VIETNAM NATIONALUNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
 MAI THI
̣
LU
̣
A OANH

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE USE OF ROLE PLAY FOR
ENHANCING THE SECOND YEAR NON- ENGLISH
MAJOR STUDENTS’ SPEAKING PERFORMANCE AT
HANOI UNIVERSITYOF BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY

(
Nghiên cứu về việc sử dụng đóng vai tình huống để nâng cao
khả năng nói tiếng Anh của sinh viên không chuyên năm thứ 2,
trường Đại Học Kinh Doanh và Công Nghệ Hà Nội
)M.A. Minor Programme Thesis

Field:
English Teaching Methodology


trường Đại Học Kinh Doanh và Công Nghệ Hà Nội
)M.A. Minor Programme Thesis Field:
English Teaching Methodology

Code:
60.14.10

Supervisor:
Dr. Do Tuan Minh Hanoi, 2013
i

DECLARATION

I certify that the minor thesis titled “An investigation into the use of role- play for
enhancing second year non- English major students’ speaking performance at
Hanoi University of Business and Technology”. is the result of my own work and
that this thesis has not been published or submitted for a degree to any other
universities or institutions.

Signature


speaking problems such as passive learning behaviors, boring and quiet atmosphere,
lack of motivation and confidence to speak, students‟ less speaking time, etc. This
action research is conducted in two classes of Accounting at Hanoi University of
Business and Technology with the focus on the effectiveness of role play in
enhancing students‟ speaking performance. In this paper, the author uses three
collection instruments: questionnaires, follow-up interviews with students and
observation in each speaking lessons through the evaluation sheets. The researcher
first reviews some theories regarding speaking skill, role play, and then analyzes the
participants‟ feedback and the teachers‟ observation on the effectiveness of role
play. The research shows that role play is an effective technique in changing the
students‟ attitudes towards speaking skill, their learning behaviors in speaking
lessons and enhancing the students‟ peaking performance. iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART A: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale and statement of the problem for the study 1
2. Aims of the study 3
3. Scope of the study 4
4. Research questions and hypothesis 4
5. Method of the study 4
6. Organization of the study 5

Table 4: Students‟ comments on the teacher‟s instructions for role play.
Table 5: Students‟ preference for choosing pairs or groups
Table 6: Students‟ preference in being prepared for a role play
Table 7: Results of students‟ speaking performance in cycle 1
Table 8: Results of students‟ speaking performance in cycle 2

vi

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Students‟ knowledge about role play
Figure 2: Students‟ knowledge about what students do in role plays
Figure 3: Students‟ attitudes towards speaking lessons
Figure 4: Students‟ attitudes towards the role plays applied in the speaking lessons
Figure 5: Students‟ habit of waiting for their teacher‟s calling
Figure 6: Students‟ speaking time in role plays
Figure 7: Students‟ understanding of teacher‟s instruction for role plays
Figure 8: Students‟ actions when they do not understand the teacher‟s instructions
Figure 9: Students‟ learning behaviors when being asked to role play
Figure 10: Students‟ use of language in role plays
Figure 11: Students‟ difficulties in role plays
Figure 12: Students‟ comments on role plays organized by the teacher

other teachers at HUBT. However, the researcher of this study only mentions the
three most outstanding problems that frequently arise during the process of learning
and teaching speaking skill. These problems are investigated in terms of the
students‟ low speaking ability, the students‟ low motivation in learning English, and
the teacher‟s monotonous and inappropriate teaching techniques. These problems
seem to be closely connected and interrelated.
Regarding the problem of students‟ low speaking ability, this is indicated through
the fact that students only use a few words and give short responses when they are
asked in English. Their overwhelming use of Vietnamese in English discussion is
also a result of their low speaking ability. This unsatisfactory proficiency of the
students‟ speaking is mainly due to the students‟ low motivation, high anxiety, and
their limited vocabulary and also because of teachers‟ inappropriate use of teaching
2

techniques. As a result, the students easily get bored and uninterested in learning
this skill. The reality also shows that when students are exposed to monotonous
instructional activities, they do not participate actively and efficiently. This is
specifically illustrated through the fact that students are unwilling to involve
themselves in the assigned activities, and students do not have equal opportunity to
participate in speaking group work. Besides, most of my students have wrong
assumptions of working in pairs or groups in speaking lessons. They mostly
perceive that speaking lessons is only the procedure of putting class members into
groups, then each one try to complete their task mainly individually and
competitively. Furthermore, many of them carry out the speaking tasks assigned by
their teacher by writing down their ideas and passively wait for the teacher‟s calling
for presentation. As a result, many of them do not have chances to practice the
language required, and after the lessons they do not remember anything related to
the speaking tasks. All of these factors lead to the bad result that a few weeks later
and before the speaking test, they gain nothing about the language use in a specific
situation and they cannot communicate in English in their real life if the real life

