On the Feasibility of Role-play in College English Teaching
Jianlan LYU
School of Foreign Languages, Hengyang Normal University Abstract: As an effective teaching method, role-play has always attracted the attention of Chine and Western scholars. This article mainly studies the positive effects and problems of role-play in college English teaching and propos corresponding solutions to further enrich college English classrooms and to improve students’ practical communication skills in English.
Keywords: Role play; College English teaching; Feasibility
萌发菌DOI: 10.47297/wspiedWSP2516-250018.20210501
1. Introduction8月12日是什么星座
With the advent of the era of globalization, the ultimate goal of college English teaching has gradually shifted to the cultivation of practical English communication skills, and English teachers are paying more and more attention to the students’ practical application ability of English, especially the cultivation of listening and speaking ability. As a kind of English classroom communication activity that
simulates real language situations, role playing is very effective in cultivating students’ practical English communication ability, so it is very popular among English teachers and students. But what is the actual situation of role-playing in college English teaching? The author conducted role-play in college English teaching in the two class. After a mester (fifteen weeks) of practice, at the end of the mester, a questionnaire survey was conducted among all the students taught and found that the application of role-playing activities had many positive effects, but there were also many problems. The author mainly analyzes and studies the role and problems of role-playing activities in college English teaching, and propos corresponding solutions to the problems.
About the author: Jianlan LYU (1982-), Female, From Shaoyang, Hunan Province,Lec-turer, master,Mainly engaged in translation and cross-cultural studies.
Funded project: The Rearch Project of Teaching Reform in Colleges and Universities of Hunan Provincial Department of Education (Xiang Jiaotong 2019 No. 291 [662] ).
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2. Positive Effects
Role play is a foreign language classroom activity that simulates real language situations. In this kind of activity, students play different roles according to the situation and engage in language communication activities such as dialogue or performance. Role playing applied to college English teaching has many positive effects. Judging from the respons of the students in the questionnaire survey, most students fully affirmed the role play, believing that it has many positive effects, the main positive effects are as follows:
(1) The effective application of role-play can invigorate the classroom atmosphere and enhance the interest of college English classrooms, thereby cultivating students’ interest in English learning and mobilizing the enthusiasm of English learning. Most students think that role-playing activities before class play a very important and positive role in enlivening the classroom atmosphere. Some students said: "Appreciating an English drama that makes people laugh before class gives me a good mood to listen carefully. English lessons have improved the efficiency of listening.” For tho students who are not interested in English learning, role-plays can execute a certain stimulating effect and make them feel enthusiastic about English learning.
(2) Role-play provides students with a stage to show themlves and exerci their English language skills, which can exerci students’ courage and improve their practical application ability o
f English. For students with acting talents, role-playing provides them with an excellent opportunity to show their lf-demeanor. Exaggerated and realistic performances often win the applau of the audience. While resonating with the audience, the performers also gain n of achievements. For students who have good oral English, role-play before class can exerci their courage, give them the opportunity to demonstrate oral English, and further improve their oral English expression ability in the performance.
(3) Role-play can enhance the communication and cooperation between students and cultivate their team spirit. During the preparation period for role-playing, students in the same group will jointly arch for suitable scripts on the Internet or create brand-new scripts. After the scripts are determined, they will rehear many times and prepare related props. All team members must have effective communication and cooperation in order to prent a wonderful role play together. The whole preparation and performance process can enhance students’ n of teamwork and cultivate their team spirit
(4) The application of role-play enables students to gain knowledge while harvesting happiness, such as English vocabulary, phonetic intonation and grammar. During the study of the script, students will pay attention to and arch
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On the Feasibility of Role-play in College English Teaching for new words and new expressions in the script. While the vocabulary is enlarged, the English level can also be improved to a certain extent.
