Primary English Language Teaching

‘Oral Skills and Young Learners’

Handout 9

USING ROLE PLAY TO DEVELOP ORAL SKILLS

The Singaporean class had studied the story in a previous lesson, so the teacher was
confident that the children were familiar enough with the story to act it out. Children
were carefully guided through the story to understand the storyline before acting out
scenes from the story. This time the teacher uses a role play activity to help students
review the story.

Watch the video and notice how the teacher involves all students in the role play
activity.

1. What do children have to do in their roles?

Act as an animal: cat, dog,

They are given specific role: each of them is an animal and sound like an animal

Listen out for their character and then act in the role

The audience narrates the story

2. Look at the props (teaching aids). What are they made of?

Black paper/ simple and easy to prepare. They are eye-catching and exciting to
look at

3. How might they enhance the activity?

Each role is indicated by a paper headband showing the character’s face to:
Focus the class attention on the character

Appeal to visual learners

 Primary English Language Teaching
‘Oral Skills and Young Learners’

Focus the “actor” on his or her role

4. What does the teacher do to ask for students to act out a role in the story?

They can choose. Teacher asks: Who want to be a…..

Notice how the T asks for volunteers to act out the story. Many children
respond enthusiastically to a chance to get up and act a part, but some may
feel shy about taking part in in an activity like this. Always ask children first if
they want to take part

5. How many children are involved in acting out the story?

Just a few children. Watching a small number acting in front of the class helps
the other children to focus on the activity. From a classroom management
point of view, it can be difficult to manage more than a few students takings
on roles.

6. What are the roles of the other children?

Read out lout the story

Narrator, reading out the story as several classmates act it out

Handout 10
 Primary English Language Teaching
‘Oral Skills and Young Learners’

What is role play?

Is an activity where children take on a role and act out a situation using whatever language
they have. Children may play unfamiliar

What are the purposes for Role play?

Handout 11
 Primary English Language Teaching
‘Oral Skills and Young Learners’

Categorize the following activities. (depend on the stage of the lesson)

Activities Controlled Communication Both

practice

Songs 1

Story Telling 1

Interview/Survey 2

Listen & Repeat 1

Learning by heart 1

Choral drilling of

pronunciation 1

Substitution 3

Repetition 1

Games 3

Mapped Dialogues 1

Role-play 1

Listen & Do 1

Noughts and crosses 1

Handout 12
 Primary English Language Teaching
‘Oral Skills and Young Learners’

CRITERIA FOR ASSESSING ACCURACY

1. Grammar
Children can use correct word order, tenses, prepositions…
2. Vocabulary
Children can use words that they have been taught to express their ideas
clearly.
3. Pronunciation
When children speak most people will understand because their message is
clear thanks to good pronunciation.

CRITERIA FOR ASSESSING FLUENCY

1. Lack of hesitation
Children can speak smoothly, at a natural speed. It is easy to follow what they
are saying
2. Length
Children can make full sentences and can speak for more than one sentence
at a time . They can put ideas together to form a message.
3. Independence
Children are independent of the the teacher. They can talk and ask questions.
They do not need to look to the teacher to take the idea.

Handout 13
 Primary English Language Teaching
‘Oral Skills and Young Learners’

The Difficulties of Teaching Oral Skills in the Classroom and Ways of

Motivating Children (khó khăn nằm ở giai đoạn nào và hướng giải quyết
như thế nào)

Difficulty Solution

1 teacher tends to over correct A Ask children to predict what children

in dialogue are saying
H
2 language of the activity is too B Relate the situation in the dialogue to
difficult children’s own lives
G
3 not enough chances to practice/ C Give children a meaningful/fun
talk purpose for saying the dialogue
E

4 topic does not interest child or is D Use game-like or fun elements, e.g.
too complex using different voices to show mood
B/A/E

5 activities are boring/ not interesting E Personalize dialogue and give

children choice in what to say
D
6 child scared of making F Get some children to act out their
mistakes/embarrassed/ shy to talk dialogues in front of the class to
in front of others model
F

7 no meaningful reason for talking G Practice the target language before

doing the activity: drilling, writing on
C/E
the board
H Note any errors made during the
Primary English Language Teaching
‘Oral Skills and Young Learners’

speaking activity then do a class error

correction, focusing on common
errors made by the group, without
naming individuals
I Get children to work in pairs/groups