Cải thiện kỹ năng nói tiếng Anh của học sinh lớp 10 Trường THPT Bạch Đằng, Hải Phòng thông qua hoạt động đóng vai

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************



NGUYỄN THỊ KIM DUNG

IMPROVING THE TENTH FORM STUDENTS’SPEAKING
ABILITY THROUGH ROLE- PLAYING TECHNIQUE
AT BACH DANG HIGH SCHOOL, HAI PHONG

(CẢI THIỆN KỸ NĂNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10
TRƯỜNG THPT BẠCH ĐẰNG THÔNG QUA HOẠT ĐỘNG ĐÓNG VAI)


M.A Minor Thesis


Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code : 60.14.10




Ha Noi - 2012
VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

NGUYỄN THỊ KIM DUNG

IMPROVING THE TENTH FORM STUDENTS’SPEAKING
ABILITY THROUGH ROLE- PLAYING TECHNIQUE
AT BACH DANG HIGH SCHOOL, HAI PHONG

(CẢI THIỆN KỸ NĂNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10
TRƯỜNG THPT BẠCH ĐẰNG THÔNG QUA HOẠT ĐỘNG ĐÓNG VAI)

M.A Minor Thesis


Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code : 60.14.10
Supervisor: Dr. Lê Văn Canh



Ha Noi - 2012
iv


TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
ABSTRACT iii
PART I: INTRODUCTION 1

1. Rationale 1
2. Background to the study 1
3. Aim of the study 3
4. Research Questions 3
5. Scope of the study 3
6. Design of the study 4
CHAPTER 1 5
1.1. Introduction 5
1.2. What is speaking in second language learning ? 5
1.3. Difficulties in teaching speaking skills to high school students 6
1.3.1. Difficulties from teachers 6
1.3.1.1. Inappropriate teacher pedagogical practices 6
1.3.2. Difficulties from students 10
1.3.3. Difficulties from objective factors 11
1.3.4. Difficulties in teaching English speaking skill to students in Vietnam 12
1.4. Some effective techniques to teach English speaking skill to High school
students 12
1.4.1. Some techniques in the “Before you speak” stage 12
1.4.2. Some techniques in the “While you speak” stage 13
1.4.3. Some techniques in the “After you speak” stage 14
1. 5. Role-play 15
1.5.1. What‟s role-play? 15
1.5.2. Why use role-playing? 16
v

1.5.3. The difficulties when using role-play in classroom 15
1.5.4. Role-playing activities in language classroom 17
1. 6. Summary 18
CHAPTER 2 20
2.1. Introduction 20

2.2. An overview of Bach Dang High School 20
2.3. An overview of the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” 21
2.4. The Tenth graders at Bach Dang High School 23
2.5. The chosen classes for pilot teaching 23
2.6. Using role-play to teach speaking to students of the pilot classes 23
2.6.1. Preparations: 23
2.6.1.1 .Teaching plan and teaching materia 23
2.6.1.2. Class organization and the teacher‟s teaching 25
2.7. Feedback from students 33
2.7.1. The questionnaire 33
2.7.2. Findings and discussion 35
2.8. Summary 35
PART III: CONCLUSION 36
1. Recapitulation 36
2. Implications for teachers 37
3. Suggestion for further research 38
REFERENCES 39
APPENDIX 1 : Students‟ questionnaire I
APPENDIX 2: Results from Questionnaire II





vi


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Ss : Students

T : Teacher
TTT: Teacher talking time
STT: Student talking time
EFL: English as Foreign Language
ESL: English as Second Language
CLT: Communicative Language Teaching
% : per cent


















