Before dealing with role-play in practice, we would like to focus on theoretical procedure of conducting such activity and later on try to arrange it according to the steps that will be described here. In this section of thesis, several sequent stages of successful role-play activity will be provided with author’s comments on their importance.
Although it seems that the very first stage should start with the learners, it can be suggested that the first thing to consider is teacher’s own belief that role-play usage is worthy and logical in the existing educational context. Without such belief, as Ladousse (1987) wisely points out, “the activity will fall flat on its face just as you expected it to” (p.8). Ur (1996, p.133) suggests that teacher’s enthusiasm is one of the key factors contributing to the success of role-play.
Teacher has to be sure that role-playing is vital and that it is an exciting activity for the students. Lack of enthusiasm from the teacher’s side may ruin the whole activity from the very beginning.
If the teacher is already sure about the necessity of role-play with the students, the next logical step is deciding on teaching materials to be used within role-play activity. The planning step should be considered highly important, because it is vital to choose teaching materials appropriate for the specific age, level, interests of the students, as well as their current linguistic aims and overall educational objectives.
When choosing the materials, Huang (2008) advises the following: “The teaching materials can be taken from text books or non-textbook teaching materials such as picture books, story books, readers, play-scripts, comic strips, movies, cartoons and
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pictures. The material is selected ahead of time by the teacher. The teacher can also create his or her own authentic teaching materials for role play activities”. I would like to underline the point that Huang makes about the preparation of the materials in advance: although the role-play itself is an exciting and entertaining activity, it has its own pedagogical purpose, that is why the process of choosing the materials should be very careful – in many cases, it would require attentive preparation. The amount of time dedicated to that process needs to be adequate and sufficient.
At the point when the materials are prepared, it can be thought that the teacher is ready to conduct the role-play. However, learners need to be presented the new language – role-play will not be successful if learners do not possess necessary language items. It is the teacher’s task to prepare grammar or vocabulary exercises which would precede the role-play in order to present the language which is likely to appear during role-play communication. Besides the new language, it could be useful to activate previous knowledge if it can somehow help the learners in creating their own dialogues, as well as to brainstorm on social and/or cultural circumstances of the expected talk (for example, if they differ from the current learner’s surroundings, if learners had no experience with the simulated situation or if the classroom is multinational). We will not give comments on possible ways to present new items – it is up to teacher and learners, and this choice should be dependent on the current situation in the classroom. Nevertheless, before the start of the role-play, teacher must make sure that learners are equipped with all necessary lexicon, whether it is grammatical structures, vocabulary or sample phrases.
Ladousse (1989, p.45) also points out that later on “some help can be given on the role cards, but these should not be overloaded or the students will be tempted to follow them too closely and simply recite the structures offered” .
After presenting new items, it is time to move on to the role-play activity itself. At that point, teacher’s role becomes highly important. Firstly, he or she should let students understand the goal and the purpose of the role-play by, for example, verbalizing it or writing the goal on the blackboard. Without the goal set
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up, the activity might seem useless for the students. It could be also helpful to explain how this role-play relates to the language presented right before its start.
Then, the teacher will distribute role-cards. According to Ladousse, 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” (1987, p.12).
Obviously, if the students have problems with understanding their role, they are not able to conduct the activity. As we already mentioned, some useful language can be given on the role-card. Another thing to remember when creating role-cards is the level of the students and the type of the role-play chosen (role-cards will look differently with different types of role-plays, as could be seen in the previous part of the thesis).
When the students are aware of the goal of the activity and when they understood their roles and role-play situation in general, they can start preparation of the performance. Doff (1988, p.237) states that students will need some time to prepare for a performance and then try out their roles privately. Nevertheless, as Ladousse (1987, p.12) suggests, the teacher should “set a strict time limit and make every attempt to stick to it”. The time allotted for the preparation would differ according to the level of the students. As learners of 10th grade at low level are expected to have A2 level of English, they will be given enough time (approximately 5-7 minutes) to prepare, especially at the very first lessons that include role-plays. Ladousse (1987, p.12) also proposes to “keep the activity short until students get used to it”. Learners can be asked to work in pairs or small groups. However, at first, we would try to make learners practice in pairs, following Ladousse’s (1987, p.12) advice – “begin with pair work rather than a group work”.
She justifies that choice of pair work over group work in terms of practical reasons (two people’s talk at the same time will not cause much disturbance of the layout of the class) and psychological reasons (one-to-one communication helps to be more engaged in the task). Huang (2008) comments that “teachers can also evaluate students' understanding and comprehension while observing students' interactions, practices, and performances of their role plays”, that is, some assessment will be
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already provided during this stage. Still, detailed feedback and evaluation can be given at the end of the activity – this procedure will be explained further.
