Theme: Using role play in English classes to improve students’ speaking skills

3.Definition Method Role-Playing
Brown (2001: 183), role-play minimally involves (a) giving a role to one or more members of a group and (b) assigning an objective or purpose that participants must accomplish. He suggests that role-play can conducted with a single person, in pairs or in groups, with each person assigned a role to accomplish an objective.
a) Be impressed by the strong and long-lasting in the memory of the student. Besides a nice safety net for each other forgotten.
b) Very attractive to students, allowing classes to be dynamic and enthusiastic.
c) Evokes passion and a spirit of optimism in students and foster a sense of community and social solidarity is high.
d) Can live events that take place easily, and have picking grains wisdom contained in it with appreciation of students' own.
e) It may be possible to enhance the professional skills of students, and to foster / employment opportunities for.
One of the method to be used in teaching the speaking skill is role-playing. Role-play allows students to explore their inner resources, empathize with other, and use their own experiences as scaffolds upon which credible actions. As a result, students can improve their ability to produce the target language, acquire many of its nonverbal nuances, improve the ability to work cooperatively in group situations, and effectively deal with affective issues. Role play has high appeal for students because it allows them to be creative and to put themselves in another person’s place for a while (Richard, 2003: 222).
In the method of playing a role, the pressure point located on the emotional involvement and observation senses into a real problem situation faced.
“Role playing allows people to make mistakes in a nonthreatening environment. They can test several solutions to very realistic problems, and the application is immediate. It also fulfills some of the very basic principles of the teaching-learning process such as learner involvement and intrinsic motivation”.⁶ A positive climate often results in which one can see himself as others see him.
The involvement of the role playing participants can create both an emotional and intellectual attachment to the subject matter at hand. If a skillful teacher has accurately matched the problem situation to the needs of his group, the solving of realistic life problems can be expected.
“Role playing can often create a sense of community within the class. Although at first it may seem a threatening method, once the class learns to share a mutual confidence and commitment to the learning process”,⁷ the sharing of analysis over the role situations will develop a camaraderie never possible in monological teaching methods such as the lecture.
1. Problems in Role Playing
Perhaps the major drawback to teaching by role playing is the insecurity of class members. Some may react negatively to participating in a situation which will be discussed and possibly criticized by other members of the class. And role playing takes time. The class discussion of a five-to-ten-minute role playing situation may extend to several times the length of the situation itself. Sometimes extremely beneficial results may accrue. At other times, because of ineffective performance on the part of the players, or mishandling on the part of an unprepared teacher, the outcome may only be a superficial rehash of what everyone already knows about the problem.
The relationship of the people in the group is a crucial factor in the success of role playing. At times it may emerge as a negative factor. For example, previous interpersonal difficulties experienced by group members may arise in class to corrupt the role playing situation. Also, if the group has people of different status, they may be reluctant to become involved for fear of being humiliated before the members of the class who are smarter or more popular.
These difficulties with the method are formidable, but they are not insurmountable. Nor are they so extensive that they should prohibit us from experimenting with role playing. The potential benefits of the method quickly overbalance the difficulties which seem so apparent in the initial preparation stages.
2. Principles for Effective Role Playing
As a teaching technique, role playing is based on the philosophy that meanings are in people, not in words or symbols. If that philosophy is accurate, we must first of all share the meanings, then clarify our understandings of each other’s meanings, and finally, if necessary, change our meanings.
In the language of phenomenological psychology, this has to do with changing the self concept. The self concept is best changed through direct involvement in a realistic and life-related problem situation rather than through hearing about such situations from others.
Creating a teaching situation which can lead to the change of self concepts requires a distinct organizational pattern. One helpful structure for role playing follows:
1. Preparation
a. Define the problem
b. Create a readiness for the role
c. Establish the situation
d. Cast the characters
e. Brief and warm up
f. Consider the training
2. Playing
a) Acting
b) Stopping
c) Involving the audience
d) Analyzing the discussion
e) Evaluating
Although we do not have time to explore each of these in detail, it is important to note that all of them focus on group experiences rather than on unilateral behavior of the teacher. The group should share in the defining of the problem, carrying out the role playing situation, discussing the results, and evaluating the whole experience.
The teacher must identify the situation clearly so that both the characters and the audience understand the problem at hand. In casting the characters, the wise teacher will try to accept volunteers rather than assign roles. Students must realize that acting ability is not at stake here but rather the spontaneous discharge of how one thinks the character of his role would react in the defined situation.
