the application of roleplay in junior english teaching 试论

The Application of Role-play in Junior English Teaching

Introduction

The ultimate goal of foreign language teaching is to enable the students to use the foreign language in work or life when necessary. But the present practice in the English learning & teaching (ELT) classroom in China could not provide satisfactory conditions for both teachers and students to achieve the goals by the traditional teaching model. How to make English learners feel the real language situation and context when learning English is worth studying. Role-play is an effective way to make English learners reach the goal. This paper aims to attempt to study the application of role-play activities in junior English classroom.

Before the discussion of the application of role-play in junior English teaching, the writer wants to do a brief introduction about role-play. Role-play is a learning activity in which you behave in the way somebody else would behave in a particular situation from the OXFORD Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary. In pedagogy, it is a common language learning activity where students play different roles and interact from the point of view of the roles they play. As everyone knows, most of junior students are tired of English for remembering words or grammar. VanMents (1989) in his book claimed that a major advantage of role-play was that “it was highly motivating and gave students simple, direct and rapid feedback…”So role-play activities can highly motivate students’ interest. In role-play activities, students are encouraged to actively participate in activities that are designed to promote the use of the language. Role-play activities provide students opportunities to practise English in a safe and relaxed atmosphere. In fact, role-play has been one of the effective ways especially in English teaching.

This paper consists of three parts： Part 1 is the causes of using role-play in junior English teaching, Part 2 is the application of role-play in junior English teaching and Part 3 is the important points in role-play in junior English teaching. Let’s study them step by step through this paper.

1．The causes of using role-play in junior English teaching

1.1 The current situation of English teaching

The current situation of English teaching in junior high schools English teachers may often get chances to see an English lesson taught either by their colleagues or by other English teachers. The following phenomena are observed to quite common in the junior English classroom in many places in china. The teacher enjoys performing on the stage while the students act as good mannered audiences, listening to the teacher carefully and quietly, copying important notes from the blackboard into their notebooks. The teacher asks questions, and students raise their hands and answer them. Sometimes to make the class look lively and interactively, the teacher asks some pairs or groups to come to the front to act out a dialogue or put on a short play. But the rest of the class watch the performance, and give a warm clap at the end of it. This is a very typical lesson in the junior English room. But in fact, many students just listen or write down important information in the English class or answer questions together. In recent classes, the students’ utterance is no more than “yes”, “no” or only a few words. Besides that, we can’t neglect another common phenomena that many students’ high scores in written English exams do not match their competence in using English. Current English teaching focuses too much on language knowledge such as words, grammar… For example, in teaching reading: at the post reading stage of reading teaching, teachers often rely upon reading aloud, asking comprehension questions, Sometimes even sentence by sentence translation is conducted. And then focus out those grammars and new words to let students copy down to remember. Maybe we can consider these activities inadequate to fulfill the task of developing learning. But the teacher ignored to provide the students with opportunities to use them. Consequently students spend most time memorizing the so called language points and practising them in multiple-choice exercises, rather than using language in a real and authentic way.

2.2 The New Curriculum Standards stress students-centered teaching activities

With the New Curriculum reformation going on in China, more and more English teachers are realizing that the traditional teacher-dominated classroom should be replaced by the student-centered one. New Curriculum Standards stresses student-centered teaching activities. It is recommended that English teachers should adopt pleasing and active teaching methodologies to stimulate students’ interests, build up their language competence and eventually promote their

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ideation, imagination and creation. An increasing number of English teachers have realized the importance of changing their teaching methodologies to meet the requirements of the New Curriculum Standards. So teachers’ roles should shift from the traditional knowledge provider and activity controller to the learning facilitator, classroom supervisor and participator. On the other words, the teacher should give more time to students and let students to be the owner of the classes and the teacher should pay more attention to the language practice than the language introduction. At the same time, many Chinese scholars point out many problems to find new teaching ways. “The major problem is how to balance a relaxed learning atmosphere with the achievement of better grades in English examinations within necessarily limited classroom time” (Du Minghuan, 2006:1). “The teaching of English in junior school has not been given enough attention and there are actual difficulties in the teaching work, such as the environment of English-study is not ideal enough, the opportunities of hearing English is quite few, the influence of the number of the classmates, the influence of mental state of the students, etc.”(Li Yun, 2006:4). According to these problems about our countries’ junior English teaching, strengthen the training of the language knowledge is not the only way to get the goal. Role-play can help students and teachers a lot. Role-play uses different communicative techniques and develops fluently in language use, promotes interaction in the classroom, makes teaching material live and increases motivation. There is a simple example. When students learn to greet others by English ways, the teacher can give students some different roles to practise so that students can remember this new knowledge instead of reciting them many times. Here peer learning is encouraged between teachers and learners in the learning process takes place.

