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

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
VINH UNIVERSITY

TRẦN THỊ MAI HOA

A STUDY ON THE USE OF ROLE PLAY
TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILL FOR THE SECOND YEAR TOURISM
STUDENTS AT NGHE AN TRADING AND TOURISM VOCATIONAL
COLLEGE
MASTER‘S THESIS IN EDUCATION

Nghe An, 2015

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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify that this thesis is the result of my own study and that it has not
been submitted to any other university or institution wholly or partially. All
statements of the thesis which are not my own are written in quotation and
can be shown in the list of references.
Vinh, January 21st , 2015
Author’s signature

Tran Thi Mai Hoa

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

For the completion of this thesis, I have received great assistance and
support from my teachers, colleagues, students and my family.
First of all, I would like to send my deepest thanks to my supervisor,
Ph.D. Ngo Dinh Phuong, for his encouragement, guidance and his critical
comments, without which I could not have finished my thesis. He also offered
me great help in terms of ideas and materials.
I am also grateful to all lecturers of M.A course at the Foreign
Languages Department of Vinh University for their valuable lectures from
which I have had such a great motivation and benefited a lot in the writing of
this thesis.
My sincere thanks are due to all the colleagues, and students of class
18B7 at Nghe An Trading and Tourism and Vocational College for their
cooperation in giving me valuable information.
Last but not least, I am in debt to my beloved family who are always by
my side with their constant help and spiritual support during my studying
process.
I have made great efforts to complete the study. However, I realize that
this thesis is far from being perfect. To make it better, the author expects any
constructive criticism. At last, the writer hopes that this research paper will be
useful for all.
Vinh, January 21st , 2015
Tran Thi Mai Hoa
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ABSTRACT
The research is entitled "A study on the use of role play to improve
speaking skill for the second year tourism students at Nghe An Trading and
Tourism Vocational College". It aims at describing the implementation of
role play, describing the students’ speaking improvement after they are taught

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

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Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
This chapter is written with the purpose of giving the rationale, aims and
objectives of the study, the research questions, the benefits and the scope of the
study, the methodology of the study and finally introduces the design of the
proposed thesis.
1.1. Rationale
It cannot be denied that nowadays English has become an international
language that takes an important role in the social life of the world. It is considered

a tool of communication, which has been playing an important part in acquiring
cultural, scientific and technical knowledge, for collecting worldwide information
and carrying out international exchange and cooperation.
Speaking is one part of language skill. It is a part of the productive skill. It is
very important to learn speaking because we need to practice it in our educational
environment, especially in English lesson. In many situations, productive skill can
only continue in combination with the practice of perceptive skill. Productive skill
work is a way for helping students with their perceptive skill. When they have tried
to speak within certain genres, they are better accustomed to understand other
people speaking in the same context.
As a productive skill, speaking is the most difficult one. For most people,
mastering the art of speaking is the single most important aspect of learning a
second or foreign language and success is measured in terms of the ability to carry
out a conversation in the language. In terms of dealing with students talking time,
the teacher must concern with the development of student-to-student interaction.
This section specifically intends to discuss classroom activities that aim at
encouraging communication or interaction between students. Discussing in the
classroom is the example of the way to get students talk to each other, it is to
stimulate information transactions.

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The productive skill is difficult to achieve because of several reasons. One of
the reasons is that students don’t have courage to explain their opinion in front of
the class. Perhaps, they suffer a fear of making mistakes and therefore losing face in
front of the teacher and their peers.
The best teaching method is a moment when teacher gives more time to
students to maximize the speaking ability.

Using traditional method to teach

English can make students feel bored and they do not give any attention to the
teacher. There are many ways that can be used to improve students speaking skill
and to reduce student’s boredom such as using discussion method, pictures to
stimulate students participation, using role play and others.
I am a teacher at Nghe An Trading and Tourism Vocational College in which
English is focused to help students in their job in the future. Among four skills, the
teachers in my college spend more time on teaching speaking than others as it is
needed the most in hotel-tourism environment. We try to find the effective solution
to improve the speaking skill of the tourism students. Role- play is one of the
techniques to teach speaking. It is an activity that asks the students to play
characters based on the topics given in front of the class.
Role-play improves the student’s oral fluency performance; many teachers
have found that students speak more freely when they are playing a role, when they
do not have to be themselves. Role play would seem to be the ideal activity in
which students could use their English creatively and it aims to stimulate a
conversation situations in which students might find themselves and give them an
opportunity to practice and develop their communication skill.
Based on the explanation above I’d like to do a research entitled “THE USE
OF ROLE PLAY TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILL FOR THE SECOND YEAR
TOURISM

STUDENTS

AT

NGHE

AN

TRADING

AND

TOURISM

VOCATIONAL COLLEGE”. I hope that it will be useful for the English teachers at
this college or other people as one of teaching strategies among many other
strategies in improving students’ speaking ability.

