MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
VINH UNIVERSITY

TRẦN THỊ MAI HOA

A STUDY ON THE USE OF ROLE PLAY
TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILL FOR THE SECOND YEAR TOURISM
STUDENTS AT NGHE AN TRADING AND TOURISM VOCATIONAL
COLLEGE
MASTER‘S THESIS IN EDUCATION

Nghe An, 2015

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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify that this thesis is the result of my own study and that it has not
been submitted to any other university or institution wholly or partially. All
statements of the thesis which are not my own are written in quotation and
can be shown in the list of references.
Vinh, January 21st , 2015
Author’s signature

Tran Thi Mai Hoa

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

by using role play and describing the students’ responses on the
implementation of role play in teaching speaking. The study was conducted at
Nghe An Trading and Tourism Vocational College, using action research. The
researcher took 30 students as the subject of the research. The researcher
taught speaking English using role play method. To collect the data the
researcher used interview, observation, questionnaire and tests (pre-test and
post-test). The result of the research shows that, by implementing role play in
teaching speaking, the students have chance to be active and cooperative in
teaching speaking. The students motivate themselves to speak and to practice
speaking and the students’ speaking achievement is better. It can be seen from
the result of the students’ activities during action, and the students speaking
achievement of speaking. The mean of pre-test is 13.5, post-test is 15.7. From
the students’ responses in the questionnaire, it is found that most of the
students said that they like this technique. They could easily learn English
speaking. The students admitted that their speaking was improved. The
students could do post-test than pre-test which means that the teaching
speaking using role play is successful to improve the students’ speaking skill.

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Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
This chapter is written with the purpose of giving the rationale, aims and
objectives of the study, the research questions, the benefits and the scope of the
study, the methodology of the study and finally introduces the design of the
proposed thesis.
1.1. Rationale
It cannot be denied that nowadays English has become an international
language that takes an important role in the social life of the world. It is considered

Using traditional method to teach

English can make students feel bored and they do not give any attention to the
teacher. There are many ways that can be used to improve students speaking skill
and to reduce student’s boredom such as using discussion method, pictures to
stimulate students participation, using role play and others.
I am a teacher at Nghe An Trading and Tourism Vocational College in which
English is focused to help students in their job in the future. Among four skills, the
teachers in my college spend more time on teaching speaking than others as it is
needed the most in hotel-tourism environment. We try to find the effective solution
to improve the speaking skill of the tourism students. Role- play is one of the
techniques to teach speaking. It is an activity that asks the students to play
characters based on the topics given in front of the class.
Role-play improves the student’s oral fluency performance; many teachers
have found that students speak more freely when they are playing a role, when they
do not have to be themselves. Role play would seem to be the ideal activity in
which students could use their English creatively and it aims to stimulate a
conversation situations in which students might find themselves and give them an
opportunity to practice and develop their communication skill.
Based on the explanation above I’d like to do a research entitled “THE USE
OF ROLE PLAY TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILL FOR THE SECOND YEAR
TOURISM

STUDENTS

AT

NGHE

AN

a. It helps the teacher increase the students speaking comprehension and help the
students in increasing their speaking ability
b. The teacher can adopt the technique to be implemented in their speaking class.
c. The students can expect to have more attentions and interest in learning speaking
because they have an interesting way in learning and they have a chance to practice
their English ability.
d. The students will try to use the language to express something in their own way.
1.5. Scope of the study:
To clarify the problem, I limit those problems in the use of role-play
activities in teaching speaking to tourism students at Nghe An Trading and Tourism
Vocational College.
1.6. Method of Study

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The method that is used in this study is a quantitative and qualitative method.
In the field research, I collected the data by using interview, class observation, test,
and questionnaire. Each instrument had its own function in this research.
- The interview was carried out with ten teachers to find out what current speaking
activities employed to develop students’ speaking skill.
- The pre- test was in a form of oral test where the students were asked to speak
based on a role and a situation that was given to them. Then, post-test: the students
were taught by using role play technique and took the cycle I test in same form of
orientation test but with a different role and situation.
- Questionnaires were given to the students in the last meeting of the research. It
was done to know the students’ response about the technique used in the research.
1.7. Definition of terms
In this thesis, the researcher gives some explanation of some key terms that
predominantly appear in this thesis. These key terms explanation’s function is to

Chapter Four: Research Findings.
It will deal with description of data findings and discussion.
Chapter Five: Conclusion and Suggestions.
It contains conclusion and implication, the limitation of the study and suggestion
from the writer based on the previous discussion.

