Son La Department of Education and Training Thuan Chau Junior High School Thesis for the Degree of Master

The Effects of Role-Play on Students English Speaking Ability and Attitudes/Motivation -A Case of Thuan Chau Junior High School

Tran Trung Dung Thuan Chau 25, January 2009

ABSTRACT Role-play has been widely used as a teaching method in the ESL/EFL classroom. This research study aimed to investigate Thuan Chau Junior High School EFL students attitudes/motivation towards the role -play course. This study was designed to explore how roleplay could increase Thuan Chau Junior High School EFL students interests in learning English, improve their English speaking proficiency, and overcome their shyness when speaking English on stage. During the one -month experiment, thirty-two (32) eighth graders in Thuan Chau Junior High School in Thuan Chau District were divided into groups according to their role-play dialogues used each week. First, the participants received the role-play instruction and then were required to perform role-play in front of their classmates. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were conducted in this research. Oral tests were given to participants to compare their English speaking proficiency improvement prior to and following the experiment. The precourse and post-course questionnaires were also given for the purpose of assessing students attitudes/motivation toward role-play, and their shyness overcoming. Additionally, in order to deeply understand how role -play affected these participants, observations and interviews were also used as data collection methods. The result of the study showed that overall the participants had positive attitudes/motivation toward the role-play course. After the students attended the role -play course, there was an obvious interest in learning English. Inversely, the participants not only improved their English speaking proficiency significantly but also overcame their shyness when speaking English on stage. Based on the findings, this study produced several valuable contributions to many different aspects of English education. Therefore, this research provided not only a framework for understanding how role -play affected Thuan Chau Junior High School EFL students in learning English, but also provided useful suggestions for junior high school English teachers, junior high school ESL students, the Ministry of Education and Training, and researchers in the field of TESOL. Key words: role -play; speaking ability; learning attitudes/motivation; overcome shyness

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is a pleasure to thank the people who have helped me make this research project a success: Professor Phan Thanh Duong, Professor Vu Sy Tuan, Professor Pham Hong Chuong, Professor Le Thi Phuong, and my family. Professor Phan Thanh Duong, as the Chairperson of the Department of Applied Foreign Languages, provided me with useful academic guidance and genial support. Furthermore, Professor Duong encouraged me to put an effort toward developing my research skills.I sincerely appreciate the Chairpersons helping hand. I give my appreciation to my advisor, Professor Vu Sy Tuan for guiding me and encouraging me with great energy in my abilities. When I encountered difficulties, Professor Tuan always gave me immediate support and advisement. Professor Tuan was also an enthusiastic mentor for my conference publication. I would not have been able to finish this thesis without Professor Tuans help. The members of my thesis committee, Professor Le Van An and Professor Phan Manh Hung, who gave me useful suggestions and considerable encouragements, were much appreciated. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family, who supported me during the thesis training and have been with me through all the ups and downs of my life. Without their love and thoughtful understanding, I would not have completed this achievement.

TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................................iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................vi TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................................. vii LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................................x LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... xii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................1 Background of the study .........................................................................................................1 Statement of the problem ........................................................................................................4 Purpose of the study ................................................................................................................5 Research questions ..................................................................................................................7 Significance of the study.........................................................................................................8 Definitions of terms .................................................................................................................9 CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEWS ...................................................................................11 The disadvantages of the BCT ...............................................................................................11 The role of role-play in language learning .............................................................................13 The influence of the attitudes/motivation..............................................................................15 The development of language skills ......................................................................................18 The facilitation of overcoming the shyness ...........................................................................19

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CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY......................................................................................................................23 Subjects .................................................................................................................................23 Instruments ............................................................................................................................25 Questionnaires ...............................................................................................................25 Lesson plan...................................................................................................................25 Evaluation Form...........................................................................................................25 Oral tests and interviews ...............................................................................................26 Teaching materials. ........................................................................................................27 Research Hypotheses .............................................................................................................28 Procedures of the study .........................................................................................................28 The data analysis used in this study .......................................................................................29 CHAPTER IV RESULTS...........................................................................................................30 Results of questionnaires .......................................................................................................30 Results of oral tests ...............................................................................................................39 Descriptive data of interviews ...............................................................................................47 CHAPTER V CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................55 Discussion ............................................................................................................................55 Pedagogical implications .......................................................................................................65 Limitations of this study........................................................................................................68

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Suggestions for further research.............................................................................................................................69 Conclusion.............................................................................................................................70 REFERENCES ..............................................................................................................................72 APPENDIX A ...............................................................................................................................76 APPENDIX B ...............................................................................................................................77 APPENDIX C ...............................................................................................................................79 APPENDIX D ...............................................................................................................................80 APPENDIX E................................................................................................................................81 APPENDIX F ................................................................................................................................82 APPENDIX G ...............................................................................................................................83 APPENDIX H ...............................................................................................................................84 APPENDIX I .................................................................................................................................85 APPENDIX J.................................................................................................................................86

LIST OF TABLES Table 1 the interviewees personal information. 24Table 2 Time table for the interviews. 27 Table 4.1.1 Comparison of students attitudes/motivation toward role-play before and after the experiment. .. ..31 Table 4.1.2 Comparison of students shyness while performing in front of their classmates before and after the experiment. .....32 Table 4.1.3 Comparison students speak in L2 in daily time before and after the experiment. 33 Table 4.1.4 Comparison of how hard words students would use from role-play in their daily life before and after the experiment. .. ..34 Table 4.1.5 Comparison of how anxious students feel while speaking English before and after the experiment ... ..34 Table 4.1.6 Comparison of how confident students feel of their English ability before and after the experiment. .. ...35 Table 4.1.7 Comparison of how calm and confident students were when they performed in class before and after the experiment. .....36 Table 4.1.8 Comparison of how students feel when speaking English in public before and after the experiment. .. ...37 Table 4.1.9 Comparison of how confident students feel about their pronunciation before and after the experiment. ............................................................................................................................................................37

Table 4.1.10 Comparison of the cause of pause when students speak English before and after the experiment. .. ..38 Table 4.2.1 Comparison of the influence of speaking ability before and after the experiment...40 Table 4.2.2 Comparison of the using frequency of new vocabulary before and after theexperiment. ....40 Table 4.2.3 Comparison of the accuracy of grammar usage before and after the experiment. 41 Table 4.2.4 Comparison of the listening ability before and after the experiment. .........................42 Table 4.2.5 Comparison of students anxiety before and after the experiment. .............................43 Table 4.2.6 Comparison of the ability of expressing him/herself before and after the experiment. .. ..43 Table 4.2.7 Comparison of the accuracy of pronunciation before and after the experiment. .. 44 Table 4.2.8 Comparison of the accuracy of tense usage before and after the experiment. ...........45 Table 4.2.9 Comparison of the pause frequency while interviewing before and after theexperiment. .. ..45 Table 4.2.10 Comparison of how students were out of idea during the oral tests. .........................46 Table 4.3.1 The checking list

