VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************
NGUYỄN THỊ KIM DUNG

IMPROVING THE TENTH FORM STUDENTS’SPEAKING
ABILITY THROUGH ROLE- PLAYING TECHNIQUE
AT BACH DANG HIGH SCHOOL, HAI PHONG

(CẢI THIỆN KỸ NĂNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10
TRƯỜNG THPT BẠCH ĐẰNG THÔNG QUA HOẠT ĐỘNG ĐÓNG VAI) M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code : 60.14.10

Ha Noi - 2012
VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

1. Rationale 1
2. Background to the study 1
3. Aim of the study 3
4. Research Questions 3
5. Scope of the study 3
6. Design of the study 4
CHAPTER 1 5
1.1. Introduction 5
1.2. What is speaking in second language learning ? 5
1.3. Difficulties in teaching speaking skills to high school students 6
1.3.1. Difficulties from teachers 6
1.3.1.1. Inappropriate teacher pedagogical practices 6
1.3.2. Difficulties from students 10
1.3.3. Difficulties from objective factors 11
1.3.4. Difficulties in teaching English speaking skill to students in Vietnam 12
1.4. Some effective techniques to teach English speaking skill to High school
students 12
1.4.1. Some techniques in the “Before you speak” stage 12
1.4.2. Some techniques in the “While you speak” stage 13
1.4.3. Some techniques in the “After you speak” stage 14
1. 5. Role-play 15
1.5.1. What‟s role-play? 15
1.5.2. Why use role-playing? 16
v

1.5.3. The difficulties when using role-play in classroom 15
1.5.4. Role-playing activities in language classroom 17
1. 6. Summary 18
CHAPTER 2 20
2.1. Introduction 20

T : Teacher
TTT: Teacher talking time
STT: Student talking time
EFL: English as Foreign Language
ESL: English as Second Language
CLT: Communicative Language Teaching
% : per cent
1

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale

form of conversation. In addition, Burn and Joyce (1997: 54-55) state that one of
the aims of most language programs is to develop spoken language skills and most
programs aim to integrate both spoken and written language. Learning a language
means using it in communication in oral or written form, and being able to express
feeling, thoughts, and experiences in various contexts. Lado (1964: 51) states that to
know the language is to use it. He further states that students do not know a
sentence until he can speak it.
In fact, the English instruction in some High Schools does not demonstrate a
satisfactory result. Many students fail to reach the goal of the English teaching.
They are not able to communicate with the foreign language either orally or in
written form although they have learned English for many years (Lestari, 2000: 27).
Many of the learners in a speaking class are reluctant speakers. This reluctance is
partly due to their prior learning experience. Many of them are educated in a large
class in schools situated in noisy neighborhoods where opportunities to speak are
severely limited. Others were taught in schools where speaking was simply not
encouraged.
Comparing to other techniques, role-play seems to be the interesting one for
the students. In role-playing technique, the students act or pretend to be someone
else in the actual world situation that is brought into the classroom. Utilizing the
technique, peer learning is also encouraged and sharing of responsibility between
the teacher and the learner when the learning process takes place. Besides, for the
shy learners, for instance, role play helps them by providing a mask where learners
with difficulty in conversation are liberated.
Role-playing technique is one of the effective tools for teacher to teach
speaking skill to the students. Huang (2008), in her study on communicative skills,
concludes that role play is really a worthwhile learning experience for both the
student and the teacher. Not only can students have more opportunities to "act" and
"interact" with their peers trying to use the English language, but also students'
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teaching and learning of English at Bach Dang High School in general and the
teaching and learning speaking of its 10 graders in particular. Then, it will explore
the notion of role-play in the foreign language teaching literature. Then it will
present some sample speaking lessons taken from Tiếng Anh 10 in which role play
is used to develop speaking skill to 10 graders at Bach Dang High School. And
finally, in order to see how effective role-play is in teaching speaking to the
students, a small survey is conducted to get the pilot students‟ opinion.
6. Design of the study
Apart from table of contents and appendices, this paper is structured in three
main parts namely, Introduction, Development and Conclusion.
The Introduction presents the rationale, the aim of the study, scope of the
study, the research questions, and the design of the study.
The Development” includes two chapters. Chapter 1 provides a review on
the concepts such as speaking , difficulties in teaching speaking skills to high school
students, some effective techniques to teach English speaking skill to high school
students, the concept of role-play, the difficulties when using role-play in
classroom, the reason to use role-play, and role-playing activities in language
classroom.
Chapter 2 analyses the teaching and learning of English at Bach Dang High
School. It first takes a look at the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”. Then it mentions
briefly the tenth graders at Bach Dang High School, the classes chosen for carrying
out the pilot teaching using role-play to develop speaking skill to Bach Dang High
School 10 graders. Then it will present in some detail how role-play is used to teach
speaking skill to the pilot classes. The final section is devoted to exploring and
discussing how effective role-play is to the Bach Dang High School 10 graders in
the pilot classes.
The Conclusion recapitulates the contents which have been explored, points
outs the limitations of the study and make some suggestions for future research.