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Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter gives a discussion about speaking; definition of speaking,
basic types of speaking, teaching speaking, activities to promote speaking, and
guidance for teachers in teaching speaking. It also discusses about role-play;
definition of role-play, and role-playing in current teaching techniques, using role
play in class and the preparation of teachers for students.
2.1. Speaking
2.1.1. Definition of Speaking
Speaking is a part of productive skill in English Language Teaching. It
consists of producing systematic verbal utterance to convey meaning. Speaking is
an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and
receiving and processing information. (Bailey, 2005, p.2)
Speaking activities may well form one part of a much longer sequence,
which includes reading or listening, and, after the activity, study work. We will
often use such activities simply to provide welcome relief from more formal work.
(Harmer, 1998, p. 95)
According to Bygate, speaking is the oral interaction that can be
characterized in terms of routines, conventional ways of presenting information
which can either focus on information or interaction (in Nunan, 1991, p. 40)
2.1.2. Basic types of speaking

explained that grammar is the study of structural relationships in language or in a
language, sometimes including pronunciation, meaning, and linguistic history.
c. Vocabulary
Vocabulary is the stock of words used by people or particular uses or person,
or a list of collection of the word of a language, book, author and branch of science
or like that, in alphabetical order and define. Someone always needs vocabulary to
communicate effectively or express his/her ideas in oral communication.
d. Fluency
Fluency is quality or condition of person to speak a language easily and well.
Adequate preparation before delivering a speech increases fluency, as ideas are
organized ahead of time and can be effectively presented. Disfluencies occur when

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speakers vocalize pauses. Typical speech disfluencies include "um," "uh" and "you
know." When overused, disfluencies can become distracting to audience members.
d. Comprehension
When speaking you are able to:
- use different part of the mouth and body from those needed in your own language
- make individual sounds and combine them
- produce correct stress on individual word and on longer stretches depending on
the meaning you want to convey
- use intonation (including tones across discourse)
- work with appropriate rhythm and pace’s express your own meaning and your
own personality by choosing from a range of physical and verbal expression
- Interact with people appropriately, repairing breakdown of messages, taking turns
and speaking alone for short and long periods. (Woodward,1988, p.93)
2.2.2. Stages of a Teaching Speaking
2.2.2.1. Pre-Speaking Stage

actively engages students in interactions with peers and other audiences. Students
who have been provided with supportive, collaborative environments and
opportunities to prepare for their informal and formal speaking experiences are
more likely to have the confidence needed to "go public" with their ideas and
information.
In this stage, the students will practice the new language in a controlled way
based on structures given in pre- speaking stage. The teacher can provide some
controlled practice activities to help students practice the new language such as:
repetition, prompted sentences, single- word substitution, multiple- position
substitution, songs, etc.
After controlled practice, the teacher let the students use the language they
have learned in a free or creative speech. This is called language exploitation. The
teacher can use some activities such as: story telling, picture description, role plays,
interviews, etc to help students to make creative speech.
2.2.2.3. Post- Speaking Stage
The aim of this stage is to help students summarize what they have learned
or remember new vocabularies, or simple as making animated atmosphere in class
after the whole speaking lesson. In this stage, the students can do such activities as:
role- play activities, picture description, competition games, and drama games and
so on. Regina, Sik (1997) considers post-speaking stage as a time when students
have reflected upon their own speaking performance. Peers may be invited to
comment. Peers may comment through a structure similar to a writing conference
and may give oral feedback, written feedback, or a combination of the two.
Conferences may be guided by specific questions determined by the teacher or may
take the form of conversation between peers.