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1.2. Aims and objectives of the Study
The objectives of the study are to know that role play interest students in
their learning processes and to know that role play improve the students‟ speaking
skill. So that we-the teachers of Nghe An Trading and Tourism Vocational College
– can implement in teaching speaking to our tourism students.
1.3. Research questions:
1. What are the current speaking activities used at Nghe An Trading and Tourism
Vocational College to improve tourism students’ speaking skill?
2. How could role play help improving students’ speaking skill?
1.4. Benefits of the study:
This study has two major benefits: practical and theoretical benefits
1. Theoretical benefits
a. This research will enrich the study on teaching speaking especially use role play
b. The results can contribute to applied linguistics, particularly language teaching
and speaking
2. Practical benefits

a. It helps the teacher increase the students speaking comprehension and help the
students in increasing their speaking ability
b. The teacher can adopt the technique to be implemented in their speaking class.
c. The students can expect to have more attentions and interest in learning speaking
because they have an interesting way in learning and they have a chance to practice
their English ability.
d. The students will try to use the language to express something in their own way.
1.5. Scope of the study:
To clarify the problem, I limit those problems in the use of role-play
activities in teaching speaking to tourism students at Nghe An Trading and Tourism
Vocational College.
1.6. Method of Study

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The method that is used in this study is a quantitative and qualitative method.
In the field research, I collected the data by using interview, class observation, test,
and questionnaire. Each instrument had its own function in this research.
- The interview was carried out with ten teachers to find out what current speaking
activities employed to develop students’ speaking skill.
- The pre- test was in a form of oral test where the students were asked to speak
based on a role and a situation that was given to them. Then, post-test: the students
were taught by using role play technique and took the cycle I test in same form of
orientation test but with a different role and situation.
- Questionnaires were given to the students in the last meeting of the research. It
was done to know the students’ response about the technique used in the research.
1.7. Definition of terms
In this thesis, the researcher gives some explanation of some key terms that
predominantly appear in this thesis. These key terms explanation’s function is to

make the readers understand exactly about the words or phrases. The following
term will be dealt with during the study:
1. Speaking is the process of building and sharing meaning through the use
of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts (Chaney, 1988,
p.13)
2. Role-play: “Role” means actor’s part in play (person’s task or duty in an
undertaking) (Hornby, 1995, p.1018). “Play” means what is done for amusement or
recreation; drama for the stage (Hornby, 1995, p.884).
Role-Play in this study means the technique that is used in this research, the
students are asked to express dialogue and imagine it based on the simulation given
by the teacher. They may imagine a role and situation.

1.8. Design of the study
This thesis is systematically divided into five chapters. The following is short
description about what each chapter contains.

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Chapter One: Introduction.
It will introduce rationale, aims and objectives, methods, research questions,
benefits, definition of terms, scope and design of study.
Chapter Two: Literature review.
It discusses about speaking: definition of speaking, basic types of speaking,
teaching speaking, activities to promote speaking, and guidance for teachers in
teaching speaking. It also discusses about role-play: definition of role-play, roleplaying in current teaching techniques, using role play in class and the preparation
of teachers for students.
Chapter Three: Research Methodology.
It will present place and the participants of study, the problem, instrumentation of
data collection, technique of data analysis.

Chapter Four: Research Findings.
It will deal with description of data findings and discussion.
Chapter Five: Conclusion and Suggestions.
It contains conclusion and implication, the limitation of the study and suggestion
from the writer based on the previous discussion.

