1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ THANH HÒA USING ROLE PLAY IN DEVELOPING SPEAKING SKILL FOR SENIOR STUDENTS OF FACULTY OF TOURISM AT UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES, VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY SỬ DỤNG BÀI TẬP ĐÓNG VAI TRONG VIỆC PHÁT TRIỂN KỸ NĂNG NÓI CHO SINH NĂM CUỐI KHOA DU LỊCH TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KHOA HỌC XÃ HỘI VÀ NHÂN VĂN, ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Methodology Code: 601410 HANOI-2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ THANH HÒA USING ROLE PLAY IN DEVELOPING SPEAKING SKILL FOR SENIOR STUDENTS OF FACULTY OF TOURISM AT UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES, VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY SỬ DỤNG BÀI TẬP ĐÓNG VAI TRONG VIỆC PHÁT TRIỂN KỸ NĂNG NÓI CHO SINH NĂM CUỐI KHOA DU LỊCH TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KHOA HỌC XÃ HỘI VÀ NHÂN VĂN, ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Methodology Code: 601410 Supervisor: Dr. Lâm Quang Đông HANOI-2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 6 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS VNU: Vietnam National University, Hanoi USSH: University of Social Sciences and Humanities TEFL: Teaching English as a Foreign Language GE: General English ESL: English as a Second Language CLT: Communicative Language Teaching TESOL: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 7 LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES FIGURES Figure 1: Activities used by the teachers at USSH TABLES Table 1: Procedure of a role-playing process Table 2: Types of interaction skills Table 3: Role play discourse analysis-Pair 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 8 TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP.
iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. iv LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES. Aims of the study. Scope of the study.
Organization of the thesis .5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Types of role plays. Process of role-playing. Role-playing and current teaching techniques.
Oral skills and interaction. Types of interaction skills. Using role-play in class to develop students’ speaking skills. Is Role play for language learning or language practice?.
Role play is language at work. Role play is language learning, not a theory. Teachers prepare students for role play. Different roles for different students.
Doing about mistakes.19 CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY. Background to the Study.21 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Instruments of data collection.4 Follow-up questionnaire. The pre-test stage .2 Data analysis and presentation.
Follow-up questionnaire .36 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS .1 Findings from interviews with teachers .2 Findings from the follow up questionnaire with the students .2 Implications and suggestions. How to integrate role play in the syllabus to develop speaking skills. Note for teachers when using role play activities. Some possible difficulties and suggestions to overcome them when using role play activities.43 APPENDICES LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 10 PART A: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale English has become the most essential language in the world used by almost all people from many different countries for international communication. The area of English study has also become a special interest because of the importance of English in any scope of our lives. Julian Edge (1996) said: “Since British trade, followed by colonial and imperial expansion, English spread around the world. Then the military and economic dominance of the United States of America has confirmed English as the international language of present historical period.
In international relationship, English speaking ability is very important so people must be able to participate in the wider world of work. The speaking skill is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in the language. This reality makes teachers and parents think that speaking ability should be mastered by their students and children. Based on the above reasons, in recent years, English language teaching has focused on teaching the language rather than teaching about the language.
The emphasis is not only on linguistic competence of the language learners but also on the development of their communicative ability. In order to develop the learners’ communicative ability, the teacher needs to create a scenario to teach the target language in a vibrant, active and interesting manner. In learning speaking skill, students often find several problems. The problem frequently found is that the influence of their native language makes it difficult to use the foreign language.
Another reason is the lack of motivation to practice the foreign language in daily conversation. They are also too shy and afraid to take part in the conversation. Many factors can cause problems of the students’ speaking skills namely the students’ interest, the material, and the media among others including the technique in teaching English. Many techniques can be applied including role play because many research findings say that this technique is effective to use.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 11 Role play is very important in teaching speaking because it gives students an opportunity to practice communicating in different social contexts and in different social roles. In addition, it allows students to be creative and to put themselves in another person’s place for a while. According to Stephen D. Hattings (2007) based on his observation in the conversation class, the role play would seem to be the ideal activity in which students could use their English creatively and it aims to stimulate a conversation situation in which students might find themselves and give them an opportunity to practice and develop their communication skill.