“Players may be instructed publicly so that the audience knows what to expect or privately so that the audience can interpret the meaning of their behavior. Be sure to allow for creativity of the actors within their character roles and do not overstructure the situation”.⁸
The discussion and analysis of the role playing situation depends upon how well we involve the audience. Key questions may be asked by the leader and/or buzz groups may be formed. All members of the group (actors and the audience) should participate, and the reactions of the actors may be profitably compared to those of the audience.
The audience is just as much involved in the learning situation as the actors are. In the analysis and discussion time, the audience should provide possible solutions to the realistic problem situations which surface.
“It is important to evaluate role playing in the light of the prescribed goals. Categorizing behavior is often overdone and gets in the way of the learning process. Evaluation should proceed on both group and personal levels, raising questions concerning the validity of the original purpose”.⁹
Throughout the entire process it will be necessary to deal with certain problems which arise in role playing situations. The backward, silent member must be encouraged to contribute. Create an atmosphere in which he is unafraid to share ideas, confident that no one will laugh at his contributions or harshly criticize his conclusions.
The overbearing monopolizer must be curtailed in the discussion phase of role playing lest he dominate the group and thereby quash the dynamic, Solving this problem may require some personal counseling outside of class. Tension and conflict in the group may not always be bad. Sometimes these elements act as a stimulant to thinking. There is such a thing as “creative tension,” and it is frequently found in a role playing situation as group dynamic emerges.
At the end of the discussion time the group should collectively measure its effectiveness in reaching biblical solutions to the role problem posed at the beginning. The techniques of role playing afford another approach to involving students in their own learning process toward the clarification of self concepts, evaluation of behavior, and aligning of that behavior with reality.. You can see why this is a desirable approach to classroom procedure for the Christian teacher. Prayerfully used under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, role playing can be an effective instrument in the Christian classroom.
Classroom action research (CAR) is an action research conducted by teachers in the classroom. Action research is essentially a series of "research-action-research-action-...", which is performed in a cyclic manner, in order to solve the problem, until the problem was solved. There are several types of action research, two of which are individual action research and collaborative action research (CAR). So CAR could mean two things, namely classroom action research and collaborative action research, two of them refer to the same thing.
Action research is different from formal research, which aims to test hypotheses and build theory of a general nature (general). Action research is more aimed to improve the performance, its context and results are to be generalized. However, the results of action research can be applied by anyone else who has a background similar to that researchers.
This research method using a Classroom Action Research (CAR).Classroom action research can also bridge the gap between theory and practice of education. This happens because the activities are carried out alone, in his own class, with the involvement of students themselves through the actions planned, implemented, and evaluated. Thus, the obtained systematic feedback on what has been done in teaching and learning activities. The design of Classroom Action Research (CAR).
Classroom Action Research design follows the design of the model are interpreted Lewin by Kemmis (in Mulyasa, 2009: 182)
Based on the above design, research phase is described as follows:
1) Early Reflection
At this stage the identification of student difficulties in speaking through method role-playing.
2) Action Planning
Problems found will be limited by performing the steps of action planning is preparing a research instrument: Exercising Learning Plan (RPP), makes learning instruments, Student Activity Sheet (LKS), matter of tests, questionnaires, observation sheets.
3) Implementation Measures
At this stage of the implementation of the learning program, the taking or collecting data from questionnaires, observation sheets, and test results.
1) Observation, Reflection, and Evaluation
This phase is conducted to collect data and analyze it and then can be concluded from this study.
CAR preparation stages are as follows:
1. Draft action (planning / planning), in this stage the researcher explains what, why, when, where, by whom, and how the actions will be carried out. The ideal action research actually done in pairs between the parties and the parties do action observing run.
2. Implementation of the action (acting), this stage is the implementation or application of the contents of the draft, which is put on in the class action.
3. Observation (observing), the activities of the observations made ​​by the observer. In this stage, the teacher noted gradually implementing what happened in order to obtain accurate data for the next cycle of improvement.
4. “Reflection (reflecting), an activity to bring back what has been done. In this stage, teachers try to find things that are perceived as satisfactory heart is in conformity with the design and secar carefully identify the things that still need to be repaired”.¹⁰
“If action research is done through several cycles, then the last reflection, researchers suggested submitting the plan to other researchers if he cease operations, or to yourself if it will continue in other occasions.”¹¹