Teaching Speaking Using Role Play in Elementary School

Ariawati Susiandari, Asni Syafitri, and Farida Keni Nurhayati

ariawati.susiandari@yahoo.com
Sebelas Maret University, Indonesia

Abstract: Young learners respond well to being asked to use their

imagination, they may well be involved in making things, in games or in
songs. Role play is one of the techniques which uses students imagination.
In role play activities, the teacher gives information to the lerners such as
who they are and what they think of feel. The method used in this article is
a literature study. This investigation is aimed to describe the implementation
of teching speaking by using role play and to describe the students
responses toward the used of role play speaking in classroom. Through role
play activities, the students learn how to express ideas, opinions, or feeling
to others by using words or sound of articulation. The result shows that role
play technique can improve the students speaking ability, especially their
fluency, self-confidence and motivation by providing them a lot of speaking
activities. The indicators of success of role play technique are: (1) the
students are more active in speaking activities than the previous conditions;
(2) the students are more enthusiastic in practicing speaking activities; and
(3) the students self-confidence and motivation to speak second language
increase.
Keywords: Confidence, Fluency, Motivation, Role Play, Speaking Skill

A. INTRODUCTION
The English curriculum emphases on the fourth skills, namely, listening,
speaking, reading, and writing. Many students in elementary school have
problems in expressing their speaking. The problem frequently found is that
the lack of motivation to practice the second language in daily conversation.
Besides, they are not confident and fell shy to speak in front the class. Many
factors can cause the problem of the students speaking skills namely the

students interest, the material, and the media among others including the
technique in teaching English.
One of the technique to increase speaking skill is role play. Role play is
very important to teach speaking because it gives students an opportunity to
practice communicating in different social roles and allows students to be
creative. According to Blatner (2005), role playing can be used as a method
for teaching insight and empathy competence.
Liu and Ding (2009) used role play technique to see how the students
performed in groups when they were given a familiar situation to role play in.
They also observed their language potency and how the errors can be
corrected as well as how to give feedback to the learners for further
improvement.
According to Huang (2008) in her study concludes that role play is
really a worthwhile learning experience for both the students and the teacher.
Comparing to other techniques, role play seems to be the most interesting one
for the students. In role play the students act or pretend to be someone else in
the actual word situation that is brought into the classroom.
According to Dorathy and Mahalakshmi (2011), role play is an effective
technique to animate the teaching and learning atmosphere, arouse the interest
of learners, and make the language acquisition impressive. Role play is very
important in teaching English because it gives students an opportunity to
practice communicating in different social contexts and in different social
roles.
Based on the theories above, it can be concluded that role play is part of
drama activity that becomes an effective and a positive technique in
improving learners speaking skill. Learners personal growth and
development is possible using role play as it is interactive, creative,
interesting, and motivating. In the tearing activity, the students performed in
individuals or in groups situations to act or pretend to be someone else in the
actual worlds situation that is brought into the classroom. After doing role
play, the teacher and peer will give some feedbacks from the performances.

B. DISCUSSION
Role play is a kind of a life game that has a goal, rules and involved a
feeling of fun. According to Harmer (2001: 275), role play is effective and fun
for teaching English. In the role play, the students are put in a certain
atmosphere outside of the class atmosphere. The teacher needs to decide the
context for the exercise and the roles that the students will play. Therefore, the
teacher should consider the following points: (a) define objectives, the details
of what the teacher need to do depend entirely on why teacher want to include
role playing exercises in a class; (b) choose content and roles, the teacher
decides on a problem related to the chosen topics of study and a setting for the
characters and (c) introduce the exercise, engage the students in the scenario
by describing the setting and the problem.
There are some tips on successful role play. There are: the preparation
before the role paly executed, minimize long conversation, and bring situation
to life means that having the same feelings as our roleplay character in real life
since it will help us to feel like we are that character. Material for role play can
be found in newspapers, magazines, songs, poems, e-mails, any sources of
human interest stories.
In case of role play activities, there are some steps that must be followed.
Step 1 - A Situation for a Role Play
A teacher chooses a situation for a role play and pay attention on
students' needs and interests. The Teacher should select role plays that will
give the students an opportunity to practice what they have learned. One way
to make sure that the role play is interesting is to let the students choose the
situation themselves.
Step 2 - Role Play Design

