PLAY WAY OF ENGLISH LEARNING

                                  TOPIC:

                                  PLAY WAY OF ENGLISH LEARNING

                                     INTRODUCTION

“The more students talk, the better they

learn”; Speaking skill is not given special

significance in the teaching of English in

Vietnamese universities. Traditional English education in Vietnam focuses heavily on reading skill. Also,

many Vietnamese students and even teachers have “examination-orientation”. In the first semester,

students start the elementary level with the textbooks Lifeline set (Hutchinson, 2001). The textbook cover four

skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing. The assessment at the end of each semester is based on a written

test involving reading and writing skills only. As a result, pre intermediate students spend more time improving

reading and writing skills and mostly ignoring listening and speaking skills. This fact happens at not a single

university in Vietnam but across the country.

In the first semester, pre intermediate students do not have many chances to communicate in English; therefore,

their speaking skill is restricted with lack of naturalness, reaction and pronunciation. Many are shy to speak out in

English as they are afraid that listeners can’t understand well what they say.

Role play is considered one teaching method which motivates pre intermediate students to get involved in

speaking lessons. In opinion of James G. Clawson (1997, p.2), role play is a superb vehicle for bringing the

distiction between concept and reality to the fore.

During role play, students are motivated to perform and act and speak in English class. They are challenged to

use their English words in mind to apply into simple conversation in daily life. This indeed enables them to get

familiar with normal conversation in their real life. Also, motivation influences how and why people learn as well

as how they perform (Chin Chun Shih, 2001)

While role play contributes to affect student’s attitudes positively and improve their English speaking skills, there

is little research examining its effectiveness towards pre intermediate students in universities. :

What are pre-intermediate students' attitudes toward the play way activity?

Generally, this research aims at making clear two important aspects of role play: affecting attitudes positively and

improving speaking skills properly. Firstly, this research shows how role -play has a direct effect on learners’

attitudes. Secondly, this research intends to point out how role play help improve their speaking skills in particular.

The structure of this research includes the context and methodology as the qualitative method. Data will be

collected via oral test, interview and observation, which will then described and analyzed in item data analysis.

Next, the content of reflection shows what is gained and which possibly further research questions are.

                                        

                                         PRESENTATION 

                                    Definitions of terms

Role-play can be divided into “role” and “play”. Gillian (2002, p.7) refers role as to

“play a part (either their own or somebody else’s) in a specific situation. He also

indicates that “Play” represents “the role is taken on in a safe environment in which

students are as inventive and playful as possible” (p.5). This teaching method

enables students to enjoy the experience of having conversations with people in real

life so as to develop their social communication.

                        The function of play way  in language learning

Teaching English in Vietnam mostly concentrates on grammar translation methods and is examination oriented.

Adian Doff and Maxwell (2002, 1997) pointed out the problems of those English teaching methods, and argued

that there is a need to develop more diverse English teaching methods or activities. Vietnamese students have

common weakness reportedly as their speaking ability. They have little chance to practice conversation, even in

the second language classrooms. In order to encourage students to speak in public, role -play is often used by

teachers as one of the teaching methods.

Maxwell (1997) holds the opinion that the purpose of role-play is “to improve students’ verbal and nonverbal

communication skills and to link and use previously built schemas, in both structured and improvised situations ”

(p.1). This viewpoint shows that role -play could improve students in verbal or nonverbal communication while

they are performing the roles in the dialogue. James G. Clawson (1997, p. 4) pointed that “A common theme in

the benefits of using role play is that the techninque can bring abstract discussions alive, make them live, and in

so doing, open up student’s willingness to learn” When taking part in the dialogues created by teachers or

extracted from the text books, students will be required to act as the characters in the dialogues, therefore, they

will find it easier to use the conversation in daily lives. Daily conversation will create lots of unpredictable

situations that make students confused how to deal with. As noted by Salies (1995, p.6), role-play helps learners

to deal with unpredictability, motivating them by adding emotion and increase the awareness of the listeners.

Accordingly, role-play helps create a safe environment for students to practice their language skills.

                         The influence of play way of learning english

Attitude plays an important role in learning English speaking skill. Without adequate and appropriate attitudes,

pre-intermediate students are usually unwilling to learn what their teachers try to teach them.

To make a change about students’ learning attitudes, teachers can use role play to increase their confidence

because role-play proves to be a good choice for them to understand and handle the learning content. James G.