short, fragmentary utterances in a range of pronunciation. However, speaking is a
6

skill, which deserves attention as much as literacy skills in both first and second
language because our learners often need to speak with confidence in order to carry
out a lot of their most basic transactions (Bygate, 1991). Furthermore, speaking is
known with two main types of conversation called dialogue and monologue.
Speaking requires that learners not only know how to produce specific points
of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary (linguistic competence),
but also that they understand when, why, and in what ways to produce language
(sociolinguistic competence). Finally, speech has its own skills, structures, and
conventions different from written language (Burns & Joyce, 1997; Carter &
McCarthy, 1995; Cohen, 1996). A good speaker synthesizes this array of skills and
knowledge to succeed in a given speech act.
1.3. Difficulties in teaching speaking skills to high school students
Difficulties in teaching speaking skill to students come from two sources: (1)
from teachers and (2) from students.
1.3.1. Difficulties from teachers
1.3.1.1. Inappropriate teacher pedagogical practices
“Inappropriate teacher pedagogical practices” consists of the amount of
teacher talk, teacher correction, teacher-leaner relationships, teachers‟ deficiency in
English communicative competence and other factors. These factors will be
discussed below.
The amount of Teacher Talk. According to second language acquisition theories,
both teachers and students should participate in language classes actively. Teachers have
to face two tasks in language classrooms: (1) offer enough high-quality English
language input; (2) offer more opportunities for students to use the target language.
Researches in language classrooms have established that teachers tend to do most
of the classroom talk. Teacher talk makes up over 70 percent of the total talk. (Cook,
2000; Legarreta, 1977; Chaudron, 1988; Zhao Xiaohong, 1998). It is evident that if

praise through the use of encouraging words and noises („good‟, „well done‟,
„fantastic‟, „mmm,‟ etc.) when students are doing really well (Harmer, 2000).
8