3. Problems to Solve
and公式Although role-play has many positive effects in college English teaching, there are also some problems. From the feedback of students in the questionnaire survey, while students affirmed the positive role of role-playing, they believed that there were still the following problems in the specific operation process
(1) Teachers are not sufficiently involved in student role-playing activities. First of all, when students create or choo a script, they have little or no communication with the teacher. The teacher does not know enough about the script and cannot point out the problems in the script in time and give suggestions for revision. After the activity, the teacher’s evaluation opinions were too general and not specific enough, and the students’ performance could not be specifically affirmed. The teacher’s specific opinions and suggestions could not be obtained for areas that need to be corrected and impr
oved. Therefore, the students’ practical English application ability cannot be esntially Improvement.
(2) In terms of the distribution of team members, on the one hand, there are too few team members (a group of 4), which limits the choice of scripts. On the other hand, the class is large and the number of people is large. Each mester has only one chance for each person, and there are fewer opportunities for supporting roles. Some plays are very long, with many characters, and one person plays multiple roles at the same time, which makes the audience very confud and difficult to understand.马拉松长度
(3) Most of the scripts are from the Internet rather than original, and there are many grammar and spelling errors. Some students only complete the task without rious preparation, and can’t break the draft. They just read the lines, and even the pronunciation of many words is inaccurate. The movements and expressions are rigid and there is no performance component.
(4) The performance venue is small, not enough for role play, and the classroom is so large that the students sitting in the back row can’t hear the lines. Many times the audience only looks at the movements, expressions and performances, ignoring the most important content. In addition, the lac
k of preparation of props, the inrtion of background music, the playing time and the volume of the sound are also one of the problems.
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瑶柱相克的食物4. Corresponding Solutions
In order to make role-play better promote college English teaching, it is necessary to riously solve the problems in the application process. After rearching and reflecting on the problems reflected by the students in the questionnaire, some solutions to the existing problems are summarized, as follows:
(1) The whole process of role-play is the activity of students on the surface,. In fact, this is a misunderstanding. The teacher’s guidance should always run through the whole process of the activity. The teacher is the director and guide of the role-play and should participate in the whole process. In the preparation stage, guidance should be given on the lection of scripts, and originality should be encouraged. If it is downloaded from the Internet, the scripts should also be reviewed to correct grammar and spelling errors.
(2) Adjust the grouping strategy in due cour. The principle of forming a cooperative group is "homogeneity among groups, heterogeneity within groups". Teachers must understand the situation of students, and organize learning reasonably according to the learning ability, basic knowledge, thinking activity, language expression ability, and lf-discipline of the members in the group. The number of group members can be incread appropriately (consider male and female match)
(3) Teachers should make detailed comments after each performance, correct pronunciation, and explain important language and cultural knowledge points. When evaluating student participation, especially when evaluating the results of the first role-play, teachers must give priority to prai and encouragement. It is best to discuss the results of the activity from the perspective of success, so as not to dampen the enthusiasm of students. Of cour, students may have some problems during the performance, such as inability to grasp the role, language errors, etc. Teachers must remain silent and do not interrupt the performance. In the follow-up stage, although the focus of the teacher’s work is to correct the students’ language errors, they should aim to promote the accurate mastery of language points to avoid pointing out students’ errors too much, which will have a negative impact on students’ initiative.
(4) Increa the interaction between actors and audience. The audience can evaluate and ask questi
ons about the performance, and the teacher can ask the student audience to summarize the content of the performance in English, and discuss whether the interpretation, attitude, emotion and behavior of the performer are appropriate.
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On the Feasibility of Role-play in College English Teaching 5. Conclusion
As a commonly ud teaching activity in college English classroom teaching, role-play has many positive effects, but its effective application is limited by many factors. If the teacher does not operate properly or the students are not proactive, many problems will ari. However, the problems can be solved by finding ways. Bad on the rearch, the author lists the corresponding solutions, aiming to provide reference for the effective application of role-play in college English teaching, hoping to improve college students’ practical communication skills in English.
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