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Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter gives a discussion about speaking; definition of speaking,
basic types of speaking, teaching speaking, activities to promote speaking, and
guidance for teachers in teaching speaking. It also discusses about role-play;
definition of role-play, and role-playing in current teaching techniques, using role
play in class and the preparation of teachers for students.
2.1. Speaking
2.1.1. Definition of Speaking
Speaking is a part of productive skill in English Language Teaching. It
consists of producing systematic verbal utterance to convey meaning. Speaking is
an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and
receiving and processing information. (Bailey, 2005, p.2)
Speaking activities may well form one part of a much longer sequence,
which includes reading or listening, and, after the activity, study work. We will
often use such activities simply to provide welcome relief from more formal work.
(Harmer, 1998, p. 95)
According to Bygate, speaking is the oral interaction that can be
characterized in terms of routines, conventional ways of presenting information
which can either focus on information or interaction (in Nunan, 1991, p. 40)
2.1.2. Basic types of speaking

According to Brown (2004, p.141) there are three basic types of speaking as
follows:
a. Imitative
The ability to simply parrot back a word, phrase or possibility a sentence
b. Intensive
The production of short stretches of oral language designed to demonstrate
competence in a narrow band of grammatical, phrasal, lexical, or phonological
relationship.

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c. Responsive
Interaction and test comprehension but the somewhat limited level of very
short conversation, standard greetings and small talk, simple request and comments,
and the like.
2.2. Teaching Speaking
2.2.1. Explanation of Teaching Speaking
Speaking is a complex skill requiring the simultaneous use of a number of
different ability, which often develops at different rates. Either four or five
components are generally recognized in analyses of the speech process:
a. Pronunciation
Pronunciation is producing the sounds of speech, including articulation,
stress, and intonation, often with reference to some standard of correctness or
acceptability: sound of words that can be listening with the communicant when
someone speaks. English pronunciation is difficult to learn because it is not related
to the spelling of words.
b. Grammar
Grammar is study or science of, rules for, the combination of words into
sentences (syntax), and the forms of words (morphology). in the other hand,

explained that grammar is the study of structural relationships in language or in a
language, sometimes including pronunciation, meaning, and linguistic history.
c. Vocabulary
Vocabulary is the stock of words used by people or particular uses or person,
or a list of collection of the word of a language, book, author and branch of science
or like that, in alphabetical order and define. Someone always needs vocabulary to
communicate effectively or express his/her ideas in oral communication.
d. Fluency
Fluency is quality or condition of person to speak a language easily and well.
Adequate preparation before delivering a speech increases fluency, as ideas are
organized ahead of time and can be effectively presented. Disfluencies occur when

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speakers vocalize pauses. Typical speech disfluencies include "um," "uh" and "you
know." When overused, disfluencies can become distracting to audience members.
d. Comprehension
When speaking you are able to:
- use different part of the mouth and body from those needed in your own language
- make individual sounds and combine them
- produce correct stress on individual word and on longer stretches depending on
the meaning you want to convey
- use intonation (including tones across discourse)
- work with appropriate rhythm and pace’s express your own meaning and your
own personality by choosing from a range of physical and verbal expression
- Interact with people appropriately, repairing breakdown of messages, taking turns
and speaking alone for short and long periods. (Woodward,1988, p.93)
2.2.2. Stages of a Teaching Speaking
2.2.2.1. Pre-Speaking Stage

According to Regina, Sik (1997), pre-speaking stage is a stage for planning
and organizing. Pre-speaking begins before students actually speak. Students'
experiences, observations, and interactions inside and outside of the classroom have
an impact upon what they say and how they say it. Pre-speaking activities involve
thought and reflection, and provide opportunities for students to plan and organize
for speaking.
This stage is aimed at preparing students with everything necessary for
speaking. Some activities are:
•

Warming up the class. The teacher may motivate the class, gradually setting
up a context for speaking topic to be presented by using some short activities
or games, asking questions to elicit students’ experience or by using some
sort of visual aids or their imagination.

•

Introducing the topic of speaking lesson. The teacher briefly introduces the
topic of speaking lesson so that the students may get their mind ready for it.

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•

Presenting important new words or new structures relating the topic to
students.