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Procedure of this study .............................................. ... 28

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Background of the study The most important examination for junior high school students in Vietnam is the Basic Competence Test (BCT).BCT is the main entrance exam for junior high school students to go to senior high schools. All of the applications or recommendations will depend upon the BCT grade. All the graduating students of junior high schools will be distributed according to the results of Basic Competence Test. The grading procedure includes assignation, recommendation,applcation into senior high school, and so on (Ministry of Education and Training, 1999). Although the Grade 10,11, 12, Curriculum Guideline focuses on four skills, i.e. listening, reading, speaking, and writing, the content of BCT still covers only grammar and reading. A common mistake many teachers and students make is that they pay more attention to what the BCT is focused on. Traditional English education in Vietnam placed an emphasis on reading skill (Adian Doff, 2002, p.3). Furthermore, most junior high school English teachers used the grammar translation teaching method in their classrooms to meet the expectations of the national curriculum (Adian Doff, 2002, p.3). The truth is that the only goal for most junior high school students is to go to senior high schools. In this case, BCT becomes the students main goal, rather than other important and basic English skills. There is thus discrepancy between students English speaking ability and their BCT proficiency. Furthermore, BCT often discourages students from speaking in class. To encourage students to talk in class is one of the ways to help them learn a second language. The more students talk, the better they learn (Seliger, 1977). Role-play is one of the teaching methods which help students talk more in class. Role-play enables all students to be actively involved in the lesson (Downing, 1994, p.5).During role -play, students have to go on the stage and perform, so they must speak English in class. In this case, role-play forces students to concentrate and talk in class actively. English role -play also enhances three other important aspects of the students ability to speak English: affecting attitudes/motivation positively, improving language skills, and overcoming shyness. Attitudes/motivation is one of the most important reasons for students to learn at school, and it also influences students in learning a second language. Unquestionably, motivation and attitude are very important in language learning success (Scacella & Oxford, 1992). According to Scacella and Oxford, attitudes/motivation is very important while students are learning a second language; the researcher would use role-play to raise students learning attitudes/motivation. Additionally, it is necessary to create a safe environment in which students can learn a second language. in a safe and supportive classroom students feel comfortable taking risks because they know that they will not be embarrassed or criticized if they make a mistake (Dornyei, 2001, p.56). Students will feel safe and be more willing to speak out in class if they have the teachers support and do not feel stressful. Role-play aims to increase students confidence and affect attitudes/motivation positively to excel in English. Role-playing stimulates realistic conversation and effective communication in foreign language learners in particular (Abdullan & Elhami, 1997, p.43). This is also the goal for teachers to teach and students to learn a second language. Teachers should always make it a goal to use a range of teaching methods to help students speak out in class. It is important that the teacher challenges students to use their English knowledge for simple conversation in daily life. As for students who have the same thoughts as teachers do, most of them would hope to have conversation skill when they need to use it. Many common teaching methods do not offer this function, but role-play does. Teachers should always encourage students to act out the roles of dialogues in their textbooks so they gradually become familiar with the content. This will also enable students to accustom themselves with normal conversation in their lives. In addition, a challenging aspect of role -play requires students to act in front of their

classmates.Students should feel less pressured if the teacher creates a safe environment within which they can perform.This would be the most beneficial to shy or withdrawn students. Therefore, this research study examines how role -play affects students learning attitudes/motivationsignificantly,improvestheirEnglish proficiency and helps them overcome shyness. We can also see plenty of other benefits in using role -play as a teaching method. Statement of the problem Role-play is a very common teaching method for teachers to use. It is widely used in foreign countries, especially for junior high school students. Following from the introduction, we know that most students study English for the purpose of the BCT. For that reason, most of the students in Vietnam can read English but seldom speak it. Many are thus unable to talk to native English speakers out of the classroom. There is very little research examining how role -play affects the speaking ability of junior high school students. In Vietnam, much of the research examines role-play focuses on junior high school students in foreign countries, such as Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea. There is currently very little research exploring the benefits of role-play on junior high students in Vietnam. There is also very little research pointing out how roleplay influences students learning attitudes/motivation.Most researchers talk about using pair work, group work, or cooperative learning activities [student-centered learning], helping in not putting too much pressure on individual students in front of the whole class (Scarcella & Oxford, 1992, p.54), or encouraging and stimulating students. In addition, a great deal of research shows that different aspects of attitudes/motivation vary in important points. For example, internal, cognitive and affective aspects of motivation might be more important in foreign language contexts, where most of the language learning took place in the formal classroom (Schmidt et al., 1996; Dornyei, 1996). There is little research that indicates how role-play could influence students learning attitudes/motivation directly. There is little research explaining how students overcome shyness and withdrawal. The research explains how students shyness is minimized to the point that role -play can help students conquer this natural feeling. Most of the researchers talk about students shyness, and the way that teachers treat those shy students, such as (1) minimizing stress or embarrassment, (2) engaging shy students in special activities, (3) changing the social environment like seating them among friendly classmates, (4) encouraging or shaping increased responsiveness, (5) involving them in frequent private talks (Lacina -Gifford et al., 2002, p.7). Again, this research does not show direct evidence indicating that role-play can help students overcome shyness. Therefore, this particular research is intended to highlight how little research has gone into three areas. Firstly, little research concerns role-play as the teaching method for junior high school students in Vietnam. Secondly, little research shows how role -play has a direct effect on attitudes/motivation.Thirdly, research seldom presents that role-play can help withdrawing students to overcome their nervousness. Purpose of the study