Next, one or two pairs of volunteers are asked to improvise the role-play in front of the class. The core issue here is that students should not be forced to perform in front of the whole class. Budden (2004) gives some useful piece of advice for making the performance of role-plays successful – use realia. She gives an example of playing the roles of pizza chief and a customer. Easily created white paper cone with “Chef” written on it made, as she comments, “the whole process more fun and memorable for the class”. She also suggests that rearranging of the furniture could also help to make role-play more realistic – e.g. when playing the travel agency, the surgery, etc.
Finally, the teacher should provide feedback to the students on their activity.
Ladousse (1987, p.16) claims that feedback stage “is not, however, an absolutely essential part of language learning simulation or role”. Nevertheless, during the lessons containing role-plays the author would try to give at least brief feedback to the learners. Ladousse (1987, p.16) proposes easy-to-use, but quite useful scheme for providing feedback. The learners and the teacher can both comment on the following questions:
a) Who participated?
b) Who did not?
c) Why not?
d) Who was very good?
e) Who could have done better?
That is, the learners will have a chance compare their ideas on presenting the role-plays during that stage, which is another opportunity for natural communication apart from role-play itself.
Moreover, when describing feedback, Ur (1996, p.242) comments that it consists of two main components: assessment and correction, where assessment refers to the information provided by the teacher how well or badly students have performed, whereas correction consists of more specific information on the
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learner’s performance (explanation, provision of better or other alternatives, etc.) including commentaries on what they did right. These factors could be also taken into consideration when assessing the students’ overall participation in the activity.
Finally, according to Huang (2008), the assessment of role-play performance should also incorporate follow-up tasks in order to “check if students have successfully comprehended the meanings of the vocabulary, sentences and dialogues”. What she suggests is giving oral and listening tasks related to the role-plays. Example oral tests exercises can include the following: asking simple questions on the role-play situation, re-enacting the role-plays, translating the role-plays into their native language. As for listening tests, her ideas of example tasks are divided for beginning and more advanced students. For beginners, Huang suggests easy tasks in the form of “listen and circle”, “listen and number”, “listen and match”. More advanced learners are expected to write words, lines and/or dialogues of the role-plays as well as to create variations of the role-plays. Since the circumstances of teaching practice, during which the action research will take place, are quite limited, it seems highly time-consuming to incorporate large tests as follow-up activities. Huang’s suggestion on assessing students while observing them which was mentioned previously could be the most suitable in given circumstances. Though if there is a possibility to integrate any follow-up tasks about role-plays, that should be definitely worth trying – with respect to the occurring situation.
As a conclusion to this part, role-play procedure that will be used for the purposes of the research can be briefly summarized in the following steps:
Decide on the Teaching Materials
The teacher must decide which teaching materials will be used for role play activities. The teaching materials can be taken from text books or non- textbook teaching materials such as picture books, story books, readers, play-scripts, comic strips, movies, cartoons and pictures. The material is selected ahead of time by the teacher. The teacher can also create his or her own authentic teaching materials for
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role play activities. The teaching materials should be decided based on students' level and interests, teaching objectives and appropriateness for teaching.
Select Situations and Create Dialogs
Then a situation or situations to be role played should be selected. For every role plays situation, dialogs should be provided (by the teaching materials or by the teacher) or created by the students themselves.
Teach the Dialogs for Role Plays
The teacher needs to teach the vocabulary, sentences, and dialogs necessary for the role play situations. The teacher needs to make sure the students know how to use the vocabulary, sentences, and dialogs prior to doing the role play activities, otherwise, the teacher should allow students to ask how to say the words they want to say.
Have Students Practice the Role-Plays
The students can practice in pairs or in small groups. After they have played their own roles a few times, have them exchange roles. That way, the students can play different roles and practice all of the lines in the role play. When the students are confident enough to demonstrate or perform in front of the class, the teacher can ask them to do so for their classmates.
Have Students Modify the Situations and Dialogs
Once the students have finished and become familiar with an original role-play situation, they can modify the situations and/or dialogs to create a variation of the original role-play.
Evaluate and Check Students' Comprehension
Finally, the teacher shall evaluate the effectiveness of the role-play activities and check if students have successfully comprehended the meanings of the vocabulary, sentences and dialogs. There are several ways to do the student evaluations. The students can be given oral and listening tests relating to the role plays. Example oral tests can include the following.
a) Students are asked to answer some simple questions relating to the role plays.
b) Students are asked to react the role plays.
c) Students are asked to translate the role plays into their native language.