Using role play to enhance english speaking skills for the 10th graders at nghi loc IV high school luận văn thạc sĩ giáo dục học

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
VINH UNIVERSITY

TRƯƠNG THỊ THU HẰNG

USING ROLE PLAY TO ENHANCE ENGLISH
SPEAKING SKILLS FOR THE 10TH GRADERS
AT NGHI LOC IV HIGH SCHOOL
Master thesis in Education

Vinh, 2011

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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, Mrs
Nguyen Thi Van Lam, MA, for her encouragement, guidance and her critical
comments, without which I could not have finished my thesis. She 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, collaborator, and students of
class 10B4 at Nghi Loc IV High School for their cooperation in giving me valuable
information.
Last but not least, I am in debt to my beloved family and my dedicated friends
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 realizes 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, October, 2011
Truong Thi Thu Hang

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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, October, 2011
Student:

Truong Thi Thu Hang

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ABSTRACT

The research is entilted "Using role play to enhance English speaking skills
for the 10th graders at Nghi Loc IV High school". 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 Nghi
Loc IV High school, using action research. The researcher took 40 students as the
subject of the research. The researcher taught speaking English using role play
method. The action consisted of two cycles in which each cycle consists of three
meetings, and each cycle consists of four elements, namely: planning, implementing,
observing, and reflecting. To collect the data the researcher used observation,
questionaire 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 63, post-test is 78. From the
students’ responses in the questionaire, 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 pretest which means that the teaching speaking using role play is successful to improve
the students’ speaking skill.

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LIST OF ABBREVIATION

CLT: Communicative Language Teaching
CAR: Classroom Action Research
TEFL: Teaching English as Foreign Language

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

TABLES
Table 1: The Scoring Rubrics
Table 2: Framework of the studens’ questionaire
Table 3: The Result of Statistical Accounts of post-test in Cycle 2
Table 4: Students’ response to the use of role play in speaking class
Table 5: Students’ response to their feeling when joining role play activities in
speaking class
Table 6: Students’ response to the effectiveness of role play in improving their
speaking skill
Table 7: Students’ response to the difficulties encountered in role play
Table 8: Students’ response to their expectations and preferences for the use of role
play in speaking classes
Table 9: The Increasing of Average Score
FIGURES
Figure 1: The students’ response on role play exploited by the teacher
Figure 2: The students’ attitudes towards role play
Figure 3: Students’ feelings in speaking lessons
Figure 4: Benefits of using role play in speaking classes
Figure 5: Students’ evaluation of role play
Figure 6: Students’ preference for teachers’ activities
Figure 7: The frequency of exploiting role play

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TABLE OF CONTENT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT..........................................................................................i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP..........................................................................ii
ABSTRACT...............................................................................................................iii
ABBREVIATION......................................................................................................iv
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES.........................................................................v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT......................................................................................2
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP........................................................................3
ABSTRACT.............................................................................................................4
LIST OF ABBREVIATION...................................................................................5
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES.......................................................................6
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION.........................................................................10

1.1. Statement of the prolem......................................................................10
1.2. Aims of the study................................................................................11
1.3. Research questions..............................................................................11
1.4. Scope of the study...............................................................................12
1.5. Benefit of the study.............................................................................12
1.6. Definition of terms..............................................................................13
1.7. Organization of the study....................................................................13
CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE............................................15

2.1. Speaking skill......................................................................................15
2.1.1. Definition of speaking...................................................................15
2.1.2. Types of Classroom Speaking Performance..................................16
2.2. Teaching speaking...............................................................................17
2.2.1. Teaching Speaking in Communicate Language Teaching (CLT) 17
2.2.2. Stages of a Teaching Speaking......................................................19
2.2.2.1. Pre-Speaking Stage.................................................................19
2.2.2.2. While- Speaking Stage...........................................................20
2.2.2.3. Post- Speaking Stage..............................................................20
2.2.3. Speaking Activities .......................................................................21

2.2.3.1. Factors of a Successful Speaking Activity.............................21
2.2.3.2. Problems with Speaking Activities........................................22
2.2.3.3. Solutions to the Problems with Speaking Activities..............22
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2.2.4. Activities to Promote speaking......................................................23
2.2.5. Guidance for Teachers in Teaching Speaking...............................27
2.3. Teaching Speaking through Role-Play ...............................................29
2.3.1. Definition of Role-Play ................................................................29
2.3.2. The Reasons for Choosing Role-Play Technique .........................30
2.3.3. Implementing Role-Play Technique in the Classroom..................31
2.4. Conclusion...........................................................................................36
CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY..............................................39