In spite of the possible teaching methods that may help students learn a second language, there is still a need to discover other teaching methods that students would prefer. Due to the fact that BCT focuses more on reading and writing comprehension, there is an obvious lack of focus in the areas of speaking practice. Therefore, there are three purposes in this research study: improving students language skills, affecting students learning attitudes/motivation positively, and helping students overcome shyness in their speaking. Many junior high school students in Vietnam study English in order to enter good senior high schools. Therefore, teachers and students often strictly adhere to the BCT curriculum. In this case, students may lose focus developing their speaking ability. The BCT focuses on grammar and reading. Although both grammar and reading are very important in learning a second language, teachers or students should not ignore other language skills. Furthermore, speaking is

the main method of communication in daily life. One of the main focuses of this research study is the use of role-play to help students improve their speaking ability, so that they can have a better use of English in practical every day situations. Therefore, the first purpose of the study is to explore how role-play affects students English proficiency. As for improving students learning attitudes/motivation, the researcher discovers that many students in Vietnam have poor attitudes/motivation while learning a second language, because of the boring teaching methods used in the classroom. Most of the teachers offer a great deal of paper tests and reading articles for students, so these affect students attitudes/motivation. What the researcher hopes to work on in this part is to use an active teaching method to influence their learning attitudes/motivation positively. A key requirement of role -playing is that all students be actively involved (Chu Quang Binh, 1993, p.3). Hence, the second purpose of the study is to claim how role -play affects students attitudes/motivation in learning L2. The third part is to help students overcome their shyness. One of the reasons that students seldom use English or talk to native English speakers in daily life is that they are often afraid to do so. Allowing students to act out the roles in the dialogues in class offers them more opportunities to speak out in English. It may also help students overcome their shyness. Through this kind of training, the researcher hopes that students would become brave enough to use English in their everyday lives, and be able to converse freely with native English speakers. Thus, the third purpose of this study is to examine how role -play overcomes students shyness. In summary, the purpose of this study is to improve language skills, affect attitudes/motivation significantly, and overcome shyness of students by using role-play as the teaching method. Research questions There are three research questions to be addressed in this study: 1. What is the value of the English speaking proficiency improvement of Thuan Chau Junior High School eighth graders after they attended the role -play course? 2. What are Thuan Chau Junior High School eighth graders attitudes/motivation toward the role-play course? 3. Do Thuan Chau Junior High School eighth graders overcome their shyness significantly when speaking English on stage after attending the role-play course? Significance of the study This study believes that the analysis of role-play can benefit English teachers, Ministry of Education and Training, scholars, and students in many aspects. For English teachers, the researcher hopes that the English teachers in Vietnam could adopt role-play as one of the teaching methods. The finding of this study provides an insight into role -play and helps students improve their speaking skill. Teachers may also improve students perception of learning speaking. Ring (1995) noted that speakers speak like a book, because their English is modeled on an almost exclusive written version of the language (as cited in Huyen & McCarthy, 1995). With regard to this, role-play not only serves as a useful source for students to practice speaking daily English conversation, but also helps them improve their style of speaking skill that is, they will not speak like a book. This research suggests that the class schedule and content should not always focus on grammar and reading. The Ministry of Education and Training could include speaking skill in junior and senior high schools class schedules. Furthermore, the BCT might be changed to a different type of testing students English level. If the BCT contains the four skills of English, the learning and teaching center would tend to be the four skills. It may help students improve their language skills equally. The third part is for the scholars in the TESOL area.This research paper not only offers a relationship between role-play and improving language skills, but also affects students learning attitudes /motivation, helps them overcome shyness and shows good performances in class.The research is for scholars to see role-play as one of the important teaching methods to

relate with other kinds of motivational aspects while using it. For students, the researcher expects students to be aware that they should improve the four skills equally when learning English. No matter which skill in English is more emphasized in the BCT, students should learn and study these four skills at the same time. In addition, students should not only focus on the BCT, but they should also know that learning a second language will help them become more competitive. In conclusion, there are four significant parts of this study. Teachers should adjust their teaching methods to make the class more interesting.The Ministry of Education and Training may also consider speaking ability as important as other language skills and change the class curriculum for junior high school students. Scholars in the TESOL area might also bring out more views about role-play and other learning responses. The last part is that the learners should learn English for their own good. Definitions of terms Role-play: Role-play can be separated into role and play. Role refers to play a part (either their own or somebody elses) in a specific situation (Gillian, 2002, p.7). Play represents the role is taken on in a safe environment in which students are as inventive and playful aspossible (Gillian, 2002, p.5). By using this teaching method, students can enjoy the experience of having conversations with people in reality and develop their social ability with people. Attitudes/Motivation: It means students thoughts and behavior. It also shows students wants and desires. Zoltan indicated that motivation is related to one of the most basic aspects of the human mind, and most teachers and researchers would agree that it has a very important role in determining success or failure in any learning situation (Zoltan, 2001). Shyness: The meaning of shyness is that students would be afraid while they are performing in class. Leary pointed out briefly: Shyness involves anxiety and behavioral inhibition in social situations (

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW The purpose of this study is to explore the disadvantages of BCT and how role -play can improve Thuan Chau Junior High School eighth graders attitudes/motivation as well as their speaking ability.This chapter is divided into five parts: the disadvantages of BCT, the purpose of role -play, the influence of the attitudes/motivation, the development of language skills, and the facilitation of overcoming shyness. The disadvantages of the BCT The Vietnam educational system has been criticized for decades due to its emphasis on examination.The old curriculum was developed in 1985.There is a cloud of serious criticism that it fails to provide proper instruction, such as language communicative ability for junior high school students. In fact, most of the junior high school students were learning how to study for the score reasonably well on written tests, but they could hardly have good English communicative ability.Due to this kind of problem, the Ministry of Education and Training actively created new textbooks for junior high school students in 1997.Its purpose was to reform the educational system and help students become proficient in the four skills of English: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. The revised curriculum places an emphasis on promoting students communicative competence (Adian Doff, 2002, p.3). The old curriculum led to develop a negative teaching method: Teachers would look at prior tests to assure that they covered the subject matter of the test or test objectives (Adian Doff, 2002, p.2). Teachers in Vietnam focus on what way the entrance exam will take. Traditional English education in Vietnam placed an emphasis on reading skills (Adian Doff, 2002, p.2).Furthermore, most junior high school English teachers used the grammar translation teaching method in their classrooms to meet the expectations of the national curriculum (Adian Doff, 2002, p.2).This occurs because the entrance exams dont measure listening and speaking ability. Additionally, what teachers teach and what students study are guided by the testing type. Although the curriculum has been reformed, it still lacks a real emphasis on speaking ability.Therefore, the BCT continues to exert a strong influence on the way teachers teach and the way students learn. The Basic Competence Test (BCT) is the main examination for junior high school students to enter senior high schools. It contains two parts with two different types of questions. The first part consists of multiple -choice grammar questions for each of which students must choose the best answer. The second part is a reading comprehension assessment that includes cloze tests (Ministry of Education and Training, 1999). It was designed by the Ministry of Education and Training which is aware of the need to reform the educational system in Vietnam. However, BCT still cant change the defects. Junior high school students can hardly speak and listen to English in their daily lives. In addition, the old teaching methods cant raise students learning attitudes/motivation.More diverse, lively, and interesting teaching methods must be used if language educators hope to stimulate Vietnamese students attitudes /motivation toward learning English.Furthermore, by stimulating students attitudes/motivation, they will be able to increase their ability to communicate and decrease their shyness of speaking English with native and non-native anglophones around the world. There are many interesting and motivating methods available to English teachers, but the method that the researcher will focus on in this study is role-play, a classroom activity in which students act out authentic scenes that can be as brief as an exchange of greetings or as long as the actors can act out the dialogue in English. Role-play authentic situation is one avenue leading to improved communicative ability in the target language (Maxwell, 1997, p.6). Thus, role-play could be one of the most useful teaching methods used to enhance