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2.3. Speaking Activities



activities, speaking requires some degree of real time exposure to an audience.
Students are often inhibited about trying to say things in a foreign language in the
classroom: worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face, or
simply shy of the attention that their speech attracts.
The second problem is that the learners have nothing to say. Even if they are
not inhibited, you often hear learners complain that they cannot think of anything to
say. They have no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they
should be speaking.
In addition, they are low or uneven participation. Only one participant can
talk at a time if he or she is to be heard. In a large group this means that each one
will have only very little talking time. This problem is compounded by the tendency
of some learners to dominate while others speak very little or not at all.
Mother tongue use is also a problem happening in speaking class. That is one
problem that teachers should care about. In classes where all, or a number of, the
learners share the same mother tongue, they may tend to use it because it is easier.
In addition, they feel unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language and
they feel less ‘exposed’ if they are speaking their mother tongue. If they are talking
in small groups it can be quite difficult to get some classes, particularly the less
disciplined or motivated ones, to keep to the target language.
When preparing activities for a speaking class, teachers should pay much
attention to above problems, so that the speaking activities will be successful and
useful to students.
2.3.3. Solutions to the Problems with Speaking Activities
Ur (1996) suggested some solutions to the problems above.
The first solution is to use group work. This lowers the inhibitions of
students who are unwilling to speak in front of the full class, and this also increases
the sheer amount of student talk going on in limited period of time. However, when
students work in group, the teacher cannot supervise all student speech, so that not

a. Discussion
After a content-based lesson, a discussion can be held for various
reasons. The students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an event,
or find solutions in their discussion groups. Before the discussion, it is essential

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that the purpose of the discussion activity is set by the teacher. In this way, the
discussion points are relevant to this purpose, so that students do not spend
their time chatting with each other about irrelevant things.
b. Role Play
Students pretend they are in various social contexts and have a variety of
social roles. In role-play activities, the teacher gives information to the students
such as who they are and what they think or feel. Thus, the teacher can tell
the student "You are David, you go to the doctor and tell him what happened last
night, and…." (Harmer, 1984)
c. Simulations
Simulations are very similar to role-plays but what makes simulations
different than role plays is that they are more elaborate. In simulations,
students can bring items to the class to create a realistic environment. For instance,
if a student is acting as a singer, she brings a microphone to sing and so on.
d. Information Gap
In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs. One
student will have the information that other partner does not have and the partners
will share their information. Information gap activities serve many purposes such
as solving a problem or collecting information. Also, each partner plays an
important role because the task cannot be completed if the partners do not provide
the information the others need.
e. Brain Storming

somebody beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell their
classmates. Story telling fosters creative thinking. It also helps students express
ideas in the format of beginning, development, and ending, including the characters
and setting a story has to have.
g. Interviews
Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people. It is
a good idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they know what
type of questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students should prepare
their own interview questions. After interviews, each student can present his or
her study to the class. Moreover, students can interview each other and
"introduce" his or her partner to the class.
h. Story Completion
For this activity, a teacher starts to tell a story, but after a few
sentences he or she stops narrating. Then, each student starts to narrate from the
point where the previous one stopped. Each student is supposed to add from four to
ten sentences. Students can add new characters, events, descriptions and so on.
i. Reporting
Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or
magazine and, in class, they report to their friends what they find as the most
interesting news. Students can also talk about whether they have experienced
anything worth telling their friends in their daily lives before class.
j. Playing Cards
In this game, students should form groups of four. Each suit will represent a
topic. For instance: diamonds represent earning money, hearts represent love and
relationships, spades represent an unforgettable memory, and card represent
best teacher. Each student in a group will choose a card. Then, each student will
write 4-5 questions about that topic to ask the other people in the group. For
example: if the topic "diamonds: earning money” is selected, here are some possible

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language:
a. Provide maximum opportunity to students to speak the target language by
providing a rich environment that contains collaborative work, authentic materials
and tasks, and shared knowledge.

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b. Try to involve each student in every speaking activity; for this aim,
practice different ways of student participation.
c. Reduce teacher-speaking time in class while increasing student-speaking time.
Step back and observe students.
d. Indicate positive signs when commenting on a student's response.
e. Ask eliciting questions such as "What do you mean? How did you reach that
conclusion?" in order to prompt students to speak more.
f. Provide written feedback like "Your presentation was really great. It was a good
job. I really appreciated your efforts in preparing the materials and efficient use of
your voice…"
g. Do not correct students' pronunciation mistakes very often while they are
speaking. Correction should not distract student from his or her speech.
h. Involve speaking activities not only in class but also out of class.
i. Circulate around classroom to ensure that students are on the right track and see
whether they need your help while they work in groups or pairs.
j. Provide the vocabulary beforehand that students need in speaking activities.
k. Diagnose problems faced by students who have difficulty in expressing
themselves in the target language and provide more opportunities to practice the
spoken language.
2.4. Role-play
2.4.1. Definition of Role-play
In Cambridge International Dictionary of English (1996) role is defined as

