, whereas some utterances may be very structured The difficulty of the activity depends, therefore, on the language level

Another definition is proposed by Scrivener:

In role-play, learners are usually given some information about a ‘role’ ( e.g a person or a job title) These are often printed on ‘role cards’ Learners take a little preparation time and then meet up with other students to act out small scenes using their own ideas, as well as any ideas and information from the role cards A simple role card could do nothing more than name the role e.g mother, detective or alternatively they could offer guidance as to what to do rather than the role itself, e.g buy a train ticket to Brighton (Scrivener 2005: 155)

It is clearly stated that students are assigned particular roles to play Scrivener also has it that role cards have an important function, thus, thanks to them learners are equipped with crucial information about their roles Guidelines put on such cards help students in conveying important facts about their characters to be played and also make the speakers feel more secure, as basic clues are included on paper The weaker learners may base their utterances only on a card, while the strong ones find role cards as prompts A good set of role cards is frequently designed so that the participants may have different points of view and obvious disagreements (Scrivener 2005: 156) This author also inclines that students need an appropriate amount of time to prepare ideas and language before playing their roles What is more, he says that learners not only use the ideas put on role cards, but also try to add any language they possess

GolGbiowska (1987: 13) indicates that in role-play learners are given a task to complete and in order to do it, they are told who they are, what their opinions are, and what they know that is unknown to the other students She stresses the fact that

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students are told who they are, namely, that they play the role of somebody else Being cast in a role of a different character may diminish the fear of speaking, as these are not the speakers who make mistakes, but the personalities played by them The key feature of role-play is that learners can become anyone they want for a short time Their task is to pretend a different person and it may be, for example, a doctor,

a pop star, a parent, a millionaire, etc

2.9.3 Types and procedures of Role play

Role play activity is a drama like classroom activity in which students take the role

of different participants in a given situation and act out what might happen such takes can be grouped into two forms, scripted and unscripted role play (Byrne, 1983) In details, those types of role play activities described as follows:

2.9.3.1 Scripted Role play

According to Byrne (1986), this type involves interpreting either the textbook dialogue or reading text in the form of speech The importance function of the text after all in to convey the meaning of language items in a memorable way

(Doff , 1998) provides the following procedures to demonstrate a role activity based

conversation using the prompts to help them Point out that the conversation should be similar to the one in textbook, but not exactly the same; the conversation can be shorter than the presentation dialogue

other convert based on the prompts

2.9.3.2 Unscripted Role play

In contrast to the first type’ scripted role-play; the situations of unscripted role- play do not depend on textbooks It is known as a free role-Play or improvisation The students themselves have to decide what language to use and how the

2.10 Role-play and simulation

The distinction between role-play and simulation is very often of small attention and even omitted These speaking activities may often overlap in practice and different authors give different definitions, but, regardless of role-play and simulation similarities, one should remember that there is a difference

According to Dakowska (2005: 111), the contrast between these two speaking activities is a matter of degree In simulations, students are usually invited to participate in an exercise which resembles a real-life event Unlike role-plays, in which role cards tell the learner what to say and what view to adopt, in simulations learners have the freedom to respond as they think (Dummett 1994:

41) The author clearly states that in a simulation the players are not restricted to what to say Next, Dummett also suggests that students do not take any roles, but they imagine themselves in different, existing in actual life situations In almost the same way, Harmer (2012: 121) sees simulation as “ a chance to rehearse real- life encounters For example, we can move the classroom furniture so that we represent

a station office with a ticket window.” This situation requires playing a role of a passenger and a travel clerk, so onelearner likewise in a role-playing, must take on a role of somebody else

As presented above, the distinction is not clear and it could be only proposed that in role-plays students are cast roles of different characters, whereas in simulations players do not take any roles and play themselves in real-life situations

2.11 The organisation of a role-play activity

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For a role-play to be a successful speaking exercise it is useful to know some basic principles about organizing such an activity This subchapter presents advice on conducting role-plays