1

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale

Speaking skill is a very important skill when learning English. The real
situation of English language teaching in Vietnam shows that this is the skill
students usually neglect and are not good at even though they have very good
grammatical knowledge. Students‟ learning methods depend much on teachers,
students still are quite passive in their learning process. In order to improve the
students‟ speaking ability, teachers can use many kinds of communicative activities.
Among them, role play is regarded as a very typical and effective one. Role-play
has been widely used as a teaching method in the ESL/ EFL classroom. It is widely
agreed that learning takes place when activities are engaging and memorable.
According to Jeremy Harmer (1986), role-play is used to teach English speaking
skills for the following reasons:
- It's fun and motivating;
- Quieter students get the chance to express themselves in a more forthright
way.
- The world of the classroom is broadened to include the outside world, thus
offering a much wider range of language opportunities.
- Real situations can be created and students can benefit from the practice.
- Mistakes can be made with no drastic consequences.
2. Background to the study
English as a foreign language in Viet Nam is taught in high schools as a
compulsory subject. The implementation of English teaching at present is based on
the content standard. Its target is to help students to reach an informational level. It
means that school leavers are expected to be able to have adequate knowledge to
use it to communicate with others in English (Depdiknas, 2006).
O‟Malley and Pierce (1996) states that speaking is an important skill that a
learner should acquire. It is very important in order to enable students to
communicate effectively through oral language because the disability of the
2

students to speak may lead them to be unable to express their ideas even in a simple

form of conversation. In addition, Burn and Joyce (1997: 54-55) state that one of
the aims of most language programs is to develop spoken language skills and most
programs aim to integrate both spoken and written language. Learning a language
means using it in communication in oral or written form, and being able to express
feeling, thoughts, and experiences in various contexts. Lado (1964: 51) states that to
know the language is to use it. He further states that students do not know a
sentence until he can speak it.
In fact, the English instruction in some High Schools does not demonstrate a
satisfactory result. Many students fail to reach the goal of the English teaching.
They are not able to communicate with the foreign language either orally or in
written form although they have learned English for many years (Lestari, 2000: 27).
Many of the learners in a speaking class are reluctant speakers. This reluctance is
partly due to their prior learning experience. Many of them are educated in a large
class in schools situated in noisy neighborhoods where opportunities to speak are
severely limited. Others were taught in schools where speaking was simply not
encouraged.
Comparing to other techniques, role-play seems to be the interesting one for
the students. In role-playing technique, the students act or pretend to be someone
else in the actual world situation that is brought into the classroom. Utilizing the
technique, peer learning is also encouraged and sharing of responsibility between
the teacher and the learner when the learning process takes place. Besides, for the
shy learners, for instance, role play helps them by providing a mask where learners
with difficulty in conversation are liberated.
Role-playing technique is one of the effective tools for teacher to teach
speaking skill to the students. Huang (2008), in her study on communicative skills,
concludes that role play is really a worthwhile learning experience for both the
student and the teacher. Not only can students have more opportunities to "act" and
"interact" with their peers trying to use the English language, but also students'
3

English speaking, listening, and understanding will improve. Role play lightens up
the atmospheres and brings liveliness in the classes. Students learn to use the
language in a more realistic, more practical way. Thus they can become more aware
of the usefulness and practicality of English. Role play is indeed a useful teaching
technique which should be experimented and applied by ESL/EFL teachers more
often in the ESL/EFL classrooms.
Based on the theoretical background and the findings of some previous
studies about the effectiveness of role-playing, the researcher chose this technique
and used it to improve the speaking ability of the tenth year students of Bach Dang
High School. This technique is chosen as the object of study of this thesis as it is
thought that is employed effectively it will help high school students to improve
their speaking skill – a macro-skill which seems to be neglected by both high school
students and teachers in Vietnam in general and students and teachers at Bach Dang
High School in particular.
3. Aim of the study
The aim of this study is to use role-play to develop speaking skill to the 10
graders at Bach Dang High School, Hai Phong.
4. Research Questions
In order to achieve the above aim, the following research questions are raised
for exploration:
1. What is the current practice in teaching and learning speaking skill at Bach
Dang High School?
2. What is role-play in foreign language teaching?
3. How is role-play employed to develop 10 graders‟ speaking skill at Bach
Dang High School?
5. Scope of the study
As stated above, the aim of the study is to explore what is meant by the term
role play in foreign language teaching and to use it to teach 10 graders at Bach
Dang High School. To achieve this aim, the study first attempts to first provide the
4