The idea behind using role-play as a pedagogical tool relies on the proverb that experience is the best teacher. It means that students must apply language in the classes. However, role-play is not just including playing some shows. It has been refer to many areas, the main form of role-play in teaching English are talking, interview and free role plays.

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2. The application of role-play in junior English classes

2.1 The first main form of role-play ---- talking

2.1.1 Training the students’ spirit of cooperation

Talking means conversation or discussion. Talking is one of the role-play to train the students’ spirit of cooperation. It needs two or more than two students in talking. So in teaching, talking can be divided two ways: pair work and group work. Many times the talk is based on a dialogue or text from books. So the role-play can give students a chance to use the language they learned just now in class. Here is a typical sample in junior English teaching. I did it with students in Tang Hu Middle School Class14 Grade1 on September 21st, 2009.

------- Good morning/afternoon/evening, Helen. ------- Good morning/afternoon/evening, Alice. ------- Hi, Bob.

------- Hello, Frank. (From Unit 1 in Go for It on Page3)

About this conversation, the teacher greets students one by one, and then gives students every situation which is “morning”, “afternoon”, “evening”. At the same time, students can do a pair work which greet their partners. In this small activity, students can act as a foreigner to greet their friends. This small pair work not only can let students get new knowledge with unconsciousness but also can let students know how to work with a single one or greet others by different sentences in different situations.

Another sample for group-work we finished with students in Tang Hu Middle School Class14 Grade1 on September 29th, 2009.

Dear Feifei,

Please take these things to your sister: her hat, watch, notebook, keys and ID card. The hat is on the dresser. The watch is under the bed. The notebook is on the bed. The keys are in the drawer. The ID card is on the table.

Thanks,

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Grandma (From Unit 4

in Go for It on Page23)

Under the guide of role-play plan, the teacher asks students to read through this note in order to get the main information, firstly. Next let them close their books and talk in a group to fill these blanks. At this point, teacher should take good preparations, like the following column.

objects place Students should think these blanks and discuss with each other to find the answers. And then let students try to find the main forms for a note in a group. After that, the teacher will call three students to the front, one is Feifei, another is Grandpa to ask and answer, the third students will try to draw out their description. At last, students will get free time to practice in a group. Though group work, students will feel how to play a role to communicate with others by useful information and to grasp important information.

These jobs we discussed look like practising under teachers’ controlled, but they also give students chances to act many roles to use English language. Here is a theory named “Presentation, Practice, Production (PPP) model” which is close to our role-play talking.

2.1.2 Discussing the teaching theory of PPP and role-play talking.

Many teachers may be familiar with the PPP model of teaching. A typical PPP lesson starts by the teacher introducing a new language item in a context followed by some controlled practice, such as drilling, repetition, dialogue reading, etc. Students then move on to produce the language in a more meaningful way. In fact, PPP model is a usual way in China. “The detailed teaching of role play is categorized into three steps: presentation, comprehension, consolidation and utilization” (Li Yun, 2006:5). His theory is similar to the PPP model. But by our learning life in China, we can find that many teachers stress on grammars or new knowledge, but ignore students’ activities and do by learning in China junior English teaching. However the main content of PPP model is to let students do more time to speak out and regard students as the center of the classroom teaching.

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So the writer believes that there is not another way to get the point except talking. Talking is not only to make students read the context but also let students produce more reference knowledge by learning. We can use pair work or group work to practice these conversations from the books again and again. In PPP cycle, it needs to offer a simplified approach to language learning. It is based upon the idea that you can present language in a neat and clear way. Everyone knows how to talk and imitate from others conversation, so the role-play talking supports this situation though pair work and group work according to books. Let us give one example to get our goal by talking and PPP model.

2.1.3 Using the theory of PPP model to lead the activity of talking role play in the classes.

Some experts of PPP cycle said that the ideal study environment should follow this graph.

PPP Presentation Of single ‘new’ item Practice Of new item: drills, exercise, and dialogue practice Production Activity, role play or task to encourage ‘free’ use of language

(A Course in English Language Teaching, 2006:32)

We can find it includes 3 main points. Now we used this PPP cycle to lead an activity of talking role- play in Section A Unit 1 from Go for It in Tang Hu Middle School Class14 Grade1 on October 20th, 2009.

