Investigating Students’ Role Play Ability Case Study: Third Year LMD Students of English at University of Mohammed Seddik Ben Yahia- Jijel

Abstract

Achieving oral language proficiency is perceived as one highest objective in Foreign Language Teaching, and role play is a technique that is used to develop and assess oral students’ proficiency. The aims of this study are twofold: to investigate whether role plays are an effective teaching technique. It, also, aims at finding out whether students are capable to perform role plays, using the aspects of accuracy, fluency, content, body language, tone of voice and turn taking appropriately. It is, then, hypothesized that that if teachers use role plays frequently in their teaching, then the students are expecting to have a good level in playing roles. In order to test this hypothesis, two means of research were used; a classroom observation and teacher questionnaire. Classroom observation was conducted to assess third year students’ ability to perform role plays in the department of English. A questionnaire was administered to 5 teachers of Oral Expression to explore their attitudes towards the effectiveness of role plays and students’ ability in performing them. The results revealed that most of the teachers consider role plays as an effective teaching technique and that they usually use it in their classes. In addition, students face difficulties in performing role plays; students’ ability differ regarding the aspects mentioned above. The analysis of the research findings, therefore, supports the hypothesis of the present work. On the basis of these findings, some pedagogical recommendations are suggested