teaching and learning of English at Bach Dang High School in general and the
teaching and learning speaking of its 10 graders in particular. Then, it will explore
the notion of role-play in the foreign language teaching literature. Then it will
present some sample speaking lessons taken from Tiếng Anh 10 in which role play
is used to develop speaking skill to 10 graders at Bach Dang High School. And
finally, in order to see how effective role-play is in teaching speaking to the
students, a small survey is conducted to get the pilot students‟ opinion.
6. Design of the study
Apart from table of contents and appendices, this paper is structured in three
main parts namely, Introduction, Development and Conclusion.
The Introduction presents the rationale, the aim of the study, scope of the
study, the research questions, and the design of the study.
The Development” includes two chapters. Chapter 1 provides a review on
the concepts such as speaking , difficulties in teaching speaking skills to high school
students, some effective techniques to teach English speaking skill to high school
students, the concept of role-play, the difficulties when using role-play in
classroom, the reason to use role-play, and role-playing activities in language
classroom.
Chapter 2 analyses the teaching and learning of English at Bach Dang High
School. It first takes a look at the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”. Then it mentions
briefly the tenth graders at Bach Dang High School, the classes chosen for carrying
out the pilot teaching using role-play to develop speaking skill to Bach Dang High
School 10 graders. Then it will present in some detail how role-play is used to teach
speaking skill to the pilot classes. The final section is devoted to exploring and
discussing how effective role-play is to the Bach Dang High School 10 graders in
the pilot classes.
The Conclusion recapitulates the contents which have been explored, points
outs the limitations of the study and make some suggestions for future research.

5

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1

LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Introduction
In this chapter, an attempt is made to explore the issues concerning speaking
such as what is speaking, the difficulties the English learners in the world in general
and in Vietnam in particular face when learning speaking. Then I will present some
effective techniques to teach English speaking skill to High school students. In the
final section, I will examine the notion of role-play in foreign language teaching.
1.2. What is speaking in second language learning ?
Speaking is “an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves
producing and receiving and processing information” (Florez, 1999: 1). It is “often
spontaneous, open-ended and evolving” (ibid.:1), but it is not completely
unpredictable. Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs,
including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical
environment, and the purposes for speaking.
Speaking is such a fundamental human behavior that we don‟t stop to analyze it
unless there is something noticeable about it. For example, if a person is experiencing
a speech pathology (if a person stutters or if his speech is impaired due to a stroke or
a head injury), we may realize that the speech is atypical. Likewise, if someone is a
particularly effective or lucid speaker, we may notice that her speech is atypical in a
noteworthy sense. What we fail to notice on a daily basis, however, are the myriad
physical, mental, psychological, social, and cultural factors that must all work
together when we speak. It is even a more impressive feat when we hear someone
speaking effectively in a second or foreign language.
According to Brown and Yule‟s opinions (1983), spoken language consists of

short, fragmentary utterances in a range of pronunciation. However, speaking is a
6

skill, which deserves attention as much as literacy skills in both first and second
language because our learners often need to speak with confidence in order to carry
out a lot of their most basic transactions (Bygate, 1991). Furthermore, speaking is
known with two main types of conversation called dialogue and monologue.
Speaking requires that learners not only know how to produce specific points
of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary (linguistic competence),
but also that they understand when, why, and in what ways to produce language
(sociolinguistic competence). Finally, speech has its own skills, structures, and
conventions different from written language (Burns & Joyce, 1997; Carter &
McCarthy, 1995; Cohen, 1996). A good speaker synthesizes this array of skills and
knowledge to succeed in a given speech act.
1.3. Difficulties in teaching speaking skills to high school students
Difficulties in teaching speaking skill to students come from two sources: (1)
from teachers and (2) from students.
1.3.1. Difficulties from teachers
1.3.1.1. Inappropriate teacher pedagogical practices
“Inappropriate teacher pedagogical practices” consists of the amount of
teacher talk, teacher correction, teacher-leaner relationships, teachers‟ deficiency in
English communicative competence and other factors. These factors will be
discussed below.
The amount of Teacher Talk. According to second language acquisition theories,
both teachers and students should participate in language classes actively. Teachers have
to face two tasks in language classrooms: (1) offer enough high-quality English
language input; (2) offer more opportunities for students to use the target language.
Researches in language classrooms have established that teachers tend to do most
of the classroom talk. Teacher talk makes up over 70 percent of the total talk. (Cook,
2000; Legarreta, 1977; Chaudron, 1988; Zhao Xiaohong, 1998). It is evident that if