2. Aims of the study
The study firstly aims at investigating the effectiveness of using role play as a
technique in teaching speaking to the second year students at Hanoi University of
Business and Technology. Basing on the research results, this study also provides
practical suggestions for better use of role play technique in teaching speaking.
Regarding theory, the study provides English language teachers with more
knowledge about role play technique in terms of its types and its advantages. The
study also suggests some ways to successfully exploit role play activities in the
stages of teaching speaking.
In terms of pedagogy, the results of this study are believed to be relevant to
improving the teaching of oral skill to students at HUBT. Specifically, the study
may help teachers to create a more active and relaxing atmosphere for effective
4

speaking practice so that they can help their students to be better at this oral skill as
well as other language skills.
3. Scope of the study
In terms of language skills and participants, the author of this study only focused on
speaking skill. Apart from the first speaking lesson, the five other ones were
observed. Regarding types of role play, this study investigates the use of unscripted
role play in speaking lessons. The speaking lessons were carried out with the use of
role play in the Case Study section of the current course book which is implemented
at HUBT for two classes of the second-year non-English major students in the first
semester (school year 2013-2014).
4. Research questions and hypothesis
The study aims to investigate whether role play is a technique to motivate students
to participate in speaking activities and to improve HUBT students‟ speaking skill.
Therefore, the hypothesis for this study is that role play can be used as a technique
to enhance HUBT students‟ speaking performance. The following research
questions are given out to test the hypothesis:

Conclusion. The first part, Introduction, briefly gives general background
information of the study such as the rationale and statement of the problem for the
study, the aims and significance, scope, research questions and the method used to
carry out this study. The second part of this thesis is Development, which includes
three chapters. Chapter one provides the literature review which is relevant to the
study on major issues such as role play technique and speaking skill. Then some key
information about the teaching practice at HUBT, the participants, data collection
instruments, methods of data analysis and procedure of the study are presented in
Chapter two. The last chapter, Chapter Three, describes the analysis of a range of
data, and discusses and interprets the findings of the study. Finally, the Conclusion
discusses conclusions drawn from the study, comments on the limitations of this
research and makes some recommendations for further studies as well as the author‟s
professional development after the research.
6

PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
The study bases on theoretical background of speaking and role play technique.
This chapter reviews relevant literature and provides key information of the current
research findings to see how the research contributes to the field.
1.1. Theoretical background of speaking and teaching speaking
1.1.1. Definition and Nature of speaking
As defined in Oxford Advanced Dictionary, speaking is the one‟s ability to express or
communicate opinions, feelings or ideas, etc or according to Chaney, speaking is “the
process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal
symbols in a variety of contexts”.
To put it another way, Brown (2001) stated, speaking is an interactive process of
meaning construction which involves producing and processing information. Speaking
is also a process whose form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it
occurs and is usually used as a means of communication in daily interaction. In

The above mentioned factors are most likely to be achieved when the speaking
lessons are implemented with role play activities.
1.1.3. Teaching speaking
According to Nunan (2003), teaching speaking is to teach language learners to
“produce the English speech sounds and sounds pattern”, “use words and sentence
stress, intonation patterns and the rhythm of the second language” “select appropriate
words and sentences according to the proper social setting, audience, situation and
subject matter”. Nunan also stated that teaching speaking is teaching students to know
how to “organize their thoughts in a meaning and logical sequence”, to help students to
have ability to “use the language as a means of expressing values and judgments” and
8

to “use the language quickly and confidently with few unnatural pauses, which is called
fluency”.
Furthermore, as written in “Developing speaking skill in the young learners’
classroom” by Natasa, posted on the Internet TESL journal (Vol XII, No.11,
November 2006), some factors should be put into consideration when teaching
speaking. Those are considerations regarding a class mixed of varied abilities,
expectation, motivation level, knowledge and different learning styles. Another thing
that teachers should take into consideration when teaching is that interaction is
important in speaking practice. Therefore, students‟ speaking time should be increased
as much as possible. Communicative Language Teaching and Collaborative Learning
seem to serve best for this purpose because this teaching method provides students with
more opportunities to communicate with each other in the target language.
In short, teachers should provide favorable conditions for students by creating
classroom environment where students have real- life communication, authentic
activities and meaningful tasks that promote oral practice. These conditions are most
likely to be able to achieve when role play is used as one of the communicative
teaching techniques.
1.1.4. Activities to promote speaking.

foreign language classes to encourage communicative competence, and mime is more
appropriately used as a language game in which one person performs actions and the
others guess.
From the definitions above, it can be put in short that role play is a popular technique
which utilizes one‟s imagination to be someone else or to be ourselves in a particular
situation for a while to carry out dialogues and to create a real world in the scenario.
The aim of role play is to encourage students‟ creative thinking, to let students practice
and develop the target language, and to create students‟ motivation and involvement
which are necessary for learning to occur.

