LG 629

1. ROLE PLAY, DISCUSSION AND DRAMA LG 629

2. Problems with group work • How is group work organised so that students do not get too noisy or simply speak their L1? What about students who are unwilling or the groups who finish too early? How about finishing the session? There are always discipline problems in such group work activities, and the practical organisation of tasks. Discipline mostly depends on the relationship of the teacher with the class, rather than with the type of activity. A class that is well behaved in a teacher fronted activity would probably be similar in a group activity. Careful and well planned implementation of the group work however is essential to the success of the activity.

3. Role Play. • In role pay an appropriate topic or focus will maintain interest and motivation, improving discussion. Role play adds a dimension of given situations for the students to act out and explore. The advantages of role play are the extra possibilities for communication practice as the students are no longer limited to classroom-type language exercises but can take on the identities of shopkeepers, spies, parents, children, they can be happy or miserable or dominant according to the requirements of the roles being played

4. Limitations in Role Play It is important that the teacher enjoys role play and feels confident and professional with implementing it in the language classroom. Many teachers simply do not like role play because of the personal and directive elements required in the setting up, and hence either avoid doing it, or do it because it is part of the course-book requirements but, because the teacher is not comfortable with doing so, the students feel this and never really settle into it themselves.

5. The Task • With employing role play in discussion, the element of a task to be performed through verbal interaction, gives more purpose to the practice, which adds to the interest of the activity. For example if the teacher wished to set up a speaking activity based on the family and family relationships, and simply asked the students to talk about ‘family problems’, then probably one or two students may venture an opinion or two, or an anecdote about their own family, but the activity would, most likely, soon peter out into silence, he discussion would not flow

6. Devising the task • designing and organising the task, teachers have to consider timing, the question of how long the students would need to carry out the discussion successfully. The family task would need some time for the students to prepare their roles and opinions, and to carry it out to a conclusion. The problem set should be one that, once set up and prepared, will not need the students to keep on stopping in order to consider new aspects that may arise. The task must be fairly clear and simple

7. Drama Activities • Drama activities does not mean putting on plays in front of a passive audience. Drama activities are those which give the students opportunities to use their own personality or creativity in tasks which are part of the language tasks on which the class is based. They may draw on the students’ own life experiences, imagination, memory and the natural ability to express themselves. There are many varied activities that may be used in the language classroom, that do not involve the students in performing an activity based on a set, written and formal script, but allow the learners to use their own personal, individual resources and ideas in carrying them out.

8. Alibi. • This is suitable for intermediate to advanced learners. The students are told that a crime has been committed and that three of them are under suspicion. The crime may be that one of their teachers, Mr. Smith, was attacked the previous evening and had his wallet and Rolex watch stolen. The three have to get together and devise an alibi, an explanation of where they were and what they were doing at the time of the crime that will prove that they could not have committed the crime

9. Telling a Story • The teacher will relate the first half of a story to the class, that may begin very quietly and peacefully but will develop into some tension evoking or frightening event but without an ending to a story; for example the teacher could start: “It was midnight on New Years Eve and I was staying at an old house in the mountains that was five miles away from the next house or any other people. Some friends were to have joined me but they had phoned to say that they could not come as the snow was too deep and the weather was too bad. By midnight the wind was howling……

10. Motivation in Drama Activities • With such activities, there is little doubt that they may be extremely motivating for students, since they allow a certain sense of belonging to the group, as well as to give learners the opportunity to invest something of their own personality into the activity that is lacking from the majority of activities and tasks carried out in the language classroom. If drama activities are motivating, it may be that they draw on the personal resources of the learners and that the result of the activities are never wholly predictable, depending to a great extent on the individual contribution of each student.

11. DISCUSSION • The most natural and effective way to practice both the speaking and listening of English is to get the learners to discuss some problem or situation through interaction of ideas and working together towards a solution, so that they have an authentic like purpose for speaking an d listening. • These are to engage in efficient fluency practice, achieving an objective through interaction, learning from content, and being able to organise their speech into a discussion activity through different functions such as generalizing, giving examples, and listening to another person’s opinion and responding to it.

12. REFERENCES • Ur, P. 1984. Teaching Listening Comprehension CUP. • Ur, P. 2004. Discussions that Work. CUP • Almond, M. 2005. Teaching English with Drama. Brighton. • Lazar, G. 1993. Literature and Language Teaching. • Maley, A. & A. Duff. 1982. Drama Techniques in Language Learning. CUP • Klippel, F. 1983. Keep Talking. CUP.