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-------- My name is Jenny. -------I’m Gina. Nice to meet you! -------What’s your name? ------- Alan.

-------Hello, I’m Mary.

--------Hi, Mary. I’m Jim. (From Unit 1 in Go for It on Page1)

Step 1, the teacher gives students a self-introduction. (Presentation) Teacher: My name is Sally. Nice to meet you! Students: Nice to meet you, too.

During the first step, the teacher presents today’s teaching material. Although many students have already known today’s teaching material, the teacher will also give some simple introductions to more single students to motivate students to use it. And then teacher guides students to read the conversations.

Step 2, the teacher let students do some controlled dialogue practice by pair work or group work. (Practice)

A: My name is…. B: I’m….Nice to meet you. A: Nice to meet you, too.

The second step is to practise today’s teaching material and know the contents about today’s material by doing.

Step 3, the teacher gives students free time to find new friends in our class in English. (Production)

At this step, students have free time to use English language to help them find new friends in our classroom. But they must learn to produce new sentences to get more information by our former knowledge.

From this typical lesson, we can see role-play talking activities can be one part of PPP model. On the other hand, every talking activity should be based on a situation, so that students can use new knowledge naturally to reach the final goal of the teaching by talking role-play.

2.2. The second main form of role-play ----interview.

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2.2.1 Training the students’ initiative skills.

The second main form of role-play the writer wants to discuss is interview. The word interview has two meanings: the first one is a reporter, which asks somebody questions in order to find out his views; the other one is a meeting at which somebody is asked questions to find out if he/she is suitable (e.g. Somebody applying for a job)(OXFORD Advanced Learners’ English-Chinese Dictionary, 2006:926). For these two meanings of interview, we can divide it into two main role-play activities of interview.

For the first activity, we can suppose a situation which a superstar like Jay will take a meeting with journalists. We can choose one of the students to act as Jay, and others act as the journalists. It will be an attractive topic for students. They may ask a large number of questions and even give us some unexpected questions or answers. If they want to change roles, we can give the chance to other students to act as popular stars.

The other activity of interview is job interview. It is a formal situation for people, so we should take more attention. Here is an interview for judging. Three interviewers are applying for a secretary in a company. One is young, just out of school. One is an elder with many years’ experience. The third one is beauty but no education. The principle, judgers will interview one at a time (others leave the room), in order to decide which one is best suited for the position. Each of them will try hard to convince the principle that she/he is best for the job. In our class, we can choose three students to act as interviewers, others act as judgers. Every interviewer takes a self introduction and then judgers raise some questions. Because the teacher doesn’t give students some information, so students must do it by discussion and imagination. There is no limited, there is only imagination. Students are allowed to come up with questions freely. At last, students will give us a result by their discussion and decision.

According to the two role-play interview activities, we can find students finish a set of small tasks in every way. So it is easy to connect Task-based Approach with the role-play interview. Let’s discuss what the relationship between them in theory is as follows

2.2.2 The teaching theory of TBLT and interview.

The Task-based Approach to learn a language is to emphasize on learning to communicate through purposeful interaction in the target language. For China, Zhou Xueya points out the

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Tasked-based Teaching will completely change the traditional grammar-based teaching methods in China. “He also holds out the important points of Tasked-based Teaching: the key of task-design, the core of activity-design, the prerequisite of instructors’ guiding” (Zhou Xueya, 2007:01). It is easy to get the aim of the Tasked-based Approach is “task”. The task has four main components: a purpose, a context, a process, a product (Clark and Scarino Brownnell, 1994:28).

A purpose: making sure the students have a reason for undertaking the task.

A context: this can be real, simulated or imaginary, and involves sociolinguistic issue such as the location, the participants and their relationship, the time, and other important factors.

A process: getting the students to use learning strategies such as problem solving reasoning, inquiring, conceptualizing and communicating.

A product: there will be some form of outcome, either visible (a written plan, a play, a letter, etc.) or invisible (enjoying a story, learning about another country, etc). (A Course in English Language Teaching, 2003:28)

Above the elaborations, the writer thinks the task’s main points share a same belief, which language should be learned as close as possible to use language in the real life. In China, more and more teachers attend to choose this teaching way in their class. But it is just a beginning, not a whole teaching way. On the other point, interview also asks students to get some goals by the role-play activities, so it is a special task for learners. In total, the Tasked-based Approach and the role-play interview activities have one same goal: to let students get knowledge by finishing tasks (interview is one of the activities.). Let us have a look at the interview role-play which gives students one chance to practice English during the time of class.