Firstly, it is important to mention that if a teacher is not convicted about the validity

of using role-playing, the activity itself “will fall flat on its face just as you expected

convicted that role-play is an exciting technique to use and has many benefits If the teacher is not enthusiastic about the play, the students will not as well

Any teaching sequence necessitates three vital elements: the engage stage, study stage and activate stage In the first phase - the engage stage, the teachers’ task is to attract and keep learners’ attention and interest in a lesson Students’ minds have to

be involved and emotionally connected with a lesson, for example by a pleasant situation or a nice picture (Harmer 2012: 178) Then, learners need to study the new language; it may be grammar or vocabulary exercises Having known the new item, students are given a possibility to activate both the new language and the language they have known Learners do it when they speak freely Having been engaged, being presented the new language and having practised it, learners try to activate it Harmer points out that some lesson sequences such as PPP follow the cycle of ESA Students are presented the new language, practise it, and, finally, they make an effort to produce the new language or any language The author indicates that role-playing is an excellent way to put the language into action

Doff (1988: 237) states that if role-play is not based on a dialogue in a course book

or a text, students themselves have to decide what language to use and how a conversation should develop Therefore, in order for role play to be a profitable activity, careful preparation would be essential The educator may cause brainstorming in the classroom on what the speakers may say Also, writing prompts

on a board and necessary vocabulary may guide students during role- play Budden (2004) adds that drilling the structures the players would need to use is very helpful,

as learners are equipped with suitable language

It is also worth remembering that the teacher should make sure that students have understood both the situation to play and also what is on the role cards before the activity begins (Porter-Ladousse 1987: 12) If learners follow the activity, then, they

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will not have problems with conducting the activity properly Of course, role cards should be legible and within students’ language level Moreover, educators should not use role-plays which are too difficult or too emotionally loaded until students are used to that kind of activity Rather, starting with very simple information-gap role-plays is advisable During the first role-play learners may be more or less inhibited, but soon they will get accustomed to role- playing (Porter-Ladousse 1987: 11) Beyond question, students will need some time to prepare for a performance and then also try out their roles privately (Doff 1988: 237) Depending on the learners" language level, the amount of planning time may differ Players at this stage of an activity work in pairs or groups and discuss together what they might say At higher levels, students will not need so much help with the language but they will need time to get into roles

Equally importantly, realia can help to bring role-play to life For instance, when playing the role of a waiter and a customer, learners might be asked to do or bring to

a class menus and aprons These simple props may make the whole process more memorable for the class (Budden: 2004) The author also has it that rearranging the furniture helps with playing the roles She gives an example of playing the roles of a travel agent and a customer where in order to make it more real, students may even leave the room and then enter by knocking at the door One desk may be put in the centre of a classroom to pretend a travel agency, too Next, Doff (1988: 238) explicates that demonstration of the role-play is significant The educators’ task is not only to tell the class the situation to play, but also to do the exercise The teacher may also elicit some structures that would be used in an activity Having explained the whole task, the lecturer divides the class into pairs or groups At the very end, she or he sets a strict time limit and tries to make every effort to stick to it

Finally, Huang (2008) proposes that the teacher should assess the effectiveness of the role-play activity and examine if learners have successfully comprehended the meaning of vocabulary, sentences and dialogues The author adds that there are several ways to check students’ evaluation She suggests that learners should be given oral and listening tests related to the role-plays The players may be asked to answer some questions connected with their roles, repeat some parts of utterances,

or translate the role-play into their native language Apart from that, the teacher's

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task is to evaluate students’ understanding and comprehension while monitoring their role-play performances (Huang: 2008)

2.12 Advantages of role-play

Some teachers are unaware of the possibilities of role-play They may feel that such

an activity is not appropriate for classes which cause discipline problems and that conducting role-play would create chaos In addition, they claim that students may

be reluctant to be someone else, or, that their level of language is too low The section below attempts to present rationale for using role-play activities in English foreign language classrooms