Teacher-learner relationship. The relationship between the teacher and
students plays a part in evoking problems in teaching speaking skill. A necessary
prerequisite for creating a favorable learning atmosphere in the class is to establish a
good relationship between the teacher and his students.
One of the possible ways of pursuing this aim is to talk with students about
their feelings and help them rationalize their anxiety about speaking, which results
in difficulties in teaching speaking skill (Tsui, 1996). The teacher may decide to talk
to individual students outside the classroom, as students may feel inhibited about
discussing their feelings in front of their classmates. This “step” may contribute to
the creation of trust and “partnership” between the student and the teacher. In
addition, students always feel more comfortable when learning with the teachers
who have a good sense of humor, friendly, relaxed and patient (Young, 1991).
Teachers’ deficiency in English communicative competence. This can be
another constraint in teaching speaking skill which is related to teachers‟ deficiency
in English communicative competence. For many years, language teaching was
seen as helping learners to develop linguistic competence-that is, helping students
master the sounds, words, and grammar patterns of English. The idea was that by
studying bits and pieces of a language, students could eventually put them all
together and communicate.
Below is Hedge‟s description of communicative competence which probably
considered as the most elaborate.
- to be able to cope with authentic texts
Strategic
competence
- to be able to take risks in using both spoken and written language
- to use a range of communication strategies
- to learn the language needed to engage in some of these strategies, e.g.
“What do you call a thing that/person who…”
Fluency
- to deal with the information gap of real discourse
- to process language and respond appropriately with a degree of ease
- to be able to respond with reasonable speed in “real time”
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From the description of communicative competence mentioned above, to teach
teaching speaking skill, teachers might have been required to have language
teaching competence including five interrelated fields, that is, linguistic
competence, pragmatic competence or sociolinguistic competence, discourse
competence, strategic competence and fluency. This can be understood that
linguistic competence (syntactic structures, vocabulary, and pronunciation) is not
the only requirement of teaching speaking skill. However, in English oral classes
teachers only spend teaching time in providing the knowledge of linguistic
competence, which causes students‟ failure to unsuccessfully communicate.
1.3.2. Difficulties from students
There exist many student-related problems in teaching speaking skill in
English classes. Many learners, as reported by studies into speaking (e.g. Tsui:
“Reticence and anxiety in second language learning”), are unprepared or unwilling
to speak. Their reluctance and reticence in English oral classes pose a big challenge
for teaching speaking skill.
First and foremost, many reasons for learners‟ unwillingness to speak can be
enumerated. Burns and Joyce identified three groups of factors that are likely to

book also result in the difficulties in teaching speaking skill.
Recently, in their minor study, Julie Mathews-Aydinli and Regina Van Horne
(2006) have pointed out that multilevel classes can present challenges to teachers, as
it is very difficult to design or organize speaking activities for many learners with
different levels and interests.
The suggested solutions are also presented in their study. As for them, there
are some things that teachers should follow in order to promote success of
multilevel classes not only in speaking lessons but also in other ones. Teresa Dalle
and Emily Thrush (2003) have the same opinion of the large classes that teachers in
EFL settings often find classes of 40-70 students to be the norm. Even though they
may be common, large classes challenge even well-trained and experienced
teachers. The task of teaching oral skills in large classes can be daunting, and ESL
teachers may question how oral exercises other than drills can be integrated into a
language class of so many students.
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1.3.4. Difficulties in teaching English speaking skill to students in Vietnam
Difficulties from teachers.
According to Pham Hoa Hiep (2005), many Vietnamese teachers are
conflicted, feeling that their circumstances oppose, or at least, militate against
attempts to use communicative practices. For example, they have to prepare
students for a grammar-based examination, and have to finish certain content in the
textbook in a certain amount of time. They may have classes of 60 students, many
of whom are more concerned about the immediate goal – to pass exams, to get a
degree, rather than the long term goal – to develop communicative competence.
Difficulties from students.
The real situation of English language teaching shows that this is the skill
students usually neglect and are not good at, even though they have very good
grammatical knowledge. Students‟ learning methods depends much on teachers,
students are quite passive in their learning process. Most of them concern how to