For these reasons, the writer is interested in analyzing the use of role play in teaching speaking for the students of Faculty of Tourism at University of Social Sciences and Humanities. She wants to show that using role play in developing students’ speaking skill offer a variety of benefits. A very wide variety of experience can be brought into the classroom through role play. The range of functions and structures, and the areas of vocabulary that can be introduced, go far beyond the limits of other pair or group activities, such as conversation, communication games, or humanistic exercises.
Through role play we can train our students in speaking skills in any situation. Role play puts students in situation in which they are required to use and develop those phonic forms of language which are so necessary in oiling the works of social relationships, but which are so often neglected by our language teaching syllabuses. Many students obtain information from that language teaching syllabuses. Many students believe that language is only to do with the transfer of specific information from one person to another.
They have very little small talk, and in consequence often appear unnecessarily brusque and abrupt. It is possible to build up these social skills from a very low level through role play. Some people are learning English to prepare for specific roles in their lives: people who are going to work or travel in an international context. It is helpful for these students to have tried out and experimented with the language they will require in the friendly and safe environment of a classroom.
For these students, role play is a very useful rehearsal for real life. It enables them not just to acquire set phrases, but to learn how interaction might take place in a variety of situations. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 12 Role play helps many shy students by providing them with a mask. Some more reticent members of a group may have a great deal of difficulty participating in conversations about themselves, and in other activities based on their direct experience.
These students are liberated by role play as they no longer feel that their own personality is implicated. Perhaps the most important reasons for using role play is that it is fun. Once students understand what is expected of them, they thoroughly enjoy letting their imagination rip. Although there does not appear to be any scientific evidence that enjoyment automatically leads to better learning, most language teachers would probably agree that in the case of the vast majority of normal people this is surely so.
Finally, role play is one of a whole gamut of communicative techniques which develops fluency in language students, which promotes interaction in the classroom, and which increases motivation. Not only is peer learning encouraged by it but also the sharing between teacher and student of the responsibility for the learning process. Role play is perhaps the most flexible technique in the range, and teachers who have it at their finger- tips are able to meet an infinite variety of needs with suitable and effective role play exercise. In brief, the needs of teaching about the language not the language itself, designing interesting speaking activities, and getting students to involve in oral activities are the reasons why the writer is interested in conducting this research.
Aims of the study The purpose of the study is To find out the importance of role play in developing speaking activities used by the teachers at University of Social Sciences and Humanities To examine the use of role-playing as a speaking activity in helping develop students’ speaking skill. The researcher hopes to change some ways in the choice of speaking activities, which is for the sake of students, not for the sake of the activity. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Scope of the study Because of its small scale, this study tries to examine how using role-play develops speaking skill in a number of aspects such as accuracy, fluency, lack of hesitations, turn- taking and negotiations of meaning.
Also, this study is limited to the context of USSH with the participation of twenty- five senior students at Department of Tourism. Research methods The study is carried out employing the following techniques: holistic class observation done via tape recording, diary keeping, interviews and especially discourse analysis. Research questions The study tries to answer the following questions: 1. What are the current speaking activities used at University of Social Sciences and Humanities to develop students’ speaking skill? 2.
How could role-play help developing students’ speaking skill? 3. How could role-play be integrated into the current teaching syllabus to develop the students’ speaking skill? 6. Organization of the thesis The thesis includes three parts. The first part: “Introduction” introduces the motivation for the research, defines the specific aims, scope, methods and research questions.
The second part consists of three chapters. The first chapter, Chapter 1 “Literature Review” gives an overview of role-play and speaking skill The second chapter, Chapter 2: “The study” tries to answer the two research questions of the study. In this chapter, background information for the study is presented, giving the premises for the next part. Then there is the detailed description of how the study is carried out, including methods and procedure and summary of the findings of the study.
Chapter 3: “Findings and Implications” presents the findings from the study and proposes some practical suggestions for teachers at USSH, including the ways to integrate role-play in syllabus. The last part of the study is the conclusion, which gives a summary and recommendations for the further study. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 14 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW In this chapter, some theories related to role-play are reviewed, including the definitions of role-play, their characteristics, and types of role-play as well as the process of carrying out a role-play as an oral activity. Then there is a discussion of what role-plays are.
The chapter is ended with the relation between role-play and speaking skill.