3.1. Research setting...................................................................................39
3.1.1.The Place of the Research .............................................................39
3.1.2. The students, their background and their learning conditions.......39
3.1.3. Teachers and method of teaching..................................................40
3.1.4. The textbook..................................................................................40
3.2. Subjects of the Research .....................................................................40
3.3. Method of the Research.......................................................................41
3.4. Procedure of the Research...................................................................42
3.4.1. Preliminary Study..........................................................................43
3.4.2. Planning the Action.......................................................................43
3.4.2.1. Designing Role-Playing Procedures.......................................43
3.4.2.2. Preparing the Lesson Plan......................................................44
3.4.3. Implementing the Action...............................................................45
3.4.4. Observing the Action.....................................................................45
3.4.5. Reflecting the Action.....................................................................45

3.5. Technique of Collecting Data..............................................................46
3.6. Technique of analyzing data................................................................50
CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION................................................51

4.1. Findings...............................................................................................51
4.1.1. Introduction ..................................................................................51
4.1.2. Research Implementation..............................................................53
4.1.2.1. The implementation of teaching speaking skill through role
play .....................................................................................................53
4.1.2.2. The students’ speaking skill improvement.............................62
4.1.2.3. The students’ response to the use of role play in teaching
speaking...............................................................................................63
4.2. Discussion...........................................................................................71
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION, IMPLICATION, AND SUGGESTION.........73

5.1. Conclusion ..........................................................................................73
5.2. Implication ..........................................................................................74
5.2.1. Implication for English Teachers .................................................74
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5.2.2. Implication for Students ...............................................................74
5.2.3. Implication for Other Researchers ................................................75
5.3. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study.................75
REFERENCES......................................................................................................76
APPENDICES

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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

1.1. Statement of the prolem
Nowaday we come to the globalization era. English is one of the language in
the world that master in many various field globally. English is a media for
communicating both speaking and writing. Now many companies have policies to
their employments to have English both oral and written. And English also has an
important role in transferring science and technology.
English, as a foreign language, is a basic compulsory subject in the curriculum
of secondary education. It is expected to help students access knowledge, advanced
technology, and a variety of world cultures. In addition, English at secondary school
plays an important part in students' intellectual development, especially language
mentality. Therefore along with other subjects, English helps to contribute to students'
personal foundation and development.
There are four skills that can be developed in English language. They are
speaking, writing, listening and reading skill. The researcher focuses on speaking
because it is very crucial for the students. If the students study on writing, they will
rebuild the wrong sentences but when the students speak, they do not correct the
wrong sentences. So far, the students feel afraid or not self confident because they
make have many mistakes in their grammar, pronunciation, and diction.
Speaking skill is needed by the students for communication in the target
language. It is very important to master speaking well by implementing the
experience of learning the language in the real life. To practice the speaking skill is
not easy. Because many students get some problems to do it, the teachers feel difficult
to teach speaking too. There are many problems that occur in teaching speaking.
Firstly, the students who feel bored with the teaching speaking process make them
difficult to say words and to remember during speaking class. Secondly, the teacher
still uses the traditional technique. Thirdly, the students rarely practice the English to
communicate inside the class and outside the class. It makes the students feel really
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clumsy to speak English in their daily activities. Fourthly, the students just remember
the speech script when they must speak up in front of the class. They talk with
similiar words and sentences on the books. It shows that they do not understand the
content and they do not speak spontanously by their own word. Those problems are
faced by students in the tenth form of Nghi Loc IV High School.
For the above reasons, the author tries to find the effective solutions to
improve the speaking skill of 10th graders at Nghi Loc IV High School by employing
Role Play as a technique of teaching speaking, that is a flexible technique, and it can
be adapted to nearly every proficiency level. Bailey (2005: 56) states that role plays
are also excellent activities for speaking in the relatively safe environment of the
classroom. The reason of why this research focuses on the Role Play is that it could
give the students new feeling in conversation session. Furthermore, the students feel
bored of the similar technique in conversation subject applied by the teacher all the
time. That is why the author conducted a research is entitled, "Using role play to
enhance English speaking skills for the 10th graders at Nghi Loc IV High school".
Hopefully, it will be useful for the English teachers at this school or other people as
one of teaching strategies among many other strategies in improving students’
speaking ability.
1.2. Aims of the study
My research aims:
- to describe the implementation of role play technique on teaching speaking to
the 10th grade at Nghi Loc IV High School?
- to describe the student’s speaking improvement after they are taught by using
Role Play at the tenth year students of Nghi Loc IV High School?
- to know students’ responses of teaching speaking using role play in speaking
class of the 10th grade at Nghi Loc IV High School?
1.3. Research questions
For the above purposes, the three following research questions are posed:

