An Investigation of Students’ and Teachers’ Perceptions of the Effectiveness Of Role Play to Decrease Anxiety in Oral Classes

Abstract

The research at hand aims at investigating students’ attitudes towards the use of role play to decrease anxiety. The method of this research work is a descriptive one, which aims at describing the two variables: role play as the dependent variable and its role in reducing students’ anxiety as the independent variable. To achieve this aim, data are collected through the questionnaire as a quantitative method; two questionnaires were administered to seventy five second year LMD students at the department of English and seven oral expression teachers at the same department to explore their attitudes, perceptions towards Role Play as a technique to decrease anxiety. It is assumed that the more students were exposed to role plays, their anxiety would be reduced. The results obtained revealed that using role play increases students’ anxiety. On the basis of these results, the assumption was not confirmed, thus using role play increases students’ anxiety. Consequently, teachers’ are recommended to use appropriate techniques to avoid anxiety in order to improve students’ speaking skil