b. The advantages of role play
There are many advantages that we can get by implementing role play in our teaching and learning activity. Brown 2004: 174 also avows that role
play gives students opportunities to be creative and permits them to have a rehearsal time which has effect of lowering their anxieties. According to
Ladousse 1987, there are some special reasons for using role play. The
reasons are because:
1. Through role play, a very wide variety of experience can be brought
into classroom. 2.
Role play puts students in situations in which they are required to use and develop the phatic forms of language which are so necessary in
oiling the social relationship. 3.
Role play is a very useful dress rehearsal for real life. 4.
Role play helps many shy students to speak out by providing them with a mask.
5. Role play is fun.
Finally, it can be concluded that role play is one of a whole gamut of communicative techniques which develops students’ fluency, promote
interaction in the classroom, and promote motivation.
c. The disadvantages of role play
Even though there are lots of advantages of role play, it is not impossible that role play has had any disadvantages. Possible disadvantages,
especially for inexperienced nurse educator, are the time and the learners.
According to an experiment 2006 in University of New Mexico College of Nursing, the time is needed to develop and set up a role playing situation and
some learners may be shy or anxious when asked to do role play in front of the class.
However, these disadvantages can be minimized through practice with the good technique because like any skill, role play requires practice. The nurse
educator can ask members of the class to set up the role-playing situation, suggest how to handle shy learner, and so on.
d. Points to remember when setting up a role play
When discussing the degree of success of an activity such as role play, teachers often talk whether they “got into it” or not. No teacher likes an unruly
classroom, and role play, like any other pair or group work activity, can lead into chaos if not properly organized. Ladousse 1987 proposed some points to
remember when setting up a role play. The first point is that we have to distinguish between noise and chaos. Noise is only a problem if the teacher next
door complains. The second points are that it is better for us to begin with pair work and
keep the activity short until students get used to it. We also have to make sure that the activity can be used for different number of students and the students
have understood the situation before we start the role play. If our students break into their native language, we can set up the task more progressively. Finally,
we have to set a strict time limit and make every attempt to stick to it.
Furthermore, Anderson 2006 also suggests some tips that can we used to make our role plays work. According to Anderson, there are some aspects
that we have to take into account. Some of those aspects are the lead-in, demonstration, classroom dynamics, props and mime, intonation, and trust in
the class. We have to consider those aspects because they will improve the degree of success that any role play has.
B. Relevant Studies
Prof. Dr. Jassim Mohammed Rayhan 2014 from Babylon UniversityCollege of Basic Education investigated the impact of using role play
on improving students speaking ability for the primary school. From the data analysis, it was found that the mean of the experimental group
’s post-score was 57.7333, which was higher than the mean scores of the control group that was
found to be 48.1000. This showed that role play was more useful for them in teaching speaking skill since the
students’ achievement in the experimental group was better than that of the control group.
Furthermore, Nurdiana Mahdalena Sinurat and Willem Saragih 2012
investigated how role play can improve the speaking skill of vocational high school students. This study was conducted by using classroom action research.
Based on the students’ speaking score, it was found that the students’ score kept
improving from the first test to the third test. In the pre-test, the mean score was only 37.66, then in the first cycle of the test, the mean score was 48.33, and in the
second cycle of the test, the mean score was 57.33.
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