students learning attitudes/motivation, increase their speaking ability and overcome their shyness. The role of role-play in language learning As mentioned above, most of the teaching methods in Vietnam are grammar translation methods, repetition drills and exams. Adian Doff and Maxwell (2002, 1997) pointed out the problems of those English teaching methods, and argued that there is a need to develop more diverse English teaching methods or activities. Role -play is one of the main teaching methods to help students improve their L2 learning in three aspects. First, role -play might help develop students speaking ability.Second, role-play might meliorate students attitudes/motivation toward learning L2. Third, role -play might help students overcome their shyness. The purpose of role-play will be first discussed and then will be the three aspects. The purpose of role-play is to improve students verbal and nonverbal communication skills and to link and use previously built schemas, in both structured and improvised situations (Maxwell, 1997, p.1). Teachers use role -play as one of the teaching methods to force students to speak in public.The common weakness of Vietnamese students is their speaking ability.They seldom have the chance to practice conversation, even in the second language classroom. Therefore, role -play could improve students in verbal or nonverbal communication while they are acting out the roles in the dialogue. Maley and Duff et al pointed out that an ideal technique to encourage students to talk the real language is role-play (Maley & Duff, 1982; Marinelli, 1983; Siskin & Spinelli, 1987; Snyman & De Kock, 1991). No matter whether the dialogue is set by the teacher or not, students could adapt themselves to the dialogues they learn in classes and use the conversation in daily lives. Daily conversation includes lots of unpredictable situations that students might not know how to deal with. Role-play prepares learners for such unpredictabilities, adding emotion, inventiveness, and awareness of the listener to language teaching (Salies, 1995, p.6). In conclusion, the literature above points out that the main function of role-play is to help students improve language skills.It also mentions that role -play involves a variety of situations which students may need to face in real lives.Therefore, role -play helps students carry out their language skills in reality in a safe environment. The influence of the attitudes/motivation Without adequate and appropriate attitudes/motivation, students are usually unwilling to learn what their teachers try to teach them, especially in junior and senior high schools. Part of the attitudes/motivation problem is that memorizing grammatical factoids is both boring and useless.This kills attitudes/motivation in the classroom. The longer students feel they are wasting their time on English, the lower and more inadequate their attitudes/motivation becomes.The more they realize that the only value of learning English is to pass entrance tests with high scores to get into the schools of their choice, the poorer their attitudes/motivation toward learning becomesThis strongly suggests that the English teachers job is to motivate students to learn English, not merely to memorize factoids to regurgitate on a BCT. Motivation is important because it contributes to achievement, but it is also important itself as an outcome (Ray, 1992, p.4). The teaching methods in Vietnam always try to give students lots of paper exercises, but students dont understand the purpose of them. Students do not understand that repetition reinforces, tho ugh they may spend hours learning a skill for an extra-curricular activity (Witt, 1995, p.3). Hence, students learning attitudes/motivation would be depressed, and students would have poor attitudes/motivation toward learning a second language. In this case, changing the teaching method has become one of the most important issues to consider. Also, increasing students confidence can improve their learning attitudes/motivation. Role-play can help students become familiar with the learning content, so they would feel as if that they can handle the content much easier. When learners feel like they can deal with the new learning content by their own ability; and the success attribute to controllable self-performance; also the learners have expectation to success, their learning confidence is built. This leads to a successful learning opportunity (Lin, 2002, p.43). Miccoli (2003) also indicated that students were unanimous in saying that if they had had the play in their hands while reading the handouts on emotions, for example, they would have related much better to the content of the handouts (Miccoli, 2003, p.128). Therefore, the better way to have students learns a second language is that the teacher lends a helping hand. Students need to feel the belongingness, and they will perform actively in class. Researchers indicated that role-play involves students active participation (Joyce & Weli, 1986; Kunze,

1991; Shaftel & Shaftel, 1967). Students will be more motivated to learn if they are recognized as a part of the class. Role-play can be performed in pairs. Students learn to cooperate with each other through working and discussing English together, and this will lead to mutual affection. Affect (emotional climate) is a very major motivational factor during learning (Ray, 1992, p.9). Moreover, the role-play strategy is a comfortable Teaching/Learning strategy to use in the classroom.It is both easy to understand and interpret as well as to implement (Downing, 1994, p.15). A safe environment can offer students a smooth mood to learn a L2. Skinner believed that ones behavior was determined by his or her reinforcement history and the uncertainties of the environment (Deci, 1975, p.23). The environment for students to learn has become particularly important. Students can gain more confidence in a safe environment.Also, students prefer a consistent and orderly learning environment where the discipline is fair and they feel safe and not threatened (Ray, 1992, p.5). In other words, students can learn better in a little pressure environment. Role-play can also help to reinforce the knowledge that students gain through constant practice and acting. Furthermore, role-play offers a safe environment for students while they are learning a second language. Students usually do not have lots of opportunities to speak a second language in the daily lives, even if they do, the environment is uncontrollable. Thus, teachers create a safe environment in the classroom for students to practice, to speak and to learn a second language. Additionally, the speaking and practicing subjects would be their classmates, who are familiar to the students and cause them less pressure and nervousness. As mentioned in the last paragraph, students cooperate with each other to learn a second language through role -play.In addition; peer relationships have become very important in improving attitudes/motivation. Competition or achievement motivation and peer approval become of greater importance. The main motivational factor in the junior-senior high school years is the social incentives reflected in peer relationships (Ray, 1992, p.13). Students work together as a group, and groups compete with groups as a class. By this kind of benignant stimulus, students are able to increase their learning attitudes/motivation, and to learn the second language further. Therefore, in the context of this research study, the findings above are critical because they show role-play could affect students attitudes/motivation positively in four aspects: making class content interesting, increasing students belongingness, offering a safe environment, and improving peer relationships through moderate competition. In addition, they also indicate that there is a need for Ta iwanese English teachers to explore how role -play could affect Vietnamese students in meliorating their learning attitudes/motivation. The development of language skills One of the goals in learning a second language is to have good speaking ability. Researchers argue role-play can help learners improve it. Miller (1990) claims communication instructors should be wary of the general ability of the role-play activities in the classroom (Miller, 1990, p.21). First of all, role-play could improve students listening ability. Role-play makes students aware of the listener (Salies, 1995, p.8). Lin (1995) also pointed out that listening comprehension is best achieved by wide exposure to the target language (Lin, 1995, p.19). Therefore, listening ability is as important as speaking ability. Role-play might help to improve this skill. Second of all, role -play can improve speaking ability. Besides, to speak well in a daily conversation, one should consider the pronunciation as well. Clear pronunciation helps speaking become two -way communication in that people can focus on what a speaker intends to say and give responses without having to guess what was said (Lin, 1995, p.22). In such case, while students are performing in class, teachers are able to listen to each students pronunciation and correct him/her one by one during class. In conclusion, the study above presented that role -play can help students improve their speaking ability. Therefore, the context above is critical because it indicates that there is a need to examine how role-play can facilitate students speaking ability in Vietnams education environment.