Clawson (1997, p4) indicated that role play helps improve learner’s abilities to communicate their thoughts and

feelings in effective and productive ways among peers. They will find themselves better motivated to learn if they

are recognized as a part of the class. Motivation is important because it helps create good start. Role-play can

also help reinforce students’ knowledge gained through constant practice and acting. Also, students learn to how

to cooperate well with each other through working and discussing English together, which will lead to mutual

affection. He pointed that emotional climate is a good motivation during learning process (Ray, 1992, p.9).

Students can gain more confidence in a safe environment brought by role play method. The learning environment

has become particularly important for students. Ray (1992) also agreed that students prefer a consistent learning

environment with good order at which they feel safe. (p.5). In other words, students can learn better in a little

pressure environment.

Furthermore, role-play helps create peer relationships which have become very important in improving

attitudes. Ray said that the main motivational factor for pre intermediate students is the social incentives

reflected in peer relationships (1992, p.13). The speaking and practicing subjects would be their

classmates, who are familiar to the students and cause them less pressure and

nervousness. Students work in small or big groups and there is a competitiveness

among these groups. By this kind of stimulus, students are able to increase their

learning attitudes, and to learn the second language further.

Therefore, in the context of this research study, the findings above show that roleplay

could affect students’ attitudes positively in four aspects: improving student’s

confidence, motivating their participation, creating interest in speaking lessons, and

improving peer relationships through moderate competition.

In conclusion, the literature above may lead to the fact that the main function of role-play is to help students

improve speaking skills.

Below context will indicate that there is a need to examine how role-play can facilitate students’ speaking ability in

Vietnam’s education environment.

                                          CONTEXT

In Vietnam, the teaching of English has been criticized with lack of practice and heavy focus on written

examination. In most universities in Vietnam, students are tested in written form, meanwhile, oral tests are

ignored since they are time consuming and too difficult for students.

Many pre- intermediate students are reported with lack of English communicative ability due to their emphasis on

the written exam in previous grades. Adian Doff (2002) stated that teachers would look at prior tests to assure that

they covered the subject matter of the test or test objectives (p.2).

The Entrance Exam is the main examination for high school students to enter university. There are two parts of

questions. The first part include multiple - choice grammar questions for each of which students must choose the

best answer. The second part is a reading comprehension assessment that includes cloze tests (Ministry of

Education and Training, 1999). Thus, students focus on writing and reading rather than speaking skills. Also,

starting their learning in universities, pre-intermediate students are lack of chance to improve their speaking skills.

They feel shy and can hardly speak and listen to English in their daily lives. Although they are taught the

curriculum Lifeline set (Hutchinson, 2001) with four skills, the speaking skills are often ignored due to limited time

in one period. Grammar or reading exercises are taken greater priority.

Besides, teaching speaking seems to put a lot of effort into and not every teacher will be successful in a speaking

lesson. As a matter of fact, so many teachers of English in Vietnam universities are trained with grammar

translation method. That is the reason why they will face a big challenge to create an environment in which

students are given more opportunities to use English as a means of communication. It has become more and

more difficult for Vietnamese teachers when they have to work with large classes which are more suitable to give

lectures instead of asking students to work in small groups. Teachers of English make it impossible to control such

large classes if they have intention of teaching English in communicative way. A serious problem teachers in

Vietnam have to tackle is that although there is a number of a method of teaching speaking skill, it is not easy at

all to find out appropriate methods which help Vietnamese students, especially those at pre-intermediate level

make some improvements in speaking skill.

Researchers argue that role-play can help learners improve it. Firstly, role-play helps improve students’

listening ability. In viewpoint of Salies (1995, p.8), role-play makes students aware of the listener. Therefore,

listening ability is as important as speaking ability and role-play might help to improve this skill. Secondly,

role -play contributes to improve speaking ability. In order to speak well in a daily conversation, one should take

consideration about the pronunciation as well because clear pronunciation helps speaking become two-way

communication. In this case, while students are performing in speaking lessons, teachers will be able to listen to

each student’s pronunciation and correct him/her individually during speaking sessions.

                                                       CONCLUSION

                    Learning english is very essential and inevitable so we must use all chances and ways of learning methods.many of the people try deeply to gain more experts in language but they cant attain their intention due to the way which they accepted to learn english is very tough and complicated.whenever we use simple and eazy way we can make eazy our learning and grasping