1. How is the implementation of role play in improving the speaking skill to
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the 10th grade at Nghi Loc IV High School?
2. How is the improvement got by students in teaching speaking skill by using
Role Play?.
3. What is the students’ response to the use of role play in teaching speaking?
1.4. Scope of the study
This study is concerned with the improvement of speaking skills to the
students in the 10th grade at Nghi Loc IV High school. The researcher is not planning
in study a large population of all students at Nghi loc IV High school, just on the
students in grade 10 in order to find out the problems experienced by these students
and teachers of English and then using role play technique to improve the students’
speaking skill.
1.5. Benefit of the study
This study has two major benefits: practical and theoretical benefits.
a. Practical Benefits
This study believes that the analysis of role-play can benefit English teachers,
and students in many aspects. For English teachers, the researcher hopes that they
could adopt role-play as one of the teaching methods. The findings of this study will
be the procedures or guidelines in implementing role-playing technique so other
English teachers in different school can implement the strategy to teach their students.
For students, the finding of this study provides an insight into role -play and helps
students improve their speaking skill. Teachers may also improve students’
perception of learning speaking. Ring (1995) noted that “speakers speak like a book,
because their English is modeled on an almost exclusive written version of the
language” (as cited in Huyen & McCarthy, 1995). With regard to this, role-play not
only serves as a useful source for students to practice speaking daily English
conversation, but also helps them improve their style of speaking skill- that is, they

will not speak like a book.
b. Theoretical Benefits
Conducting this research, the researcher is able to apply and enlarge her
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knowledge in teaching speaking and get useful experience in doing this study. It can
be used as the reference for the next researchers, and will help the researcher solving
their problem in speaking class and can enrich the theory of teaching English
speaking to the high school students.
1.6. Definition of terms
In this thesis, the researcher gives some explanation of some key terms that
predominantly appear in this proposal. 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 process of transferring knowledge of converse and how to
express one ideas, thought, desires and willingness into good pattern and ordinary
speech used to talk or recognize another (Mories 1966:454)
2. Role-play: Role-play can be separated into “role” and “play”.“Role” refers
to “play a part (either their own or somebody else’s) in a specific situation” (Gillian,
2002, p.7). “Play” represents “the role is taken on in a safe environment in which
students are as inventive and playful aspossible” (Gillian, 2002, p.5).
By using this teaching method, students can enjoy the experience of having
conversations with people in reality and develop their social ability with people
1.7. Organization of the study
The study comprises five chapters; chapter 1 is introduction which covers the
overview of the whole study including the statement of the problem, aims of the
study, research questions, scope of the study, benefit of the study and research paper
organization.
Chapter II is underlying theories that consist of the notion of speaking skill,

teaching speaking and the notion of role play.
Chapter III is research method that consists of setting of the research, subject
of the research, method of the research, procedure of the research, technique of
collecting data and technique of analyzing data.
Chapter IV is devoted to a detailed description of data analysis and discussion
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of the findings of the study.
Chapters V is conclusion, implication and some suggestions for further study
The thesis ends up with REFERENCES and APPENDICES

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CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

2.1. Speaking skill
2.1.1. Definition of speaking
Speaking as one of language productive skills is commonly defined as the
ability of using a language orally. Speaking skill is usually considered by language
learners to be the most important goal in learning a language. In fact of all languages,
speaking skill plays crucial role in learning and understanding the language.
In Oxford Advanced Dictionary, speaking is defined “to express or
communicate opinions, feeling, ideas, etc, by or as talking and it involves the
activities in the part of the speaker as psychological, psychological (articulator) and
physical (acoustic) stages”.
According to Chaney(1998), speaking is “ the process of building and sharing
meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts.”
While another expert, Theodore Huebner said “ Language is essentially