The facilitation of overcoming the shyness There must be some shy students in any given classes. For those shy students, one of the main problems for them is that it is hard to speak and act in public. In such cases, how could they improve their speaking ability and have English conversation with people in daily life? Role-play might help to fulfill this role. Shy students refer to those who avoid personal interaction, are quiet and unobtrusive, and do not respond well to others (Brophy & McCaslin, 1992, p.19). In order to enable shy students to interact with others, Brophy (1996) offers some suggestions for teachers. To develop confidence and comfort in the classroom to shy and inhibited student, as well as closer monitoring, improved nonverbal communication, environment engineering, and instructive suggestions or demands for improved concentration designed to maintain the attention of students prone to withdrawal or daydreaming (Brophy, 1996, p.44). In this quotation, role -play can help achieve closer monitoring, environment engineering and instructive suggestions. First, role -play proceeds under a teacher s supervision, so the teacher can observe each student s learning circumstance. Second, role -play provides students with a safe environment to practice and speak English. And environment is an important issue for students who are learning a second language through the use of role-play. Third, after students performance or practice, teachers as the instructors would give students suggestions on their acting, speaking, or pronunciation. Therefore, role -play can achieve three out of the four conditions that are mentioned above. Role-play helps shy students by providing them with a mask (Gillian, 2002, p.7). There will always be a small number of shy students afraid of speaking and acting. Using role-play as the teaching method, students would be able to perform on the stage, forcing themselves to play in public. Consequently, they might not be afraid to act in front of people, and thus talking to people in a second language would become an easy task for them since they gain the confidence from doing role play. The more a learner is self-confident, the more rapid will be his or her progress and proficiency in the second language (Oller, 1977, p.22). Salies (1995) also pointed out role-play can do that: it boosts self-confidence because it gives students an instant evidence of success, fosters retention, and stimulates involvement in a risk-free environment (Salies, p.12). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to point out that role -play can help those shy and withdrawing students to increase their self-confidence.The more self-confidence the shy students have, the better their performance in acting and also the more their conversation will improve. Additionally, it is severe to investigate how role-play affects shy and withdrawing students in learning. In Summary Through the above literature, we learn that the BCT affects teachers teaching methods and students learning directions. The content and objectives of English teaching are geared toward passing the exams.Unfortunately; the exam items emphasize rote memory and mechanical drills. Oral communication is totally disregarded, and rote memory strategies are rewarded (Lin, 1995, p.6). As mentioned above, oral comprehension is ignored by teachers and students. Role-play can help to enhance students oral skills, and it can also help students keep up with the school schedule in class. A role-play situation can develop spontaneously in the classroom as different issues are raised in textbooks (Downing, 1994, p.5). Raising students learning attitudes/motivation has always been one of teachers goals. Without attitudes/motivation, it is very hard for students to focus on the lesson. According to the research by Maxwell (1997), the use of role-play as a teaching method can stimulate students learning attitudes/motivation.Additionally, role-play can enhance students speaking ability as well. Through role -play, students can learn the significance of the spoken and nonspoken word in their own in the target language (Maxwell, 1997, p.6). Role-play is one of the teaching methods that helps develop students communicative techniques, promotes their interaction in the classroom, and affects their attitudes/motivation positively. Speaking is as much a natural and spontaneous activity as role-play is a natural human behavior (Salies, 1995, p.22). Teachers who ask students to speak the second language

realistically should use the vary characters of role -play which is the imitation of reality. Thus, teachers may give students the chance to learn to take responsibility for their own study. In conclusion: by using role-play teachers will encourage adaptability, fluency, and confidence on the part of the students (Salies, 1995, p.22). In other words, teachers could help students face the real communicative world through role-play.

CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY This chapter addresses subjects, research instruments, including questionnaires, lesson plan, evaluation form, oral interview and teaching materials, the procedures of the study, and the data analysis used in this study. Subjects The subjects in this experiment are thirty-two eighth graders (about fourteen years old) in an English class in Thuan Chau Junior High School in Thuan Chau District. They have studied English for at least three years since they started to learn English in the fifth grade in elementary school. For this study, these subjects will be taught one class a week by the researcher for totally four weeks. In the junior high class schedule, every fourth class is termed flexible. The researcher will use this period to conduct in this study. The main teaching material is the junior high school English textbook, The English 10, 11, 12 textbook, compiled by Nani Bookstore Company.In the textbook, there is a dialogue in every lesson, which will be performed by the students. The subjects will be divided into groups and each group consists of two to three students. The group size depends on the dialogue they study every week. Moreover, students will be interviewed individually by the researcher to express their feeling concerning role-play as the teaching activity compared with the regular English class activity during the experiment.