teachers devote large amounts of time to explanations or management instructions,
7

student talk will be indeed severely restricted. Teacher-initiated talk will dominate the
classroom, allowing little opportunity for extended student talk. In such an environment,
students have little opportunity to develop their language proficiency.
In order to avoid the overuse of teacher talk, many scholars tend to maximize
student talk time (STT) and minimize teacher talk time (TTT) (Zhao Xiaohong, 1998;
Zhou Xing & Zhou Yun, 2002). Harmer points out that the best lessons are ones where
STT is maximized. Getting students to speak to use the language they are learning
is a vital part of a teacher‟s job (Harmer, 2000:4). However, Fillmore argued the amount
of TT should not be decreased blindly.
Teacher's Correction. Inevitably learners will make mistakes in the process of
learning. “A learner‟s errors are significant in (that) they provide to the researcher
evidence of how language is learned or acquired, what strategies or procedures the
learner is employing in the discovery of the language” (Brown, 2002: 205). It is a
vital part of the teacher‟s role to point out students‟ mistakes and provide correction.
In correction, some specific information is provided on aspects of the learners‟
performance, through explanation, or provision of better or other alternatives, or
through elicitation of these from the leaner (Ur, 2000). Correction helps students to
clarify their understanding of meaning and construction of the language.
One of the crucial issues is how correction is expressed: gently or assertively
supportively or as a condemnation, tactfully or rudely. Ur (2000) points out that
we should go for encouraging, tactful correction. The learner has reliable intuitive
knowledge about what kind of correction helps most, that is, learner preferences are
on the whole reliable guide. So teachers have to be careful when correcting, if
teachers do it in an insensitive way, the students will feel upset and lose their
confidence.
Furthermore, it is worth pointing out that it is just as important to praise students
for their success, as it is to correct them when they fail. Teachers can show their

praise through the use of encouraging words and noises („good‟, „well done‟,
„fantastic‟, „mmm,‟ etc.) when students are doing really well (Harmer, 2000).
8

Teacher-learner relationship. The relationship between the teacher and
students plays a part in evoking problems in teaching speaking skill. A necessary
prerequisite for creating a favorable learning atmosphere in the class is to establish a
good relationship between the teacher and his students.
One of the possible ways of pursuing this aim is to talk with students about
their feelings and help them rationalize their anxiety about speaking, which results
in difficulties in teaching speaking skill (Tsui, 1996). The teacher may decide to talk
to individual students outside the classroom, as students may feel inhibited about
discussing their feelings in front of their classmates. This “step” may contribute to
the creation of trust and “partnership” between the student and the teacher. In
addition, students always feel more comfortable when learning with the teachers
who have a good sense of humor, friendly, relaxed and patient (Young, 1991).
Teachers’ deficiency in English communicative competence. This can be
another constraint in teaching speaking skill which is related to teachers‟ deficiency
in English communicative competence. For many years, language teaching was
seen as helping learners to develop linguistic competence-that is, helping students
master the sounds, words, and grammar patterns of English. The idea was that by
studying bits and pieces of a language, students could eventually put them all
together and communicate.
Below is Hedge‟s description of communicative competence which probably
considered as the most elaborate.