2.2.2.2. While- Speaking Stage
Regina, Sik (1997) uses the term “Go Public” for this stage. The speaking

actively engages students in interactions with peers and other audiences. Students
who have been provided with supportive, collaborative environments and
opportunities to prepare for their informal and formal speaking experiences are
more likely to have the confidence needed to "go public" with their ideas and
information.
In this stage, the students will practice the new language in a controlled way
based on structures given in pre- speaking stage. The teacher can provide some
controlled practice activities to help students practice the new language such as:
repetition, prompted sentences, single- word substitution, multiple- position
substitution, songs, etc.
After controlled practice, the teacher let the students use the language they
have learned in a free or creative speech. This is called language exploitation. The
teacher can use some activities such as: story telling, picture description, role plays,
interviews, etc to help students to make creative speech.
2.2.2.3. Post- Speaking Stage
The aim of this stage is to help students summarize what they have learned
or remember new vocabularies, or simple as making animated atmosphere in class
after the whole speaking lesson. In this stage, the students can do such activities as:
role- play activities, picture description, competition games, and drama games and
so on. Regina, Sik (1997) considers post-speaking stage as a time when students
have reflected upon their own speaking performance. Peers may be invited to
comment. Peers may comment through a structure similar to a writing conference
and may give oral feedback, written feedback, or a combination of the two.
Conferences may be guided by specific questions determined by the teacher or may
take the form of conversation between peers.

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2.3. Speaking Activities

2. 3.1. Factors of a Successful Speaking Activity
It is not easy to carry out successfully a speaking activity in classroom if we
are not sure about the characteristics of its model. Successful speaking activities in
class can result in great improvement of students’ speaking skills. The teacher
should try to design and administer such activities. As discussed in Ur (1996), they
have four characteristics.
The first characteristic is that students talk a lot. Teachers should know how
important to get students talk in the target language as much as possible in the time
of the activity. However, often most time is taken up with teacher talk or pauses.
Therefore, teachers should only play the role of guiders, and let students be free to
express their understanding in their own ways.
Secondly, participation is even. It is one of the most important criteria to
evaluate a speaking activity. If class time is dominated by a minority of talkative
participants and no chance of talking is used by the worse during the time of
activities, of courses, these can not be seen as successful speaking activities.
Therefore, the teacher should let all students get a chance to speak, and
contributions are fairly evenly distributed.
Thirdly, motivation is high. When the students are interested in the topic and
have something new to say about it or they want to contribute to achieving a task
objective they will be very eager to speak.
Last but not least, it is necessary for teachers to remember that language or
speaking activities must be at the acceptable level. In other words, their language
should be relevant to students’ degree, easily comprehensible to students and of an
acceptable level of language accuracy.
2.3.2. Problems with Speaking Activities
The teacher often encounters many problems in getting students to talk in the
classroom. Ur (1996) discusses four common problems.
The first problem is inhibition. Unlike reading, writing and listening

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activities, speaking requires some degree of real time exposure to an audience.
Students are often inhibited about trying to say things in a foreign language in the
classroom: worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face, or
simply shy of the attention that their speech attracts.
The second problem is that the learners have nothing to say. Even if they are
not inhibited, you often hear learners complain that they cannot think of anything to
say. They have no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they
should be speaking.
In addition, they are low or uneven participation. Only one participant can
talk at a time if he or she is to be heard. In a large group this means that each one
will have only very little talking time. This problem is compounded by the tendency
of some learners to dominate while others speak very little or not at all.
Mother tongue use is also a problem happening in speaking class. That is one
problem that teachers should care about. In classes where all, or a number of, the
learners share the same mother tongue, they may tend to use it because it is easier.
In addition, they feel unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language and
they feel less ‘exposed’ if they are speaking their mother tongue. If they are talking
in small groups it can be quite difficult to get some classes, particularly the less
disciplined or motivated ones, to keep to the target language.
When preparing activities for a speaking class, teachers should pay much
attention to above problems, so that the speaking activities will be successful and
useful to students.
2.3.3. Solutions to the Problems with Speaking Activities
Ur (1996) suggested some solutions to the problems above.
The first solution is to use group work. This lowers the inhibitions of
students who are unwilling to speak in front of the full class, and this also increases
the sheer amount of student talk going on in limited period of time. However, when
students work in group, the teacher cannot supervise all student speech, so that not

all utterances will be correct and students may occasionally slip into their native