Additionally, students need to fill out the pre-questionnaire and the post-questionnaire to compare and investigate the result of using role-play as the teaching method. There are two oral tests separately before and after the experiment. The researcher investigates how students improve their English speaking ability. Besides the quantitative part, there are eight students picked up to have further interview about their opinions of experiencing the role-play teaching activity. For the purpose of confidentiality, the participants remain anonymous. Furthermore, the interviews are held in Vietnamese concerning students English ability; and students descriptions are translated into English. The backgrounds of those students are stated below. Table 1: The interviewees personal information Name Vi Huyen Giang Quynh Sex Male Male Male Female English level Background The leader in the class.He has great confidence in Great himself. He also has his own thoughts. He is the English teacher assistant. Quite shy, but his English is pretty good. Great He is not very bright in class, but he is willing to learn and perform in class. Medium Her English level is medium, but she has her own thought of learning. She is also very enthusiastic. She doesnt talk much. Although she was Medium Interviewed, she didnt have her own thoughts. She always follows what others say. Her English is at the second place in class. She always Medium competes for the first place with Vi. He likes to play a lot in class. Although his English is not good, he is not afraid to speak English. Great She likes to talk loud in class, but not in English. However, she is not shy to perform. Not good Not good

Ngoc

Female

Quy Ha Hung

Female Male Female

Questionnaires The questionnaires are separated into two parts: one for students to fill out before the experiment and the other for students after the experiment. Ten questions are written in Vietnamese in the questionnaires. Each question has five-point Likert-type scale, and students have five choices ranging from 1 to 5. 1 stands for strongly disagree and 5 stands for strongly agree. The development of Appendix A is to examine students thoughts of role-play and their English ability. The end of each questionnaire has a blank for students to describe their English speaking ability. (See Appendix A) Lesson plan The lesson plan shows the whole procedure that occurs during the class, including how the class is carried out, how the materials are used, and what the researcher does after students performances. (See Appendix B) Evaluation Form The evaluation forms consist of two forms. One is for the researcher to evaluate; the other one is for the students to comment.The researchers evaluation form is written in English with ten questions. Students evaluation forms are written in Vietnamese with ten questions.Each question in the evaluation form has the range of five-point scale, ranging from 1 to 5.Both of the forms have a blank space for the researcher and students if they want to express more opinions. (See Appendix F and G) Oral tests and interviews Two oral tests and one interview will be conducted for this study.The first oral test is before the experiment, and the second oral test is held after the experiment.The oral test questions include yes-no questions and wh- questions for students to answer.Yes-no questions are for students who cannot have long answers, and wh- questions are for students who are in higher level.The questions of the pre-oral test are about students learning background.Since the researcher knows about students learning background, the questions of the post oral test are about the coming holiday. (See Appendix I) Besides, the oral tests are asked in English.On the other hand, Appendix H is for the researcher to evaluate students oral skills during the oral tests. (See Appendix H) The oral interviews are held during the experiment.The interview questions are based on some basic questions but may be changed according to the situation and students reactions (see Appendix J).Moreover; students are interviewed in their mother tongue so that they feel at ease to express their feelings. A time table of the interviews is provided to have a clear idea about the interview. The table includes the eight interviewees, the time that the researcher holds the interviews, member checking which means checking the interviewees answers after the researcher transcribed their description, and questions which are asked in the interviews.

Table 2: Time table for the interviews Name 1. Vi 2. Huyen 3. Giang 4. Quynh 5. Ngoc 6. Quy 7. Ha 8. Hung Time (Face-to-face interview) Nov. 15, 2008 Nov. 22, 2008 Nov. 22, 2008 Nov. 15, 2008 Nov. 29, 2008 Nov. 29, 2008 Nov. 22, 2008 Nov. 29, 2008 Member checking Questions (Face-to-face) Dec. 6, 2008 Dec. 6, 2008 Dec. 6, 2008 Dec. 6, 2008 Dec. 6, 2008 Dec. 6, 2008 Dec. 6, 2008 Dec. 6, 2008 See Appendix G See Appendix G See Appendix G See Appendix G See Appendix G See Appendix G See Appendix G See Appendix G

Teaching materials The main teaching material is The English 10, 11, 12 textbook, the English textbook compiled by Educational Publishing House for 10th, 11th, 12th graders. There are three to four dialogues used in this research. Students have to act the roles of the dialogues in every lesson of the textbook.Students may create some thoughts to make the play more interesting, but they are not forced to do so. The researcher encourages students to put more ideas into their performances. Four ways to record students performances in class include the researchers observation, taperecording, picture-taking and note-taking. In addition, the researcher observes students performance reaction and their conditions by using tape-recording and note-taking during the interviews.Tape recording and picture-taking are to record the whole performance and help the researcher record the part that the researcher cannot write down in class. As for the taperecording and note-taking, they are to record the second interviews.

Research Hypotheses There are three research hypotheses below: 1. There is no improvement in Thuan Chau Junior High School eighth graders English speaking proficiency after they attended the role -play course. 2. Thuan Chau Junior High School eighth graders have negative attitudes/motivation toward the role -play course. 3. Thuan Chau Junior High School eighth graders do not overcome their shyness significantly when speaking English on stage after attending the role-play course. Procedures of the study The procedure will be displayed as the following figure:

The first oral test and pre-questionnaire

Individual interview

Role-play activity

The second oral test and post-questionnaire

Figure 1.Procedure of this study

Before starting role-play, the researcher has an oral test with every student individually. The questions are displayed in Appendix I.A pre-questionnaire is held with the whole class before the oral interview. (See Appendix A) After finishing the two procedures, the study proceeds to the main part, which is role-play. Role-play will progress as the lesson plan shows in Appendix B. During role-play, the researcher interviews every student individually during lunch break.The interviewees questions are decided by the researcher according to different situations. (See Appendix J.) When the four periods of classes are finished, it is time to examine how students improve their speaking ability.There are also another oral test and the post-questionnaire to compare the students performances from the beginning to the end . (See Appendix A and I.) The data analysis used in this study The data are collected and analyzed by using SPSS 12.0 Version for Windows. Descriptive data are analyzed by qualitative methods.The mean of the pre-questionnaire is compared with the mean of the post-questionnaire to see if there are any significant differences.

CHAPTER IV RESULTS This chapter presents and discusses the results of the study in accordance with the research questions raised in Chapter One.The goals of the research questions are to investigate (1) the effect of developing students speaking ability; (2) the effect of students attitudes/motivation while learning a second language; and (3) how role -play encourages students to overcome shyness while it is presented in public. The findings are presented and discussed quantitatively and qualitatively. Results of questionnaires A one-month experiment examined students speaking performance when they were learning L2 through role-play.A pre-questionnaire and a post-questionnaire along with several oral interviews throughout the month were completed by the students. The statistical data are shown below followed by descriptive analysis.

