When we consider effective method we mean effective strategies of the English language that help teaching target language quickly. Teaching language and culture are very interdependent, that is why language cannot be taught without culture, but there are many ways of co-teaching language and culture. One of the most effective one is role-playing. This article addresses the issue of role-play in teaching a foreign language and foreign culture. It examines role-play in preparing learners for intercultural communication.
The topic “Role playing as an Intercultural Communicative Competence Activity” is significant because it offers the potential for contribution to meeting the needs of students. It is very important to learn culture and language together. However nowadays teachers do not pay necessary attention to the usage of role-playing in classroom. Correct usage of this activity is very useful and also important.
The goal of the study is to understand what makes role-playing effective and how students can learn culture of second language with its help. Second language should be taught with its culture, and the best way is to use roleplay.
Nowadays learning of the English language becomes very popular. In order to learn a language properly, we should be aware of the culture of that nation. There are different ways of teaching second/foreign language culture. One of them is a role-play. First of all, let us give a definition of this term. McCaslin (1995) introduced role-play as having the following characteristics: it refers to the assuming of a role for the particular value it may have to the participant, rather for the development of an art. Role-playing is what the young child does in a dramatic play, but it is also a tool used by psychologists and play therapists. According to Richard Courtney (1974), "Play, acting and thought are interrelated. They are mechanisms by which the individual tests reality, gets rid of his anxieties, and masters his environment."
One way, or the other, role-play prepares second language learners for second language communication in a different social and cultural context.
While collecting information about this topic there was no difficulty problems, because the topic is researchable and it is an actual theme that bothers many teachers and researchers. This literature can be useful for different focuses connected with the role playing usage during the EFL teaching, however I took only those ones that are related to my topic: Role playing as an effective method in teaching culture.
While searching for the similar research in order to have an idea how to write my own, I found a research made by Maria A.Kodotchigova. She gave a short example of research. The name of her research is: “Role Play in Teaching Culture: Six Quick Steps for Classroom Implementation”. First step is a situation for a role play. Second one is a role-play design. Third one is linguistic preparation. Fourth one is factual preparation. Fifth one is assigning the roles and the last one is follow up. After using these steps, forty-five students of Suleyman Demirel University participated in this study. They filled out questionnaires, surveys, performed a role play and were interviewed. The surveys suggested that the majority of the students enjoyed role-playing. There were only five students who indicated they did not like role-playing at all. These findings affirm findings in the research literature. Andrew Schaap (2005) taught a class using a role-playing technique. He found that his students thoroughly enjoyed the activity and he encourages other educators to try the method as well (p. 50). Among other questions, the survey asked the students whether they retained more Information about culture from role-playing than other types of teaching methods. Seventy-two percent of the students (n=35) said it did. Morris (2003) has argued that “students feel empathy regarding events in the past when they act out the situation, and make connections between the character they play and real situations,” (p 48). When students feel empathy they are more likely to retain information because they made a personal connection with the material. The interviews revealed this connection as well. Three of the four students interviewed agreed that role-playing made their learning more meaningful because they were able to put themselves in someone else’s place, in other words, they felt empathy. The interviews with the students revealed other interesting issues as well. Many of the interviewees commented that their previous role-playing was different from the one they performed for this study. They indicated they enjoyed it more than what they had previously considered role-playing in their English classes which consisted of reading plays as a certain character. After performing the role play the students realized how in-depth role-playing can be and indicated that they liked in-depth role-playing much better. What they did in English class could be considered role-playing because they were pretending to be someone else, but they were not as fully engaged as they were in the project they completed as part of this study. The literature suggests roleplaying exercises come in many forms and educators should not be reluctant to experiment with their style and structure (McDaniel, 2000, p 357).
Two famous scientists Tomalin and Stempleski (1993) introduced four role playing activities which deal with culture and examine cultural behavior and patterns of communication. For example, in one of these role plays, students play a case that happened to them and caused cross-cultural misunderstanding. In a long run, it will enable them to develop communicative strategies to overcome similar problems in real second Language communication. However, Byram and Felming (1998) warn us about the danger of teaching second Language culture by role play. They said that learners may form false stereotypes and generalizations, which, in their turn, will result in cross-cultural misunderstanding and cultural conflicts. Therefore, there should be developed activities that would examine our beliefs as well as the reasons why we have them. For example, activities dealing with culture shock, cultural differences and perceptions of representatives of second Language.
One similar role play set was suggested by Smith and Otero (1977). In their role plays, two Americans are traveling through imaginary countries, each role play set represents one of the following lands: Crony, Ord, Fondi, Dandi or Lindi. The two Americans go out on their own to explore what the given land is like. After some time, they want to go back to their hotel, but they have walked far from it and, unfortunately, lost their money. They need enough money for bus fare back to their hotel. They decide to ask two natives for help. The two students, who take on the roles of native citizens, should behave as they think real citizens would behave. In these imaginary lands, there are certain ways of doing things, for example, when Fondis agree with something, they frown and look down. When they disagree, they smile and nod their heads. Dandis stand 12 inches or closer to people when talking to them. Cronies would not listen to a male if he asks for a favor, because in their society everything important is decided by females, males talk only of unimportant things.The students who play Americans have to figure out a proper way to ask money from the natives. If they fail to understand how the things are done in these lands, the natives will not give or loan them the money. These role plays examine nonverbal communication issues and make the students think about the importance of non-verbal communication. Thus, if introduced carefully, role playing can be very effective for experiencing cultural principles and cultural awareness because it gives an opportunity to be emotionally involved in cross-cultural learning and reflects upon cultural differences. The students learn to examine their perceptions and treat representatives of other cultures with empathy.
Linguists and anthropologists have long recognized that the forms and uses of a given language reflect the cultural values of the society in which the language is spoken. Linguistic competence alone is not enough for learners of a language to be competent in that language (Krasner, 1999). Language learners need to be aware, for example, of the culturally appropriate ways to address people, express gratitude, make requests, and agree or disagree with someone. They should know that behaviors and intonation patterns that are appropriate in their own speech community may be perceived differently by members of the target language speech community. They have to understand that, in order for communication to be successful, language use must be associated with other culturally appropriate behavior.
In many regards, culture is taught implicitly, imbedded in the linguistic forms that students are learning. To make students aware of the cultural features reflected in the language, teachers can make those cultural features an explicit topic of discussion in relation to the linguistic forms being studied. For example, when teaching subject pronouns and verbal inflections in French, a teacher could help students understand when in French it is appropriate to use an informal form of address (tu) rather than a formal form of address (vous)—a distinction that English does not have. An English as a second language teacher could help students understand socially appropriate communication, such as making requests that show respect; for example, “Hey you, come here” may be a linguistically correct request, but it is not a culturally appropriate way for a student to address a teacher. Students will master a language only when they learn both its linguistic and cultural norms.
It is a commonly accepted cliché that we want to teach our young people to think, but thinking at any level of complexity requires an exercise of three interdependent component categories of skills: problem-solving; communications; and self-awareness. These skills cannot be learned by reading any number of books, although a little didactic material can be helpful in creating an intellectual framework for the accommodative learning. Rather, the kinds of skills needed for flexible, creative, rational thinking must be exercised, practiced, and learned in a process of interaction, risk-taking, self-expression, feedback, encouragement, and, in short, a process which is closer to learning to swim than learning the capitol cities of the various states.
- Role Play for ESL/EFL Children in the English Classroom Irene Y. Huang 2 Role play in the ESL classroom – Lynne Hand
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