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language. The advantage of group work is that the amount of time remaining for
positive, useful oral practice is still likely to be far more than in the full-class set up.
The second suggested solution is basing the activity on easy language. In
general, the level of language needed for a discussion should be lower than that
used in intensive language-learning activities in the same class. It should be easily
recalled and produced by the participants, so that they can speak fluently with the
minimum of hesitation. The teacher should review essential vocabulary before the
activity starts.
In addition, the teacher should make a careful choice of topic and task to
stimulate interest. On the whole, the clearer the purpose of the discussion is the
more motivated participants will be.
Moreover, the teacher should give some instruction or training in discussion
skills. If the task is based on group discussion, then include instructions about
participant when introducing it.
Finally, the teacher should keep students speaking the target language. The
teacher might appoint one of the group members as monitor. The monitor reminds
participants to use the target language, report the teacher how well the group
managed to keep to it. However, the best way to keep students speaking the target
language is simply to be there themselves as much as possible, reminding them and
modeling the language use yourself: there is no substitute for nagging.
2.3.4. Activities to promote Speaking
There are many activities to promote speaking. As Hayriye Kayi inferred
from many linguistics on her article in the internet on Teaching English as A
Second Language (TESL) Journal, there are thirteen activities to promote
speaking, which are:

a. Discussion
After a content-based lesson, a discussion can be held for various
reasons. The students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an event,
or find solutions in their discussion groups. Before the discussion, it is essential

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that the purpose of the discussion activity is set by the teacher. In this way, the
discussion points are relevant to this purpose, so that students do not spend
their time chatting with each other about irrelevant things.
b. Role Play
Students pretend they are in various social contexts and have a variety of
social roles. In role-play activities, the teacher gives information to the students
such as who they are and what they think or feel. Thus, the teacher can tell
the student "You are David, you go to the doctor and tell him what happened last
night, and…." (Harmer, 1984)
c. Simulations
Simulations are very similar to role-plays but what makes simulations
different than role plays is that they are more elaborate. In simulations,
students can bring items to the class to create a realistic environment. For instance,
if a student is acting as a singer, she brings a microphone to sing and so on.
d. Information Gap
In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs. One
student will have the information that other partner does not have and the partners
will share their information. Information gap activities serve many purposes such
as solving a problem or collecting information. Also, each partner plays an
important role because the task cannot be completed if the partners do not provide
the information the others need.
e. Brain Storming

On a given topic, students can produce ideas in a limited time.
Depending on the context, either individual or group brainstorming is
effective

and

learners

generate

ideas

quickly

and

freely.

The

good

characteristic of brainstorming is that the students are not criticized for their
ideas so students will be open to sharing new ideas.
f. Storytelling

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Students can briefly summarize a tale or story they heard from

somebody beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell their
classmates. Story telling fosters creative thinking. It also helps students express
ideas in the format of beginning, development, and ending, including the characters
and setting a story has to have.
g. Interviews
Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people. It is
a good idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they know what
type of questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students should prepare
their own interview questions. After interviews, each student can present his or
her study to the class. Moreover, students can interview each other and
"introduce" his or her partner to the class.
h. Story Completion
For this activity, a teacher starts to tell a story, but after a few
sentences he or she stops narrating. Then, each student starts to narrate from the
point where the previous one stopped. Each student is supposed to add from four to
ten sentences. Students can add new characters, events, descriptions and so on.
i. Reporting
Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or
magazine and, in class, they report to their friends what they find as the most
interesting news. Students can also talk about whether they have experienced
anything worth telling their friends in their daily lives before class.
j. Playing Cards
In this game, students should form groups of four. Each suit will represent a
topic. For instance: diamonds represent earning money, hearts represent love and
relationships, spades represent an unforgettable memory, and card represent
best teacher. Each student in a group will choose a card. Then, each student will
write 4-5 questions about that topic to ask the other people in the group. For
example: if the topic "diamonds: earning money” is selected, here are some possible

18

questions: Is money important in your life? Why? or What is the easiest way of
earning money? or What do you think about lottery? Etc.
However, the teacher should state at the very beginning of the activity that
students are not allowed to prepare yes-no questions, because by saying yes
or no students get little practice in spoken language production. Rather,
students ask open-ended questions to each other so that they reply in complete
sentences.
k. Picture Narrating
This activity is based on several sequential pictures. Students are asked to
tell the story taking place in the sequential pictures by paying attention to
the criteria provided by the teacher as a rubric. Rubrics can include the
vocabulary or structures they need to use while narrating.
l. Picture Describing
For this activity, students can form groups and each group is given a
different picture.

Students discuss the picture with their groups, then a

spokesperson for each group describes the picture to the whole class. This activity
fosters the creativity and imagination of the learners as well as their public
speaking skills.
m. Find the Differences
For this activity students can work in pairs and each couple is given two
different pictures, for example, picture of boys playing football and another
picture of girls playing tennis. Students in pairs discuss the similarities and/or
differences in the pictures.
2.3.5. Guidance for Teachers in Teaching Speaking
Here is some guidance for English language teachers while teaching oral

language:
a. Provide maximum opportunity to students to speak the target language by
providing a rich environment that contains collaborative work, authentic materials
and tasks, and shared knowledge.