Table 4.1.1 Comparison of students attitudes/motivation toward role-play before and after the experiment. Questionnaire Question 1 Measure Pretest Posttest I *p<.05 Table 4.1.1 compares students attitudes/motivation toward role-play before and after attending the role -play course.The t test indicates that there is a significant difference at p<.05 level (p=.000).In other words, the result shows that students attitudes/motivation toward roleplay is affected significantly.Hence, Hypothesis Two can be rejected. Students enjoy this teaching method, which is shown in their reaction during class. N 32 32 Mean 2.468 3.593 SD 1.015 .837 T -4.133 P-value .000*

Table 4.1.2 Comparison of students shyness while performing in front of their classmates before and after the experiment. Questionnaire Question 2 Measure Pretest Posttest I *p<.05 Table 4.1.2 compares students performance before and after the experiment. The t test shows that there is a significant difference at p<.05 level (p=.000). It shows that students performances gradually improved after using the role-play teaching activity. Hypothesis Three, therefore, can be rejected.Using the role-play teaching activity forced students to perform in English in front of their classmates.It helped them overcome their shyness while performing. N 32 32 Mean 3.812 2.625 SD 1.148 1.039 T 4.831 P-value .000*

Table 4.1.3 Comparison of student speaking if in L2 in daily time before and after the experiment. Questionnaire Question 3 Measure Pretest Posttest I *p<.05 Table 4.1.3 is to compare how often students would speak English in daily life. The t test presents that there is a significant difference at p<.05 level (p=.006). This shows that students are willing to speak English in daily time. Therefore, Hypothesis One can be refused. Role -play helped students improve their speaking ability, so they would speak and listen to the L2 in daily life. The researcher interviewed eight students about how they felt when their speaking ability improved.Six students said they thought role-play helped them improve their speaking ability.The other two students said role-play improved speaking, listening, and reading abilities. N 32 32 Mean 2.000 2.812 SD .803 1.203 T -2.919 P-value .006*

Table 4.1.4 Comparison of how often students would use learned words from role-play in their daily life before and after the experiment. Questionnaire Question 4 Measure Pretest Posttest I *p<.05 Table 4.1.4 is to compare how many students re-use their learned words before and after the experiment.The t test showed that there is a significant difference at p<.05 level (p=.015). That is, students would try to speak English with their learned words. N 32 32 Mean 2.500 3.281 SD 1.107 1.170 T -2.573 P-value .015*

Table 4.1.5 Comparison of how anxious students feel while speaking English before and after the experiment . Questionnaire Question 5 Measure Pretest Posttest I *p<.05 N 32 32 Mean 3.437 3.000 SD 1.014 1.047 T 1.877 P-value .070

34

Table 4.1.5 compares how anxious students are when they speak in L2. The t test indicates that there is no significant difference at p<.05 level (p=.070). In other words, there is no significance to show that students feel nervous when they speak English. According to students responses, they were not very nervous while performing in front of their classmates. Some of the shy students might be, but most of them did not show any indication.The researcher speculated that it may be because students are too familiar with their friends. Therefore, they did not feel anxious while performing in class.

Table 4.1.6 Comparison of how confident students feel about their English ability before and after the experiment. Questionnaire Question 6 Measure Pretest Posttest I *p<.05 Table 4.1.6 is to compare how students feel confident of their English ability before and after the experiment.The t test indicates that there is a significant difference at p<.05 level (p=.011). It shows that students confidence was raised after using role-play. N 32 32 Mean 3.468 2.625 SD 1.243 1.099 T 2.709 P-value .011*

Table 4.1.7 Comparison of how calm and confident students were when they performed in class before and after the experiment. Questionnaire Question 7 Measure Pretest Posttest I *p<.05 Table 4.1.7 is to compare how calm and confidence students were when they performed in front of their classmates before and after the experiment. The t test indicates that there is a significant difference at p<.05 level (p=.001). It suggests that students felt more calm and confident after performing in front of their classmates after several times.Hence, Hypothesis Three cannot be rejected with regard to question seven. Role-play forces students to speak English in public.Students were shy at first, but then were able to overcome their shyness and increase confidence when speaking in public. N 32 32 Mean 1.937 2.906 SD .913 1.146 T -3.674 P-value .001*

Table 4.1.8 Comparison of how students feel when speaking English in public before and after the experiment. Questionnaire Question 8 Measure Pretest Posttest I *p<.05 Table 4.1.8 is to compare how students feel when speaking English in front of their classmates before and after the experiment.The t test displays that there is a significant difference at p<.05 level (p=.003). In other words, students like to speak English better than before. Speaking English in public seems to become easier and easier for them. N 32 32 Mean 3.500 2.593 SD 1.270 1.011 T 3.259 P-value .003*

Table 4.1.9 Comparison of how confident students feel about their pronunciation before and after the experiment. Questionnaire Question ni9 Measure Pretest Posttest I *p<.05 N 32 32 Mean 3.625 2.968 SD 1.099 1.204 T 2.322 P-value .027*

37

Table 4.1.9 is to compare how students feel about their pronunciation before and after the experiment. The t test shows that there is a significant difference at p<.05 level (p=.027). The results suggest that the students became more confident in their English pronunciation after the role-play experiment.

Table 4.1.10 Comparison of the cause of pause when students speak English before and after the experiment. Questionnaire Question 10 Measure Pretest Posttest I *p<.05 Table 4.1.10 is to compare the cause of the pause while students were speaking English. The t test indicates that there is no significant difference at p<.05 level (p=.061). In other words, the cause of the pause did not relate to students speaking ability. In Summary For the ten questions in the pre-questionnaires and post-questionnaires, questions five and ten show no significant differences. The rest of the eight questions all show significant differences. Those two parts point out the importance and non-importance of speaking and performing in public. Results of oral tests The oral tests (see Appendix H) were given before and after the one-month experiment. There are ten items for the researcher to grade students L2 ability. Those ten items include: 1) the influence of speaking ability, 2) the using frequency of new vocabulary, 3) the accuracy of grammar usage, 4) the listening ability, 5) students anxiety, 6) the ability of expressing him/herself, 7) the accuracy of pronunciation, 8) the accuracy of tense usage, 9) the pause while interviewing, and 10) how students thought of ideas during the oral test. This part focuses on the statistical data. There are some thoughts of the researcher during the interview. Those thoughts are supplied under the statistical data. N 32 32 Mean 3.125 2.593 SD 1.184 1.011 T 1.945 P-value .061

Table 4.2.1 Comparison of the influence of speaking ability before and after the experiment. Measure Pretest Posttest I *p<.05 Table 4.2.1 is to compare the influence of students speaking ability before and after the experiment. The t test indicates that there is a significant difference at p<.05 level (p=.000). That is, students speaking ability did improve after the use of role-play. While the researcher was doing the oral test, she also felt that students would try hard to answer in English.They might not answer in complete and prefect sentences, but they would manage to use the words they had learned. N 32 32 Mean 4.500 2.500 SD .718 .803 T 14.085 P-value .000*

Table 4.2.2 Comparison of the using frequency of new vocabulary before and after the experiment. Measure Pretest Posttest I *p<.05 N 32 32 Mean 4.468 2.437 SD .761 .800 T 13.349 P-value .000*

Table 4.2.2 is to compare how frequently students used their learned words before and after the experiment. The t test indicates that there is a significant difference at p<.05 level (p=.000). This part is the same as question one. Students might not answer in appropriate sentences, but they wanted to think about new words and spoke them out.