After choosing a context for a role play, the next step is to come up with
ideas on how this situation may develop. On low intermediate, role plays with
little problems will motivate the characters to talk.
Step 3 - Linguistic Preparation
Once the teacher has selected a suitable role play, predict the language
needed for it. At the beginning level, the language needed is almost
completely predictable. Though, it is recommended to introduce any new
vocabulary before the role play.
Step 4 - Preparation
This step implies providing the students with concrete information and
clear role descriptions so that they could play their roles with confidence. At
the beginning level cue cards might contain detailed instructions.
For example
Cue Card A:
You are a waitress
1. Greet the guest, give the menu and ask him what he wants to order
2. Tell the guest that the food he wants to order was eat out
3. Answer the guests question by telling him that the food is available. Ask
the guest again, if the guest want to order another menu or not.
4. Tell the quest that the menu will be ready in 5 minute
Cue Card B:
You are the restaurant gest
1. Greet the waitress and tell her what food you want to order
2. Order another food and ask the waitress whether the food is available or
not.
3. Say that you want to order for the drink.
4. Say thank to the waitress
Step 5 - Assigning the Roles

At the beginning level the teacher can take one of the roles and act it out
as a model. Sometimes, the students have role play exercises for the home
task. They learn useful words and expressions, then act out the role play in the
next class.
Step 6 Make a note
The teacher is listening for students' errors when they do the role play.
Mistakes noted during the role play will provide the teacher with feedback for
further practice and revision.
Step 6 - Follow-up
Follow-up means asking every student's opinion about the role play and
welcoming their comments. The aim is to discuss what has happened in the
role play and what they have learned.
There are several advantages of role play. First, this technique can be
useful for students in real situation because in this technique the students learn
to be more active in expressing their performance in front of the other
students. In this technique, the students are also asked to be able to create
dialogue and practice dialogue. In this time, a teacher can see the students
vocabulary, fluency and pronunciations mastery in role play technique.
Second, this technique can develop the students creativity. At the same
time, the role play as a technique give the opportunity to the students to be
more active and creative to find the new thing in the opportunity, so that
become understanding for the students in expressing their idea because
through this technique, the students are given the opportunity to role play
based on the topic that simulated.

Third, this technique could improve students courage and confidence. In

role play, students are demanded to be courage and confidence in each
opportunity. According to Ladousse (1989 in Eklova 2007), role play also
supports the confidence of shy learners because here they are provided with a
mask and they can learn the structures and use them in their classroom. In this
technique, the students are always given the opportunity to try doing the
conversation in peer with relax situation based on their experience. With this
technique, the students can express themselves more confidently.
Fourth, this technique could enrich the students knowledge, attitude and
skill in social problem. In this opportunity, the students must enrich their
vocabulary in order to be easier to express what they want to talk about. This
technique can lessen students bad attitude like feeling shy, anxiety, and fear.
In this case, the students were trained to perform in front of the class and lose
that bad attitude.
Fifth, this technique could improve the students motivation in learning
process. By applying the communicative technique and the using of material
that suitable to students prior knowledge, the students motivation during the
teaching learning process can be improved.
However, this technique has several weaknesses. Such as, the class
management is not under control because the class is noisy, the fear of making
errors and the students confidence. There are several ways to eliminate the
weakness of this technique. First, the teacher explains about the class
agreement so that the students obey the rule of class agreement to decrease the
noisy situation. Second, teacher gives the easy material for the students in
order to make them feel confident.
C. CONCLUSION

In a few words, it can be said that role play technique has positive
impact in improving learners speaking skill as it gives the students a chance
to explore different situations or real life and enables them to speak accurately
and confidently in that situation in the target language. The use of role play
makes the speaking and learning activity more enjoyable and interesting. In
role play, the world of the classroom is broadened to include the outside
world. This offers a much wider range of language opportunities. Role play
also makes the students motivated in learning speaking and easier to grasp the
lesson. This activity motivates the students to learn, created fun environment
and increased the students self confidence. The weaknesses that faced mostly
in role play are class management, the fear of making errors and the students
confidennce. There are some ways to solve the weakness such as gives rules
before the role play began, gives easy materials to act, and give a role play
model from the teacher.

References:
Blatner, A. (2005). Using Role Play in Teaching Empathy. British Journal of
Psychodrama & Sociodrama, 20(1), 31-36.
Dorathy, Anne and Mahalakshmi. (2011). Second Language Acquisituion through
Task-based Approach Role-play in English Language Teaching. English
for Specific Purpose World, 11, 1-7.
Eklova, S.H. (2007). Role Play in Upper Primary Classes. Masaryk University
Brno.
Liu, F. and Ding Y. (2009). Role-play in English Language Teaching. Asian Social
Science Journal, 5(10), 140-143.
Harmer, Jeremy. (2001). The Practice of English Language Teaching. England:
Longman.
Huang, I. Y. (2008). Role Play for ESL/EFL Children in the English Classroom.