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b. Try to involve each student in every speaking activity; for this aim,
practice different ways of student participation.
c. Reduce teacher-speaking time in class while increasing student-speaking time.
Step back and observe students.
d. Indicate positive signs when commenting on a student's response.
e. Ask eliciting questions such as "What do you mean? How did you reach that
conclusion?" in order to prompt students to speak more.
f. Provide written feedback like "Your presentation was really great. It was a good
job. I really appreciated your efforts in preparing the materials and efficient use of
your voice…"
g. Do not correct students' pronunciation mistakes very often while they are
speaking. Correction should not distract student from his or her speech.
h. Involve speaking activities not only in class but also out of class.
i. Circulate around classroom to ensure that students are on the right track and see
whether they need your help while they work in groups or pairs.
j. Provide the vocabulary beforehand that students need in speaking activities.
k. Diagnose problems faced by students who have difficulty in expressing
themselves in the target language and provide more opportunities to practice the
spoken language.
2.4. Role-play
2.4.1. Definition of Role-play
In Cambridge International Dictionary of English (1996) role is defined as

the person whom an actor represents in a film or play, while role play is a method of
acting out particular ways of behaving or pretending to be other people who deal
with new situations. It is used in training courses language learning and
psychotherapy.
In this case, Gillian Porter Ladousse (1995) illustrated that when students
assume a “Role”, they play a part (either their own or somebody else’s) in specific

20


situation. “Play” means that is taken on in a safe environment in which students are
as an inventive and playful as possible.
According to Crookal and Oxford (1990), there is a little consensus on the
terms used in the role playing and simulation, games, role play, simulation-game,
role play simulation, and role playing game.
There seem to be some agreement; however, simulation is a broader concept
than role playing. Simulations are complex lengthy and relatively inflexible events.
Role play, on the other hand, can be a quite simple and brief technique to organize.
It is also highly flexible, leaving much more scope for the exercise of individual
variation, initiative and imagination. Role play is included in simulation as well.
In defining role play, Donn Byrne (1986) gave comments that role play is a
part of drama activity. In details, he described that there are three items to cover the
drama activities. They are mime (mimicry-memorization), role play and simulation.
He distinguished the terms as follows:
a. Mime, the participants perform actions without using words (although as we shall

see, this activity leads naturally on to talk).
b. Role play, the participants interact either as themselves or others in imaginary

situations.

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

participants normally discuss a problem of some kind with some setting that has
been defined for them.
Both role play and simulation are commonly used in foreign language
classes to facilitate communicative competence whereas mime seems to be more
appropriate as a language game. It is performing actions without using words. For
instance, if someone mimes and action, the others try to guess what it is.
Another definition is stated by Joanna Budden (1999) in British Council
Teaching English (BBC) on her article with the title “Role play”. She said that role
play is any speaking activity when you either put yourself into somebody else’s

21


shoes, or when you stay in your own shoes but put yourself into an imaginary
situation.
What is meant by imaginary people is that students can become anyone they
like for a short time. The President, the Queen, a millionaire, a pop star…, the
choice is endless. Students can also take on the opinions of someone else. “For and
against” debates can be used and the class can be split into those who are expressing
views in favour and those who are against the theme.
Functional language for a multitude of scenarios can be activated and
practiced through role play in imaginary situations. “At the restaurant”, “Checking
in at the airport”, “Looking for lost property” are all possible role plays.
From those explanation above, the writer views role play as a technique
which involves fantasy or imagination to be someone else or to be ourselves in a
specific situation for a while, improvising dialogue and creating a real world in
scenario. It aims at the students to encourage thinking and creativity, let the students
develop and practice new language and behavioral skills in a relatively nonthreatening setting and can create the motivation and involvement necessary for

learning to occur.
2.4.2. Types of role play
In view of the persons taking an actor, Gillian (1995) explained that there are
several types of role. The first is the roles which correspond to a real need in the
students’ lives. In this category, it involves such roles as doctors dealing with
patients, or salesman traveling abroad. The second type of role is the students play
themselves in a variety of situations of which they may or may not have direct
experience. The example for this category is a customer complaining or a passenger
asking for information. The third type is the type that few students will ever direct
experience but it is easy to play because the teachers have such vast indirect
experience of them. The television journalist is a good example of this type and it is
very useful kind of role taken from real life. The last type is fantasy roles, which are
fictitious, imaginary, and possibly even absurd.