c. Simulation, this involves role play as defined above. However, for this activity the

participants normally discuss a problem of some kind with some setting that has
been defined for them.
Both role play and simulation are commonly used in foreign language
classes to facilitate communicative competence whereas mime seems to be more
appropriate as a language game. It is performing actions without using words. For
instance, if someone mimes and action, the others try to guess what it is.
Another definition is stated by Joanna Budden (1999) in British Council
Teaching English (BBC) on her article with the title “Role play”. She said that role
play is any speaking activity when you either put yourself into somebody else’s

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shoes, or when you stay in your own shoes but put yourself into an imaginary
situation.
What is meant by imaginary people is that students can become anyone they
like for a short time. The President, the Queen, a millionaire, a pop star…, the
choice is endless. Students can also take on the opinions of someone else. “For and
against” debates can be used and the class can be split into those who are expressing
views in favour and those who are against the theme.
Functional language for a multitude of scenarios can be activated and
practiced through role play in imaginary situations. “At the restaurant”, “Checking
in at the airport”, “Looking for lost property” are all possible role plays.
From those explanation above, the writer views role play as a technique
which involves fantasy or imagination to be someone else or to be ourselves in a
specific situation for a while, improvising dialogue and creating a real world in
scenario. It aims at the students to encourage thinking and creativity, let the students
develop and practice new language and behavioral skills in a relatively nonthreatening setting and can create the motivation and involvement necessary for

Clerk: To Singapore? That will be 30 pence, please?
Angela: (give the clerk 50 pence) Here you are.
Clerk: Here’s your stamp, and here’s 20 pence change.
Angela: Thank you. Where is the post office?
Clerk: You want the air mail box. It’s over there, by the door.
(Adapted from Living English book 2:A.G.A bdalla et al-1999)
To demonstrate a role play activity based on the dialogue, the procedures given by
Adrian Doff is as follows:
1) First, the teacher guides the role play by writing these prompts: (Where? / air mail/

how much? / post box? / thanks). Talk as you write to show what the prompts mean.
2) If necessary, go through the prompts one by one, and get students to give sentences

or question for each one.
3) Call two students to the front: one plays the role of Angela and the other one is the

post office clerk. They should improvise the conversation using the prompts to help
them. Point out that the conversation should be similar to the one in the textbook,

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but not exactly the same; the conversation can be shorter than the presentation
dialogue and it should just cover the main points indicated by the prompts.
4) Call out a few other pairs of students in turn, and ask them to have other

conversation based on the prompts.
Based on the procedures, the writer views that the ways of organizing this
dialogue can be carried out into pairs of students who would improvise a
conversation privately with their partners before they act it out in front of the class.


role play, using different words to fill gaps.
The above procedures do not mean an exact to be used. It is flexible; teacher
can create or develop procedure which is appropriate and suitable with his/ her own
class.
2.4.3. Significance of Role Play in Teaching Speaking
It has been mentioned before in the above discussion that role play is one of
the activities to promote speaking. Through role play activities the students learn
how to express ideas, opinions, or feeling to others by using words or sounds of
articulation.
Larsen Freeman explained that role plays are important in the communicative
approach because they give learners an opportunity to practice communicating in
different social contexts and different social roles.
A role play is a highly flexible learning activity which has a wide scope for
variation and imagination. According to Ladousse, role play uses different
communicative techniques and develops fluency in the language, promotes
interaction in the classroom and increases motivation. Here peer learning is
encouraged and sharing of responsibility between teacher and the learner in
the learning process takes place.
Role play can improve learners’ speaking skills in any situation, and helps
learners to interact. As for the shy learners, role play helps by providing a
mask, where learners with difficulty in conversation are liberated. In addition, it is
fun and most learners will agree that enjoyment leads to better learning.
Several reasons for using role play in teaching speaking quoted from
Ladousse as follows:
a. A very wide variety of experience can be brought into the classroom and we
can train our students in speaking skill in any situations through role play.

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