9

Area
The aims for learners
Linguistic
competence
- to achieve accuracy in the grammatical forms of the language
- to pronounce the forms accurately
- to use stress, rhythm and intonation to express meaning
- to build a range of vocabulary
- to learn the script and spelling rules
- to achieve accuracy in syntax and word formation
Pragmatic
competence
- to learn the relationship between grammatical forms and functions
- to use stress and intonation to express attitude and emotion
- to learn a scale of formality
- to understand and use emotive tone
- to use the pragmatic rules of language
- to select language forms appropriate to topic, listener, etc.
Discourse
competence
- to take longer turns, use discourse markers, and open and close
conversations
- to appreciate and be able to produce contextualized written texts in a variety of
genres
- to be able to use cohesive devices in reading and writing texts

- to be able to cope with authentic texts
Strategic
competence
- to be able to take risks in using both spoken and written language
- to use a range of communication strategies
- to learn the language needed to engage in some of these strategies, e.g.
“What do you call a thing that/person who…”
Fluency
- to deal with the information gap of real discourse
- to process language and respond appropriately with a degree of ease
- to be able to respond with reasonable speed in “real time”
10

From the description of communicative competence mentioned above, to teach
teaching speaking skill, teachers might have been required to have language
teaching competence including five interrelated fields, that is, linguistic
competence, pragmatic competence or sociolinguistic competence, discourse
competence, strategic competence and fluency. This can be understood that
linguistic competence (syntactic structures, vocabulary, and pronunciation) is not
the only requirement of teaching speaking skill. However, in English oral classes
teachers only spend teaching time in providing the knowledge of linguistic
competence, which causes students‟ failure to unsuccessfully communicate.
1.3.2. Difficulties from students
There exist many student-related problems in teaching speaking skill in
English classes. Many learners, as reported by studies into speaking (e.g. Tsui:
“Reticence and anxiety in second language learning”), are unprepared or unwilling
to speak. Their reluctance and reticence in English oral classes pose a big challenge
for teaching speaking skill.
First and foremost, many reasons for learners‟ unwillingness to speak can be
enumerated. Burns and Joyce identified three groups of factors that are likely to

cause reluctance with learners. These encompass cultural, linguistic, and affective
factors (Burns and Joyce, 1997). Cultural factors follow from students‟ prior
learning experiences and consequently from the expectations that are formed on
their basis. Examples of linguistic factors limiting speaking may be, according to
Burns and Joyce, difficulties in the phonetics and phonology of the target language,
poor knowledge of grammatical patterns or low awareness of cultural background
and social conventions that are necessary for processing meaning in the target
language. A low motivation level, timidity or anxiety in class, negative social
experiences, and culture shock are ranked among possible affective factors (Burns
and Joyce, 1997: 134).
Based on six interviews of Japanese students at the University of Edinburgh,
Dwyer and Heller-Murphy (1996) concluded that the students were reticent in
11

EFL/ESL classrooms due to fear of public failure, fear of making mistakes, lack of
confidence, low English proficiency, and inability to keep up with native speakers,
incompetence in the rules and norms of English conversation, disorientation, etc.
This conclusion was supported by Jones‟ (1999) review of research on NNS
students‟ oral behavior in English speaking countries such as Australia, New
Zealand and the United States.
All these findings reveal that reticence is a widely-observed phenomenon in
SL/FL classrooms and that various factors contribute to student reticence. However,
since wide differences exist in SL/FL language learning situations, to better
understand the issue of reticence and enhance the oral proficiency of the target
language by promoting students‟ actual participation in classroom activities, more
research is needed with different groups of learners in various SL/FL learning
situations.
1.3.3. Difficulties from objective factors

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

book also result in the difficulties in teaching speaking skill.
Recently, in their minor study, Julie Mathews-Aydinli and Regina Van Horne
(2006) have pointed out that multilevel classes can present challenges to teachers, as
it is very difficult to design or organize speaking activities for many learners with
different levels and interests.
The suggested solutions are also presented in their study. As for them, there
are some things that teachers should follow in order to promote success of
multilevel classes not only in speaking lessons but also in other ones. Teresa Dalle
and Emily Thrush (2003) have the same opinion of the large classes that teachers in
EFL settings often find classes of 40-70 students to be the norm. Even though they
may be common, large classes challenge even well-trained and experienced
teachers. The task of teaching oral skills in large classes can be daunting, and ESL
teachers may question how oral exercises other than drills can be integrated into a
language class of so many students.
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1.3.4. Difficulties in teaching English speaking skill to students in Vietnam
Difficulties from teachers.
According to Pham Hoa Hiep (2005), many Vietnamese teachers are
conflicted, feeling that their circumstances oppose, or at least, militate against
attempts to use communicative practices. For example, they have to prepare
students for a grammar-based examination, and have to finish certain content in the
textbook in a certain amount of time. They may have classes of 60 students, many
of whom are more concerned about the immediate goal – to pass exams, to get a
degree, rather than the long term goal – to develop communicative competence.
Difficulties from students.
The real situation of English language teaching shows that this is the skill
students usually neglect and are not good at, even though they have very good
grammatical knowledge. Students‟ learning methods depends much on teachers,
students are quite passive in their learning process. Most of them concern how to