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In case of role play activities, according to Donn Byrne (1986), role play can
be grouped into two forms, scripted and unscripted role play. In details, those types
of role play activities are described as follows:
a. Scripted Role Play
This type involves interpreting either the text book dialogue or reading text
in the form of speech. The main function of the text after all is to convey the
meaning of language items in a memorable way.
For more details, Adrian Doff (1988) gave an example of scripted role play
dialogue and reading text and how the process is
Angela: Good morning. I want to send a letter to Singapore.
Clerk: Yes, do you want to send it by air mail or ordinary mail?
Angela: I think I’ll send it air mail. I want to get there quickly. How much does it
cost?

Clerk: To Singapore? That will be 30 pence, please?
Angela: (give the clerk 50 pence) Here you are.
Clerk: Here’s your stamp, and here’s 20 pence change.
Angela: Thank you. Where is the post office?
Clerk: You want the air mail box. It’s over there, by the door.
(Adapted from Living English book 2:A.G.A bdalla et al-1999)
To demonstrate a role play activity based on the dialogue, the procedures given by
Adrian Doff is as follows:
1) First, the teacher guides the role play by writing these prompts: (Where? / air mail/

how much? / post box? / thanks). Talk as you write to show what the prompts mean.
2) If necessary, go through the prompts one by one, and get students to give sentences

or question for each one.
3) Call two students to the front: one plays the role of Angela and the other one is the

post office clerk. They should improvise the conversation using the prompts to help
them. Point out that the conversation should be similar to the one in the textbook,

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but not exactly the same; the conversation can be shorter than the presentation
dialogue and it should just cover the main points indicated by the prompts.
4) Call out a few other pairs of students in turn, and ask them to have other

conversation based on the prompts.
Based on the procedures, the writer views that the ways of organizing this
dialogue can be carried out into pairs of students who would improvise a
conversation privately with their partners before they act it out in front of the class.

b. Unscripted Role Play
In contrast to scripted role play, the situations of unscripted role play do 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 conversation should
develop. In order to do this activity, good preparation from teacher and students is
really necessary.
The example and procedures of unscripted role play which are adapted from Adrian
Doff’s book are as follows:
One student has lost a bag.
He/she is at the police station.
The other student is the police officer, and asks for details.
To bring out these ideas:
1) The teacher could prepare the whole class, by:
a) Let them discuss together what they may say.
b) Let them all try out the role play privately, before calling on one or two pairs to act

out in front of the class.
2. Susan House (1997) explained that there are several procedures in using role
play:
a. Students read and familiarize themselves with the dialogue.
b. Divide the class in pairs, A and B, give A and B roles from the dialogues.
c. Let students act out their role play, not just say them but students should read it

loudly.

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d. Walk around correcting and checking.
e. Students swap roles and repeat, those finish first can be asked to make up their own

role play, using different words to fill gaps.
The above procedures do not mean an exact to be used. It is flexible; teacher
can create or develop procedure which is appropriate and suitable with his/ her own
class.
2.4.3. Significance of Role Play in Teaching Speaking
It has been mentioned before in the above discussion that role play is one of
the activities to promote speaking. Through role play activities the students learn
how to express ideas, opinions, or feeling to others by using words or sounds of
articulation.
Larsen Freeman explained that role plays are important in the communicative
approach because they give learners an opportunity to practice communicating in
different social contexts and different social roles.
A role play is a highly flexible learning activity which has a wide scope for
variation and imagination. According to Ladousse, role play uses different
communicative techniques and develops fluency in the language, promotes
interaction in the classroom and increases motivation. Here peer learning is
encouraged and sharing of responsibility between teacher and the learner in
the learning process takes place.
Role play can improve learners’ speaking skills in any situation, and helps
learners to interact. As for the shy learners, role play helps by providing a
mask, where learners with difficulty in conversation are liberated. In addition, it is
fun and most learners will agree that enjoyment leads to better learning.
Several reasons for using role play in teaching speaking quoted from
Ladousse as follows:
a. A very wide variety of experience can be brought into the classroom and we
can train our students in speaking skill in any situations through role play.

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