Kowalska (1991: 113) believes that role-playing develops learners’ fluency in speaking The wide range of language functions, for example apologising, greetings, etc., is exercised more than in any other activities Learners’ focus is put on the communication of meaning rather than on the appropriate use of language Therefore, through role-playing teachers may train students’ speaking skills in any social situations It means that learners are put in conditions which require speech that is used to communicate socially more than the language necessitated by teaching syllabuses (Porter-Ladousse 1987: 6) The author takes the view that thanks

to role-playing learners have the possibility to develop the language which is necessary in social relationships, but which is neglected in teaching syllabuses He also notices that a lot of students believe that the language in foreign language classes is only used to pass on particular information from one person to another The next reason for incorporating role-playing in EFL classes is that some people learn for specific roles in life They may want to work or travel in worldwide context It is very advantageous for these students to have tried out in pleasant and safe environment of a classroom with the language they will presumably use For such learners, role-play is a helpful rehearsal and what is more, it allows them not just to acquire phrases, but to learn how to interact in a variety of circumstances (Porter-Ladousse 1987: 7)

Kowalska (1991: 113) remarks that role-playing develops learners’ imagination For the roles given to learners may require creative thinking, players’ imagination is in high demand In addition, being able to think inventitively might occur a useful skill

in the future Some jobs demand imaginative thinking and the best way to practise it

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is just through role-playing and also by reading books

Another advantage of role-playing is that learners are given a chance to pretend someone else Such a technique may help timid students to overcome their shyness

of speaking Reticent students often have difficulty talking about their experiences

or about themselves The fact that they are someone else makes them feel that their own personality is not implicated (Porter-Ladousse 1987: 7)

Finally, there is no doubt that the element of fun advocates using role-playing in foreign language classes (Budden: 2004) Apart from being involved in language production, players enjoy themselves and have a really great time

However, role-play may have disadvantages, too Thornbury (2005: 96-98) indicates that “( ) learners who feel self-conscious performing in front of their peers, especially if this involves a degree of improvisation, and care has to be exercised in choosing and setting up such activities so as not to make even more demands on them than speaking in another language normally requires” To put it in other words, the author notes that a public performance itself may cause a big problem for some students Then, he adds that the preparation stage

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Commuicatio

n skill Interpersona

l skill

Conflict resolution

may be helpful to overcome the fear of speaking Teachers must be careful during

role-playing not to make any learners feel awkward

To sum up, Role plays considered as profitable source and valuable technique for

English teachers to improve the students' speaking ability

Figure 2.0.1 Advantages of Role play ( Ladousse, 2004)

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2.13 Pair work and group work as patterns of classroom interaction in role-play

Role-playing, as mentioned before, is an activity that involves at least two students Regardless

of the number of learners involved in the exercise, pair work and group work are the patterns of classroom interaction which are the subject of this part of chapter two

In pair work, students have both the possibility to practise the language or study a text together Working in a pair dramatically boosts the amount of time devoted to speaking any student can receive in the class Moreover, it also allows students to work and interact independently without the necessary help from the teacher, hence it promotes the learner's autonomy Pair work also gives an educator a possibility to work with one pair while the other learners continue speaking To add more, students learn to share responsibility and such a classroom interaction pattern promotes cooperation which helps the classroom to be a more likeable place (Harmer 2001: 116)

However, there are some bad points about pair work Harmer (2001: 116) stresses the fact that many teachers and even students may dislike it and to add more, working with a partner can be noisy Therefore, educators keep thinking that they may lose power over their class and do not let learners work in pairs too often Another disadvantage is switching to L1 As there is no teacher control and students work on their own, they may talk in their mother tongue rather than in the target language

Group-based learning is used on a large scale in many forms of teaching (Richards and Bohlke 2011: 17) Firstly, it changes the interactional dynamics in the classroom and