pass exams, have good marks in paper-tests which are related to Grammar,
Vocabulary,and a little in Pronunciation. Speaking English is unimportant without
going abroad.
1.4. Some effective techniques to teach English speaking skill to High school
students
1.4.1. Some techniques in the “Before you speak” stage
Depending on the knowledge and level of each student, at this stage, the
teacher may either: (i) to ask questions related to subject(s) which students are
going to say, or (ii) give them some words that they do not know, write these
words on the board, read aloud and ask students to repeat, then meaning (probably
explain the language as to find synonyms ,,antonyms, interpretation, or Vietnamese
equivalent) so that they know and can use them in the early stages ofspeaking.
Teachers can also make pictures related to the topic or situation that students
prepare to speak, ask questions and ask students to answer a number of questions
related to these pictures.
13

1.4.2. Some techniques in the “While you speak” stage
There are many different techniques to develop speaking skills for high
school students at the stage of speaking. During this stage , the ideas of learner-
centered direction to teach language and communication needs to be exploited
thoroughly.
a) Individual Work: As a way of organizing the classroom so that each student can
prepare themselves and then speak in front of their classmates. According to
Harmer (1998), this organization has many advantages:
First, it allows students to work on its own speed and intensity.
Second, and more importantly, it allows the students as real individuals, students
can feel relaxed and back to consider the individual needs as well as your progress.
(Harmer ibid.: 21): because there is no competition, so students may obtain their
studied knowledge in their mind .

Work the individual is conducted in the classroom by the forms: oral reports,
interviews and question and answer.
b) Oral report: Is an important individual activity in language learning. This
activities is consistent with the development of speaking skills at an advanced stage.
With this activity students are given a task with the given suggestions, prepared at
home and brought to the presentation to the class with a time interval of 1-2 minutes
in the next lesson. While speaking, the students may be allowed to look at these
suggestions which are brief notes or use other supporting means such as the board,
tables or charts. Oral report can also be exploited in the classroom. In pairs or in
groups, students are assigned a certain task, for example : work in pairs, find out
five things you need to bring along with you when you need to bring along with you
when you go across a desert, expain why and then report the result(s) of your group
to other groups.
c) Question-Answer: Each student or assigned to prepare a list of questions, or for a
list of questions to communicate. These questions are not necessarily related to each
other on the content and not necessarily always have to be dialogue.Students are
14

told how to answer and encouraged to spend all their time . The questions which
the teachers give or prepared by students are written in the small card and
exchanged them to others. The way encourges students to practice speaking english
in classroom.
d) Interview: Is an interesting activity which combines dialogue and question –
answer, carried out in two –forms : either the student is the interview, the teacher is
the interviewer, or student A interviews and student B is interviewed. Comparing
Question- Answer , the interview is structured clearly. In this activity, the
interviewer plays an important role to control the theme and the development of the
conservation. For highschool students, teachers must help them more much to
prepare and answer questions before the interview.
e) Discussion: which is a communicative activity, has many benefits for students of

foreign languages, especially the speaking lesson. It is used to practise
students‟fluency . This technique is considered successful when more and more
students participate in the discussion of a certain topic as possible. With this
activity, the class can be divided into many sides representing various streams of
thought. Each member of the class can contribute in the development of his own
views on the aspects that they particularly care about. This makes the discussion
more interesting than other communicative activities.
f) Other techniques: In addition to the above techniques, there are other effective
techniques in the speaking lesson such as language games, filling in an
information gap, debating, solving problems,…….
1.4.3. Some techniques in the “After you speak” stage
The purpose of the stage is the continued development of the ideas or the
contents mentioned in the while speaking stage , and relate what has been learned or
practiced with real life. In this stage the teacher can tell a funny story for students
to listen , or use of language games (if appropriate) which relate to the theme or
situation for students to participate in order to reduce their stress after a period .

