The Teaching of Speaking

what should the student act as. Furthermore, in doing the role play, students have to use the appropriate expressions for their role or imaginary people based on the topic given. In role plays, students are assigned roles and put into situations that they may eventually meet outside the classroom. Since role plays imitate life, the range of language functions that may be used increases considerably. They have to use language that is appropriate to the situation and to the characters. Students usually find role playing enjoyable, because they can explore themselves. However, this activity may not be suitable for students who lack of self-confidence. They may find it threatening at first and will be unable to produce the target language. Cited from www.nclrc.org on How to Develop Speaking Ability with Role Play, it suggested the teachers to consider these following tips. Table 2.2. Table of Tips to Succeed with Role Plays Keatley and Kennedy, 2003 Tips to succeed with role plays: i. Prepare carefully: Introduce the activity by describing the situation and making sure that all of the students understand it. ii. Set a goal or outcome: Be sure the students understand what the product of the role play should be, whether a plan, a schedule, a group opinion, or some other product. iii. Use role cards: Give each student a card that describes the person or role to be played. For lower-level students, the cards can include words or expressions that person might use. iv. Brainstorm: Before you start the role play, have students brainstorm as a class predicts what vocabulary, grammar, and idiomatic expressions they might use. v. Keep groups small: Less-confident students will feel more able to participate if they do not have to compete with many voices. vi. Give students time to prepare: Let them work individually to outline their ideas and the language they will need to express them. vii. Be present as a resource, not a monitor: Stay in communicative mode to answer students’ questions. Do not correct their pronunciation or grammar unless they specifically ask you about it. viii. Allow students to work at their own levels: Each student has individual language skills, an individual approach to working in groups, and a specific role to play in the activity. Do not expect all students to contribute equally to the discussion, or to use every grammar point you have taught. ix. Do topical follow-up: Have students report to the class on the outcome of their role plays. x. Do linguistic follow-up: After the role play is over, give feedback on grammar or pronunciation problems you have heard. This can wait until another class period when you plan to review pronunciation or grammar anyway. Based on the previous descriptions, the implementation of role play can be considered as a good role play when the teacher has implemented the role play through those steps above.

A. Theoretical Framework

This section discusses the students’ perceptions on the use of role play. Based on the theory from Szilagyi and Wallace 1980:70, perception is defined as a process by which individuals attend to incoming stimuli, organize, and then interpret such stimuli into a message that in turn indicates an appropriate action or behavior. Students’ perceptions on the use of role play technique in speaking class are important since they influence students’ motivation to learn and behave in the learning activities. Besides that, the techniques of teaching are also important to facilitate the teaching-learning process. An appropriate technique would make a good process. Since there are a lot of techniques, the teachers should be wise in creating and selecting those techniques. The researcher considers role play as a suitable technique to learn speaking because role play fulfil the two principles in teaching speaking out of five principles mentioned by Kathleen M. Bailey 2003. The first principle is role plays give students practice both fluency and accuracy, and the second principle is role plays provide opportunities for students to talk by using group work or pair work and limit the teacher talk. As a summary, role play does not only give practice fluency and accuracy but also provides opportunity for students to talk. In this case, role play should be implemented correctly. To answer the first problem formulation, this study employed the theory of a good role play stated by Albert P’Rayan. By considering some tips to succeed with role play as suggested by Kaetley and