Figure 2.0.2 Advantages of Role plays ( Huang, 2008)

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increases students’ talking time (Harmer 2001: 117) Altering the classroom interaction is important because it prevents learners from getting bored when working still on their own There is also a greater opportunity of different opinions and varied involvements than in pair work, and it encourages learner's autonomy by allowing students to make their own choices within the group, without being told what to do

Similarly to a pair work, group work is likely to be an interaction pattern which is typical

of full of noise (Harmer 2001: 117) Some teachers may feel that they lose control over the whole class In addition, not all learners enjoy group work since they would prefer to

be the focus of the teachers’ interest rather than work with their classmates Occasionally, students find themselves in a not pleasant clique and they wish they could work with somebody else Finally, setting up such activities contains a number of challenges:

“putting students into group may be time consuming, students often seat themselves in cliques by age, language group, friendship, and so on ( ), low-level students may have difficulty following instructions or be intimidated working in a group with stronger students ( )” (Richards and Bohlke 2011: 17)

2.14 The teacher’s roles in role-play

Having analysed the definition of role-play, the organization of such an activity, its advantages and also the notion of pair and group work, another very important issue has

to be explained, namely, the teachers’ role in a role-play activity

One of the teachers’ function is being a facilitator As learners practise role-play they may discover that they lack words or phrases (Budden 2004) They may need new language to be given by the educator This role makes the teacher act as a kind of a

‘walking dictionary’ evaluating the class and offering help when it is necessary However, if rehearsal time is long enough, offering assistance might not be required

At times, teachers may want to become involved in a speaking activity This way they can prompt the exercise, introduce new information to help the role-play along and ensure continuing student engagement in the speaking (Harmer 2001: 276) Although educators have to bear in their minds that they should not participate too much, that is, take control over the task and draw all the attention to themselves

The third role of the teacher is being a spectator His or her task is to watch the role- play and then give remarks and advice at the end of the performances (Budden 2004) The teacher walks round the classroom listening to the students talking and putting down the

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mistakes that should be discussed (Porter-Ladousse 1987: 15) Then, Porter-Ladousse adds that after role- play, the educator can correct forms from the learners by writing them on the board, or by giving some kind of remedial task that he or she had predicted would be needed This author also suggests that the teacher should include such a remedial exercise into a later lesson and he also puts emphasis on the fact that while role-play is in progress, the teacher should not let the consideration of errors suppress the exercise, as the first priority is developing fluency

Role-play seems to be an important tool in teaching speaking skills Although there is no one definition of role-play and there are some weak points about that activity, its" numerous advantages far outweigh the disadvantages The activity gives a chance of having a rehearsal for the language one day students may be exposed to, for example ordering food at a restaurant

2.15 Mixed ability classrooms

Mixed ability classes are a fact of not only language classes but of all courses Since no two students can be the same in terms of language background, learning speed, learning ability and motivation, it is a utopian view to think that our classes could be homogeneous in terms of these aspects; no matter where we live in the world or at which school we teach Therefore, the language teachers should be aware of the problems of mixed ability classes and their solutions to identify the source of troubles in their classes and to cure them

2.15.1 Definition of a mixed ability class

It is important to make a clear distinction between mixed ability teaching and mixed ability classes Most teachers have to teach mixed ability groups but they may not be using mixed ability teaching strategies McKeown (2004) believes that many teachers see

a mixed ability class as consisting of a group of average and able children with a subset

of children who have learning problems Ireson & Hallam (2001) suggest teachers need

to recognise that a class is mixed ability because children have different strengths and weaknesses and develop at different rates They have different preferences for learning and displaying their work A mixed ability class does not just consist of a range of abilities but also a range of learning styles and preferences All pupils will show strengths

at different times depending on the topic being studied and the learning style being used When pupils are working outwith their preferred learning style then they will not perform