15

1. 5. Role-play
1.5.1. What’s role-play?
According to Corwyhn Lionheart (2007), role is “a part, or character, that an
actor plays in a performance.” And role playing is “a technique in which
participants assume and act out roles as to resolve conflicts, entertain, or to practice
appropriate behavior for various situations”. According to Kochhar (1992), role
play is “a technique in which the process of teaching is displayed artificially and an
effort is made to practice some important skills of communication through this
technique‟‟. The pupil-teacher and the students simulate the particular role of a
person or actual life-situation. The whole programme, thus, becomes training in role
perception and role playing. One of the exercises which enhances communication

and fluency in expression is „ROLE PLAY‟. The role, false or actual, is performed
in an artificial environment. This may give the pupil an understanding of a situation
or relationship among real life participants of a social process. He will gain some
perceptions of the actions, attitudes and insight of persons or situations. It is a way
of bringing situations from real life into the classroom. Employing role play into the
classroom adds variety, opportunities for a lot of language production and also a lot
of fun.
1.5.2. Why use role-playing?
Considering how important a teacher should make his or her lesson
classroom activity enjoyable, active, secure, and full of more exposure to language
input and more choice to practice the languages, he or she needs to develop his or
her teaching techniques. One of the techniques to be used in teaching the speaking
skill is role-play.
The purpose of role-play is “ to improve students‟ verbal and non- verbal
communication skills and to link and use preciously built schemas, in both
structured and improvised situations” (Maxwell, 1997: 1). Teachers use role-play
as one of the teaching methods to force students to speak in public. The common
16

weakness of Vietnamese students is their speaking ability. They seldom have the
chance to practice conversation, even in the second language classroom. Therefore,
role-play could improve students in verbal and non- verbal communication while
they are acting out the roles in the dialogue.
Role play allows students to explore their inner resources, empathize with
others, and use their own experiences as scaffolds upon which credible action. As a
result, students can improve their ability to produce the target language, acquire
many of its nonverbal nuances, improve the ability to work cooperatively in group
situations, and effectively deal with affective issues. Role play has high appeal for
students because it allows them to be creative and to put themselves in another
person‟s place for a while (Richard-Amato, 2003: 214- 222).

To reach the objectives of the role-play technique, some important aspects
should be considered. Those aspects are learning and teaching activities, role of
instructional materials, the procedure of role-play, the media and the setting of role-
play, the students‟ role, and the teacher‟s role. According to Brown (2001: 183),
role-play minimally involves (a) giving a role to one or more members of a group
and (b) assigning an objective or purpose that participants must accomplish. He
suggests that role-play can be conducted with a single person, in pairs or in groups,
with each person assigned a role to accomplish an objective.
1.5.3. The difficulties when using role-play in classroom
Role playing situations might not flesh out quite like you hope because some
students are embarrassed and thus tentative about acting out a part in a dramatic
fashion. This will cause a role playing situation to be awkward and unproductive
because one or more students will not be able to participate. When a student feels
self-conscious, he will be more likely to be worried about what others will think of
him, rather than how the situation can be solved.
In larger classes, role playing cannot be done effectively because not all of
the students have the option to participate. Many role playing scenarios use only
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two or three individuals in a situation, so the rest of the students just have to watch.
This will cause them to become disinterested and stop paying attention. If you try to
make the situation incorporate more students, the role playing might become a
chaotic mess.
The power of role playing is only harnessed when the role player receives
EXPERT feedback. Inexpert feedback or feedback from group members who are at
the same level of competence as the role player is often useless, and does not further
learning. Unfortunately, most role plays in training sessions are done in small
groups, and most feedback given by other, less than competent group members.
While trainers may like role plays, many people who attend training actually
hate them and feel exceedingly uncomfortable in roleplay situations. This does not