speech, and speech is basically communication by sounds”. And according to him,
speaking is a skill used by someone in daily life communication whether at school or
outside. The skill is acquired by much repitition; it primarily a neuromuscular and not
an intellectual process. It consists of competence in sending and receiving messages.
From the above definition, it can be concluded that speaking is expressing
ideas, opinions, or feelings to others by using words or sounds of articulation in order
to inform, to persuade, and to entertain that can be learnt by using some teachinglearning methodologies.
According to the conclusion above, there are some aspects of speaking skill
i.e. pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. The followings
are the descriptions of the indicators of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, fluency,
and comprehension.
- Acceptable pronunciation : to have standard of English accent.
- Grammatical system : to make few (if any) noticeable errors of grammar or
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word order.
- Vocabulary mastery : to use vocabulary related to the topic appropriately.
- Fluent speech : to have fluent speech without hesitation.
- Comprehension : to understand everything without difficulty.
2.1.2. Types of Classroom Speaking Performance
There are six types of speaking performance that students are expected to carry
out in the classroom (Brown, 2001: 271). The six types of speaking performances in
the classroom are presented as follows:
a. Imitative
In this type of performance, students are asked to repeat or imitate the
teacher’s speech or tape recorder. Imitation of this kind is carried out not for the
purpose of meaningful interactive but for focusing on some particular elements of
language form. In other words, this activity focuses more on form rather than on
meaning. Such activity is also called “drilling”. Drills offer students opportunity to

listen and to orally repeat certain strings of language that may pose some linguistic
difficulties-either phonological or grammatical. They offer limited practice through
repetition. Furthermore, Brown (2001: 272) says that drills can help to establish
certain psychomotor patterns (to “loosen the tongue”) and to associate selected
grammatical forms with their appropriate context.
From the statements above, it can be interpreted that drilling is still important
for teaching speaking, mainly pronunciation and intonation as long as it is not
overused and students know why they are doing it.
b. Intensive
In this type of performance, students deal with their linguistic difficultieseither phonological or grammatical aspect of language. Brown (2001: 273) states that
intensive speaking goes one step beyond imitative to include any speaking
performance that is designed to practice some phonological or grammatical aspect of
language. Intensive speaking can be self-initiated or it can even form part of some
pair work activity, where learners are “going over” certain forms of language.
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c. Responsive
In this type of performance, students may give short replies to teacher or even
students have an initiative for asking questions or comments. Student’s responses
usually sufficient and do not extend into dialogues. However, such speech can be
meaningful and authentic.
d. Transactional (dialogue)
In this type of performance, students are involved in exchanging specific
information with their conversational partners. This activity is carried out for the
purpose of conveying or exchanging specific information. In this case, Brown
(2001:273) says that transactional language is an extended form of responsive
language. It may have more a negotiate nature than merely responsive speech.
e. Interpersonal (dialogue)
In this type of performance, students actively participate in the authentic give

and take of communicative interchange. This type of activity is carried out more for
purpose of maintaining social relationships than for the transmission of fact and
information. Related to this, Klippel (1994:4) suggests that since foreign language
teaching should help students achieve some kind of communicative skill in the
foreign language, all situations in which real communication occurs naturally have to
be taken advantage of and many more suitable ones have to be created.
f. Extensive (monologue)
In this type of performance, students are called on to give extended
monologues in the form of oral reports, summaries, or perhaps short speeches. This
performance is to develop students’ global oral ability of producing spoken language
which is more formal and deliberate.
2.2. Teaching speaking
2.2.1. Teaching Speaking in Communicate Language Teaching (CLT)
In recent years, among the approaches and methods in learning and teaching,
the Communicate approach, simply CLT, is considered the most communicative one
and has been used most in teaching and learning second and foreign language. The
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origins of CLT are to be found in the changes in the British language teaching
tradition dating from the late 1960s. Before CLT was given, many methods and
approach were applied in teaching and learning. But linguists saw that the need to
focus in language teaching on communicative proficiency rather than on mere master
of structures. So CLT has been seen as the most popular approach.
CLT is an approach that aims at making communicative competence the goal
of language teaching and developing procedures for the teaching of the four language
skills. At the level of language theory, CLT starts from communicative view of
language. With communicative view of language, language is a system for the
expression of meaning, and the primary function of language is to allow interaction.
Moreover, the structure of language reflects its functional and communicative uses.