Work the individual is conducted in the classroom by the forms: oral reports,
interviews and question and answer.
b) Oral report: Is an important individual activity in language learning. This
activities is consistent with the development of speaking skills at an advanced stage.
With this activity students are given a task with the given suggestions, prepared at
home and brought to the presentation to the class with a time interval of 1-2 minutes
in the next lesson. While speaking, the students may be allowed to look at these
suggestions which are brief notes or use other supporting means such as the board,
tables or charts. Oral report can also be exploited in the classroom. In pairs or in
groups, students are assigned a certain task, for example : work in pairs, find out
five things you need to bring along with you when you need to bring along with you
when you go across a desert, expain why and then report the result(s) of your group
to other groups.
c) Question-Answer: Each student or assigned to prepare a list of questions, or for a
list of questions to communicate. These questions are not necessarily related to each
other on the content and not necessarily always have to be dialogue.Students are
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told how to answer and encouraged to spend all their time . The questions which
the teachers give or prepared by students are written in the small card and
exchanged them to others. The way encourges students to practice speaking english
in classroom.
d) Interview: Is an interesting activity which combines dialogue and question –
answer, carried out in two –forms : either the student is the interview, the teacher is
the interviewer, or student A interviews and student B is interviewed. Comparing
Question- Answer , the interview is structured clearly. In this activity, the
interviewer plays an important role to control the theme and the development of the
conservation. For highschool students, teachers must help them more much to
prepare and answer questions before the interview.
e) Discussion: which is a communicative activity, has many benefits for students of

and fluency in expression is „ROLE PLAY‟. The role, false or actual, is performed
in an artificial environment. This may give the pupil an understanding of a situation
or relationship among real life participants of a social process. He will gain some
perceptions of the actions, attitudes and insight of persons or situations. It is a way
of bringing situations from real life into the classroom. Employing role play into the
classroom adds variety, opportunities for a lot of language production and also a lot
of fun.
1.5.2. Why use role-playing?
Considering how important a teacher should make his or her lesson
classroom activity enjoyable, active, secure, and full of more exposure to language
input and more choice to practice the languages, he or she needs to develop his or
her teaching techniques. One of the techniques to be used in teaching the speaking
skill is role-play.
The purpose of role-play is “ to improve students‟ verbal and non- verbal
communication skills and to link and use preciously built schemas, in both
structured and improvised situations” (Maxwell, 1997: 1). Teachers use role-play
as one of the teaching methods to force students to speak in public. The common
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weakness of Vietnamese students is their speaking ability. They seldom have the
chance to practice conversation, even in the second language classroom. Therefore,
role-play could improve students in verbal and non- verbal communication while
they are acting out the roles in the dialogue.
Role play allows students to explore their inner resources, empathize with
others, and use their own experiences as scaffolds upon which credible action. 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-Amato, 2003: 214- 222).

necessarily mean that people who hate them cannot benefit by them, but trainers
need to consider the tradeoffs between the use of role plays and the discomfort and
anxiety they create.
The role playing of highly emotionally charged situations tends to be less
effective in large groups, since the role playing tends to take on the characteristic of
acting performances, or, the performance becomes too artificial and sounds funny.
It's hard, for example, for learners to pretend to be very angry without going over
the top or starting to giggle. This is less of a concern in therapeutic settings, but is a
factor in training.
1.5.4. Role-playing activities in language classroom
There are two types of role play:
l. Controlled role play based on a dialogue or text.
2. Free role play activities.
All these activities are carried in pairs and groups. 18

Before the role play
Before enacting role play learners have to plan carefully for integration of all
language processes in the role play:
a) Choice of the topic or theme;
b) Dialogue formation;
c) Provision of costumes;
d) Time management (to enact in a fixed time);
e) Setting of room physically i.e., rearranging the desks to make class more
spacious.
Role Allocation
Role should be allocated to each member, slow or active, of the group so that
each student can get an opportunity to speak out. When shy and weak student will

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CHAPTER 2

HOW TO USE ROLE-PLAYING TECHNIQUE TO TEACH SPEAKING
SKILL TO THE TENTH GRADERS AT BACH DANG HIGH SCHOOL
2.1. Introduction
In this chapter, an attempt is made to employ role-play as a technique or a
communication activity to teach speaking skill to the 10 graders at Bach Dang High
School. As a way of start, I will first provide an overview of Bach Dang High
School. Then I will employ role-play to teach speaking skill to three 10
th