necessarily mean that people who hate them cannot benefit by them, but trainers
need to consider the tradeoffs between the use of role plays and the discomfort and
anxiety they create.
The role playing of highly emotionally charged situations tends to be less
effective in large groups, since the role playing tends to take on the characteristic of
acting performances, or, the performance becomes too artificial and sounds funny.
It's hard, for example, for learners to pretend to be very angry without going over
the top or starting to giggle. This is less of a concern in therapeutic settings, but is a
factor in training.
1.5.4. Role-playing activities in language classroom
There are two types of role play:
l. Controlled role play based on a dialogue or text.
2. Free role play activities.
All these activities are carried in pairs and groups.


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Before the role play
Before enacting role play learners have to plan carefully for integration of all
language processes in the role play:
a) Choice of the topic or theme;
b) Dialogue formation;
c) Provision of costumes;
d) Time management (to enact in a fixed time);
e) Setting of room physically i.e., rearranging the desks to make class more
spacious.
Role Allocation
Role should be allocated to each member, slow or active, of the group so that
each student can get an opportunity to speak out. When shy and weak student will

perform and enact his/her role, he or she will be confident to talk in front of others.
It is argued that teenagers can best play the part of teenagers because they
understand how they themselves feel. Students will enjoy the part of a character,
distant from their everyday experience, more.
During the role play
During the role play students should observe attentively the performances
of the performers and note down the flaws or short comings to avoid them for the
next time.
After the role play
Through discussion, assessment and feed back of the listeners, role plays can
be made more effective.
1. 6. Summary

In this chapter, I have provided the theoretical foundation for the study. First
I examined the notion of speaking in foreign language teaching methodology. Then
I examined the difficulties teachers and students often experiences when teaching
and learning speaking skills. Having examined all these issues I turned to explore
some useful techniques which have been commonly used in the foreign language
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classroom. Realizing that role play was the activity which would constitute the
focus of the study, I devoted a separate section to it, examining in some detail the
notion of role-play, the difficulties in using role-play to teach speaking and the
various role-play activities employed in the classroom. Now that I have finished the
tasks set for the chapter, I turn to chapter 2 where I shall present how I have used
role-play as a communicative activity to develop speaking skill to the 10 graders at
my school - Bach Dang High School.

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CHAPTER 2

HOW TO USE ROLE-PLAYING TECHNIQUE TO TEACH SPEAKING
SKILL TO THE TENTH GRADERS AT BACH DANG HIGH SCHOOL
2.1. Introduction
In this chapter, an attempt is made to employ role-play as a technique or a
communication activity to teach speaking skill to the 10 graders at Bach Dang High
School. As a way of start, I will first provide an overview of Bach Dang High
School. Then I will employ role-play to teach speaking skill to three 10
th

form
classes at Bach Dang High School. The Final section is devoted to a small survey I
conduct to get the students‟ feedback on the effectiveness of using role-play to
develop speaking skill to the students in the pilot classes.
2.2. An overview of Bach Dang High School
The study was conducted in Bach dang Highs Shool, Luu Kiem, Thuy
Nguyen. It is over twenty kilometers from the city center. It means it is the
mountainous area near Quang Ninh. It has thirty six classes. All most students start
studying English from Grade 6 –Secondary school , although students in the city
center study English from Grade 3, even though from in Grade 1. There were 11
teachers of English, most of them were female .They are quite young, some of them
are trained to be a teacher of French, because French was taught here a few years
ago. Like students in many other schools in Vietnam, students in this school were
complained a great deal for their inability to use English for communication after
leaving school. Teaching was described as grammar-based because both teachers
and students were more concerned about the students‟ performance in two high-
stake examinations – the school graduation examination and the university entrance
examination. This also means that role-play was rarely used in the English
classrooms, and students, from my personal observation as a classroom teacher,
were unwilling to speak English in the speaking lessons. So this study was designed
to explore the impact of role-playing activities on students‟ attitudes towards
speaking skills.