2.2.3 Practicing interview role-play according to the requirements of TBLT

Tasked-based approach has three stages as next columns.

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TBL Pre-task Introduction to topic and task Task cycle Task Planning… Report Language focus Analysis and practice…

(A Course in English Language Teaching, 2006:31)

We can analyze this column into six stages: pre-task, task, planning, report, analysis and practice. Let’s analyze these stages according to the second interview role-play activity. For the pre-task, the teacher introduces the topic and gives the students clear instructions on what they will have to do at the task stage and might help the students to recall some language that maybe useful for the task. The introduction gives the students a clear model of what will be expected of them. The students can take notes and spend time in preparing for the task, so before the interview both the employees and the employers should prepare for it well. For the task, the students can work in pairs or groups. When the students work in the task, they should plan how to begin and go on their work. What’s more, the groups should cooperate well. Next, the students should prepare a short oral or written report to tell students and show out their interviews. Then they will practice what they are going to say in their groups. Meanwhile, the teacher is available for the students to ask for advice to clear up any questions and give some welcomes.

In this interview, students can think about how they can finish their tasks and get the job or choose the suitable person. Then they should repeat and analyze time and again to find out which is the most suitable. The most important for interview is practice. The teacher selects the language areas and the students do practice activities to increase their confidence and language abilities.

The students can get some advantages from the practice of the interview role-play by the guiding of the Task-based Approach: the students are free of language control; they will be exposed

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to a whole range of lexical phrases, patterns as well as language forms; the language explored arises from the students’ needs which means the needs are from the students rather than the teacher or the course book; it is also a strong communicative approach where students spend a lot of time communication. In a word, the interview role-play is a good way to improve the students’ comprehensive ability of using language with Task-based Learning approach.

2.3 The third main form of role-play---- the free role-play.

The last but not least main form of role-play is the free role-play. It is clear to see that the free role-play means to make somebody act as a role to play a show without arranging. In the class, the writer makes it as two ways: one is role-play with books (it means act as some books listed or other stories), the other one is role-play with thinking (it means act with thinking stories by students’ make).

2.3.1 Stimulating the students’ learning motivation by playing many attractive shows on books.

We can find many interesting conversations or many stories be appeared on our books, and we also can search many interesting shows from books, TV or other medias. We can motivate the former actors’ playing or other interesting stories.

Every child likes fairy tales. And it is a good way to let students act roles in the fairy tales in our English class. Here is a good and simple tales for students to practice. We searched it in Tang Hu Middle School Class14 Grade1 on October 23rd, 2009.

Duck Gaga

Gaga is a little duck. He is small, dirty and ugly. His friends don’t like to play with him. One day, Gaga walked behind his friends quietly. But his friends did not want him. Gaga was very sad and ran to the river and cried loudly。

Just then, a big beautiful bird heard him crying and flew down. She said, “Please don’t cry. Tell me, what do you want? I can help you.”

Gaga told the truth. The beautiful bird said, “OK, I can help you to become a good-looking duck.” Then she took out a blanket and put it on the duck’s body. She said

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something which the little duck didn’t understand. Then she took away the blanket. There stood a good-looking duck.

Gaga was very happy. He thanked the big bird and quickly went to play with his friends.

From this tale the teacher divides students into some groups. And let every group show out this story. One student acts as Gaga, 2 students act as Gaga’s friends, and one student acts as the beautiful bird. During the preparation, the teacher can give them some suggestions, but not tell them how to play. The students in the middle school are in the age of motivating others, so this kind of playing not only can attract students’ interesting, but also stimulate Ss’ learning motivation by showing out these interesting roles.

2.3.2 Improving the students’ creativity by making some shows by their thoughts.

This is a challenge task for students. They must do everything about shows by themselves. During the preparation, they can ask the teacher for help, but the teacher should not give them ready-made dialogue to learn. We should point out that, for the free role- play activities, it is a good idea to choose situations which are not exactly the same as those in the text-book, but which are based on the general topics. These topics will be familiar to the students, and they will be able to use the language they have learnt. The teacher may give some topics such as health, education, free time, family and so on. And the students can choose any one and then think of suitable situation for free role play. For example:

Topic 1: health

Possible situation: You got a cough, and you must to look doctor, but you don’t know where the hospital is. You should ask one people to find the hospital. Topic 2: school

Possible situation: There are some new students in your school. And the teacher asks you to be their guide. You should guide them to visit your school and answer their any questions.