At level of learning theory, learning is promoted by activities that involve real
communication promote learning or by activities in which language is used for
carrying out meaningful tasks and by language that is meaningful to the learner.
According to Nunan (1991), CLT has five basic characteristics. First, an
emphasis on learning is to communicate through interaction in the target language.
Second, the introduction of authentic texts used into the learning situation. Third, the
provision of opportunities for learners to focus on which not only the language but
also the learning process itself. Next, an enhancement of the learner’s own personal
experiences can be important contributing elements to classroom learning. One more
characteristic is an attempt which connecting classroom language learning with
language activation outside the classroom.
CLT emphasizes on the process of communication rather than master of
language forms. As a result, it leads to different roles for the learners. Breen and
Candlin (1980:110, cited in Nguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo Dinh Phuong, 2007)
describe the learners’ role as negotiator between the self, the learning process and the
object of learning. The learner should contribute as much as he gains and thereby
learn in an interdependent way. While according to Breen and Candlin (1980:110,
cited in Nguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo Dinh Phuong, 2007), the teacher’s roles are
described with two main roles. The first role is to facilitate the communication
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process between all participants in the classroom and between these participants and
the various activities and texts. The second role is to act as an independent participant
within the learning- teaching group.
CLT provides various types of learning and teaching activities. LittleWood
(1981) distinguishes between “functional communication activities” and “social
interaction activities” as major activity types in CLT. Besides learning and teaching
activities, instructional materials play an important role in CLT. They take part in
promoting communicative language use. There are three kinds of materials currently

used in CLT and label these text-based, task-based and realia. Procedure is also
considerable problem in CLT. Description of typical classroom procedures used in a
lesson based on CLT principle is not feasible. Finochiaro and Brumfit (1983:107-108,
cited in Nguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo Dinh Phuong, 2007) suggest that CLT
procedures are evolutionary rather than revolutionary. According to this point,
traditional procedures are not rejected but are reinterpreted and extended.
In conclusion, with CLT, language learners are seen as active participants in
the language learning process. Teachers should clearly know their role as the guiding
persons and try to do some how to motivate learners to go ahead in the way to master
a foreign language.
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 every thing necessary for
speaking. Some activities are:
• Warming up the class. The teacher may motivate the class, gradually setting
19


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.
• 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
base 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: roleplay 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.
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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.
2.2.3. Speaking Activities

2.2.3.1. 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 that
how to get students talk in the target language as much as possible in the time of the
activity is the most important. 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.
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2.2.3.2. 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 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.
2.2.3.3. 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
22


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
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.
2.2.4. 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. Discussions
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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 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. For example, students can become involved in
agree/disagree discussions. In this type of discussions, the teacher can form groups of
students, preferably 4 or 5 in each group, and provide controversial sentences like
“people learn best when they read vs. people learn best when they travel”. Then each
group works on their topic for a given time period, and presents their opinions to the
class. It is essential that the speaking should be equally divided among group
members. At the end, the class decides on the winning group who defended the idea
in the best way. This activity fosters critical thinking and quick decision making, and
students learn how to express and justify themselves in polite ways while disagreeing
with the others. For efficient group discussions, it is always better not to form large
groups, because quiet students may avoid contributing in large groups. The group
members can be either assigned by the teacher or the students may determine it by
themselves, but groups should be rearranged in every discussion activity so that
students can work with various people and learn to be open to different ideas. Lastly,
in class or group discussions, whatever the aim is, the students should always be
encouraged to ask questions, paraphrase ideas, express support, check for
clarification, and so on.
b. Role Play
One other way of getting students to speak is role-playing. 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 learners such as who they are and what
they think or feel. Thus, the teacher can tell the student that "You are David, you go
to the doctor and tell him what happened last night, and…" (Harmer, 1984)
c. Simulations

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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. Role plays and simulations
have many advantages. First, since they are entertaining, they motivate the students.
Second, as Harmer (1984) suggests, they increase the self-confidence of hesitant
students, because in role play and simulation activities, they will have a different role
and do not have to speak for themselves, which means they do not have to take the
same responsibility.
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. These activities are effective because everybody has the opportunity to talk
extensively in the target language.
e. Brainstorming
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 characteristics of brainstorming is that the students
are not criticized for their ideas so students will be open to sharing new ideas.
f. Storytelling
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. Students also can tell riddles or jokes. For instance, at the very beginning of
each class session, the teacher may call a few students to tell short riddles or jokes as
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