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.