Then the teacher asks students to play the free role-play they have thought about. The contents about role- play should not be based on our text book. So in order to use an activity like this in class, carefully preparation would be necessary. About this activity, we should divide the class into pairs, and let them discuss their topics and thoughts. And then let them all “try out” the role-play by free practice. At last, call one or two pairs to act it out.

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During the process of preparing and showing the shows, students can learn to how to make one imperfect text to be perfect. On the process, the free role-play can help to improve the students’ creativity. Maybe the free role-play is very simple to organize but it is also a great influence upon English teaching. For example, it can stimulate the students’ learning motivation and enliven their thinking. We also can find that if students want to finish a show about the free role-play, they must learn to communicate with others and work together. And Communicative Language Teaching is also having the similar purpose to practise our target language.

2.3.3 Teaching theory CLT and free role-plays.

The communicative Approach or simply Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) came into being in the 1970s in the west. “It refers to any approach to language teaching which emphasizes the meaning and use, rather than the form of language which aims at developing the learner’s communicative competence in foreign language teaching and learning” (Hymes, 1974:1). “It emphasizes the process of communication, such as using language appropriately in different types of situations, using language for social interaction with other people” (Howatt, 1984:4). “The strong version of CLT claims that language is acquired through communications”( Howatt，1983:4). “The main characteristics of communicative competence include fluency, accuracy, appropriateness and correct pronunciation” (Gao Ying, 2006:6). It means that learners discover the structural system in the process of learning how to communicate. Most students can get high scores in our paper-tests but low scores in the oral tests. And CLT teaching asked oral ability. So this way can help us improve our junior English class. The free role-play is one of the best identification for CLT teaching way. During the activity of free role-play, students use the language freely and learn to make sentences by them learned to communicate with others, not let students remember the form of language to get high scores. The free role-play emphasizes on learning to communicate in the target language which is same as CLT.

2.3.4 The application of free role-plays in English classes by CLT.

Ss can choose some familiar topics to do this free role-plays like we have talked. Here is a typical lesson: Unit 8 from Go for It in Grade 7, students will learn to ask others’ birthday date. We did this activity in Tang Hu Middle School in Class 14 Grade 1 on November 11th, 2009.

Under this situation, students act as researchers and then investigate each other’s information

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to get others’ birthday date. It looked like a simple role-play for students, but it demands students make sentences without samples. On the other hand, it also demands students to make communication with others to get useful information.

The role-play makes strong influence on English Teaching: It can guide students to widen considerations of what are accurate; widen the range of language; improve learners’ knowledge and experience. At the same time, under the leading of communicative approach, the students can get many advantages from the free role-play, such as acquire knowledge of rules of speaking in the target language. In a word, free role-play is one of the best ways to reach the goal of teaching.

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3. The important points of role-play in junior English classes

From the last contents, we can find that the role-play gives us many unexpected effects. However, what should we care can let us get these effects completely. Let’s make some summary about the important points of role-play in English teaching from the last description.

3.1 The activities of participators are for all students

The role-play is an activity for all students. Role-play activities are not only for the excellent students, but also to others. Especially at the beginning to learn English, teachers must pay more attention to train everyone’ interests about English. In the role-play activities, teachers should ensure that \been a different increase in each role-playing activities. Everyone’s ability is different, so when the teacher gives the task of the role-play, he/she should choose suitable roles to match the most suitable students.

3.2 The attitude of teachers for every student

Another point is the attitude of the teacher for every student. During the role-play activities, the teacher should promise every students have chance to do. For those disappointing students, the teacher should prepare some simple roles for them not ignore them or just let them act as audiences. For those excellent students, teacher can choose to let them do some challenges. At the same time, the teacher should expect every student’s performance. Sometimes some students will come up with novel and weird idea. Maybe it is not up to normal, but the teacher shouldn’t give criticism and blame. Only it is a harmonious and relaxed atmosphere between teachers and students, activities can arouse the enthusiasm of the students, so that achieve a successful teaching.

3.3 The reflection and conclusion of teachers in time

The last point is that teacher should give reflection and conclusion in time. After show time, the teacher should give some evaluation and point out “good” and “unperfected”. And encourage students to get better achievements. The teacher can set some prizes to evaluate students, such as “Best Performance Award”, “Good Progress Award” and so on. After the role-play, the teacher also can allow students to order in writing the script according to the teacher’s instructions. The teacher

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