10

1.2.2. Types of role play and procedures in using role play
Role play is one of the most popular communicative teaching techniques used in CLT
classroom. As cited by Donn Byrne (1990), it is classified into two types which are
scripted and non- scripted role plays.
Scripted role play:
To perform the scripted role play, students work in pairs or groups and they are given
prompts related to the scenario. Students will use the prompts as the model to perform
the target dialogue. Before performing in front of the class, students have time to
rehearse.
According to Donn Byrne, scripted role play involves the interpretation of the
dialogues or speech in textbooks. To demonstrate more specifically, Adrian Doff gave
an example of scripted role play dialogue and how the procedure is as follow:
Angela : Good morning. I want to send a letter to Singapore.
Clerk : Yes, do you want to send it by air mail or ordinary mail?
Angela : I think I’ll send it air mail. I want it to get there quickly. How
much does it cost?
Clerk : To Singapore? That will be 30 pence, pleas.
Angela : (give the clerk 50 pence) Here you are.

present in front of the class.
The procedures for teaching role play activities can be varied for each teacher.
Therefore, teacher should be flexible to make it an appropriate and effective activity for
his or her students.

12

1.2.3. Benefits of role play in teaching speaking
As said above, role play is one of the activities to promote speaking among students.
According to Larsen Freeman (1997), role play is one of the important teaching
techniques in the communicative approach as it provides learners with opportunities to
practice communication in different social contexts and to take up different roles.
Besides, as stated by Ladousse, role play is a flexible learning activity which
encourages learners‟ imagination. Also, role play is a communicative technique which
improves students‟ fluency in language and promotes students‟ interaction. Another
advantage of role play which is also stated by Ladousse is that with role play, students
can experience different situation using the target language to practice. For shy
learners, role play provides them a “mask” to get on well with their peers to join in the
situation. Most importantly, role play increases motivation and makes language
learning fun and memorable to learners.
1.2.4. The teacher’s roles in role play activities
In regard of teacher‟s roles, Wright (1987) mentioned in his book that one of the main
roles of the teacher in role play is management function in which her task is to create
favorable conditions for role play to take place. Another teacher‟s role, according to
Wright, is the instructional function to the students. These two teacher‟s roles are put in
one term as “facilitator” by Littlewood (1981). Breen and Candlin (1980) add other
three teacher‟s roles which are to act as facilitator of the role play process and to act as
a participant, and to act as an observer and learner.
a. Facilitator.
As a facilitator, the teacher may need to perform a variety of specific tasks which are as

for many students, especially for those who are slow to develop independence.
b. Participant
During the process of role play, teacher should also participate as an equal in the
activity. He can offer his information; stimulate the students and present new language
14

items without taking the main initiative role for communication away from the
students.
c. Observer and learner
Beside the above mentioned roles, teacher may also act as an observer and learner.
During the process of role play, teacher can move around the classroom and monitor
the strengths and weaknesses of the students for planning future learning activities.
From the students‟ weaknesses, he may address the later learning needs through more
controlled, pre- communicative activities.
In short, regarding the teacher‟s roles in role play activities in developing
communicative abilities among students, teacher is less dominant but important to
make the activity successful. He is a facilitator of the communicative process in which
he may play the roles of an instructor of language items, organizer of role play activity,
error corrector, passive viewer and consultant. He may also join in the role play
activities as co- communicator or observer.
1.2.5. The learners’ roles in role play activities
Since the application of Communicative Language Teaching Approach, the roles of
learners have changed. As stated by Morrow (1977): “the learner is now concerned
with using language, not English usage. In order to do this, learners take on roles and
interact with other learners who also have roles. What they say is determined by the
roles they play, their communicative intentions and the contribution of the other
learners”. Therefore, it is obviously inferred that the roles of learners in role play
activities are different from those found in the traditional classroom activities.
According to Breen and Candlin (1980), the learner acts as a negotiator between
himself, the learning process and the object of learning. This role interacts with the role

Ayu Diyah Harni Susanti from the State Islamic University proves the effectiveness of
role play in the ways that it provides the learners with real situations to practice the
target language, it encourages the learners‟ creativity, confidence to speak in front of
16

many people. More importantly, it enriches students‟ knowledge and skills needed in
social communication. Ayu carried out the study on tenth grade students from four
classes with the use of experimental research with results gained from the pre- test and
post test. The two speaking tests‟ aims are to assess the students‟ pronunciation,
fluency and speaking manner. After the time of treatment using role play in teaching
speaking, the post- test was carried out on the participants. Through data from the post-
test results, the interview and the recording, the author pointed out the advantages of
using role plays.