Table 4.2.3 Comparison of the accuracy of grammar usage before and after the experiment. Measure Pretest Posttest I *p<.05 Table 4.2.3 is to compare students accuracy of grammar usage before and after the experiment. The t test displays that there is a significant difference at p<.05 level (p=.000). The grammar rules that students used were very few, because they seldom spoke in complete sentences. However, longer sentences appeared during the second oral test. As long as they tried to speak in longer sentences, some grammar rules were emerged. Furthermore, those were all very simple grammar rules which would not cause many grammatical problems. N 32 32 Mean 4.593 2.562 SD .665 .840 T 14.689 P-value .000*

Table 4.2.4 Comparison of the listening ability before and after the experiment. Measure Pretest Posttest I *p<.05 Table 4.2.4 compares the improvement of students listening ability before and after the experiment. The t test shows that there is a significant difference at p<.05 level (p=.000). Most students had improved a lot on listening ability. Students not only understood what the researcher asked during the oral tests, but also tried hard to listen to whole sentences and digested them.The researcher had strong feeling that students tried very hard to pay attention to the N 32 32 Mean 4.062 2.250 SD 1.014 .842 T 8.522 P-value .000*

second oral test, because most students had responses with the researcher. Table 4.2.5 Comparison of students anxiety before and after the experiment. Measure Pretest Posttest I *p<.05 Table 4.2.5 compares how anxious students felt during the two oral tests before and after the experiment.The t test indicates that there is a significant difference at p<.05 level (p=.000).Students anxiety had been decreased during the second oral test.One of the reasons that the researcher postulates is students were familiar with the researcher, and might not be afraid to speak English in front of her. N 32 32 Mean 1.875 3.125 SD 1.039 .609 T -5.683 P-value .000*

Table 4.2.6 Comparison of the ability of expressing him/herself before and after the experiment. Measure Pretest Posttest I *p<.05 N 32 32 Mean 4.187 2.218 SD 1.060 .706 T 9.460 P-value .000*

Table 4.2.6 compares the ability of students in expressing themselves before and after the experiment.The t test indicates that there is a significant difference at p<.05 level (p=.000).Students started to use more vocabulary to express their feeling and opinions, even if those opinions were expressed in words rather than complete sentences.

Table 4.2.7 Comparison of the accuracy of pronunciation before and after the experiment. Measure Pretest Posttest I *p<.05 Table 4.2.7 compares the accuracy of students pronunciation before and after the experiment.The t test displays that there is a significant difference at p<.05 level (p=.000). Students started learning to pay more attention to their pronunciation while performing in front of their classmates.This also made them have better pronunciation during the oral tests.Some students even repeated what they spoke to make the pronunciation clearer. N 32 32 Mean 4.062 1.968 SD 1.075 .474 T 10.334 P-value .000*

Table 4.2.8 Comparison of the accuracy of tense usage before and after the experiment. Measure Pretest Posttest I *p<.05 Table 4.2.8 compares the accuracy of students tense usage before and after the experiment.The t test displays that there is a significant difference at p<.05 level (p=.000). This part is very similar to the third part, which is the grammar usage.Since students did not speak many sentences during the oral tests, there would be few chances to use tense. Somehow, the using frequency increased in the second oral test and the tenses used were very simple. Table 4.2.9 Comparison of the pause frequency while interviewing before and after the experiment. Measure Pretest Posttest I *p<.05 N 32 32 Mean 1.781 3.000 SD 1.069 .622 T -5.064 P-value .000* N 32 32 Mean 4.281 2.593 SD .888 .797 T 10.657 P-value .000*

Table 4.2.9 compares the pause frequency while students were having the oral tests. The t test shows that there is a significant difference at p<.05 level (p=.000). The pause frequency was really high during the oral tests, but it got lower during the second oral test. Some students said I dont know when they did not know how to answer the questions.

Table 4.2.10 Comparison of how students were out of idea during the oral tests. Measure Pretest Posttest I *p<.05 Table 4.2.10 compares how students deal with when they did not know what to do during the oral tests. Would they become out of idea when being asked of questions? The t test points out that there is a significant difference at p<.05 level (p=.000). Students might stop for a short time to think about the English vocabulary, but they would not become out of idea during the oral tests. In Summary.The t tests of those ten items used in the oral tests are all significant differences. They show that role-play has an influence on students L2 learning.Most students may not have the ability to answer in complete sentences, but they showed positive attitudes during the oral tests. They tried hard to listen to the questions, and thought of the words they learned to answer the questions .Their active learning meant they were willing to attempt. Therefore, role-play not only stimulated students when they learned English, but also made them eager to learn more. Descriptive data of interviews Eight students were chosen to have interviews.These eight students were very interested in taking part in the interviews.Vi, Quy and Hung were volunteers. Three others were picked because of their active and highly energetic performances during the class.The last two had poor English ability, but paid attention in class.The researchers objective was to understand if students with poor English ability could benefit from role-play. All the students were interviewed once.Additionally; the interviews were conducted in Vietnamese. During the interviews, the whole procedure was recorded on mp3 and pictures were taken. After experiencing role-play several times, students may have some thoughts of it. The researcher tried to find out how students felt about this teaching method. Compared to the traditional teaching method, most of the students answered that they really like the role-play teaching method.It affected their attitudes/motivation significantly to learn English because they would not feel sleepy in class.Furthermore, students responses to which teaching method they like question rejects Hypothesis Two that students may have a negative impression on the role -play teaching activity.Most students feel that role -play is an interesting teaching activity and they like it.Their feeling of this teaching method is positive.Even though students and the N 32 32 Mean 1.781 3.281 SD 1.069 .522 T -8.352 P-value .000*

homeroom teacher both like and enjoy the role -play teaching activity, the class order is not very good.Sometimes there is too much noise for students to act in public. Students, however, still show a positive attitude. For example, one of the interviewees, Huyen, mentioned in the interview: Not bad!I like it,because this teaching activity can increase my confidence in English.It is more vivid than the previous teaching way, but sometimes it is too noisy. It also causes less pressure.Our original English classes are more oppressive and boring. Another participant, Ha, also pointed out the reason he liked role-play. Yeah! I like it! Its good! It is very exciting and fun. I really like this kind of teaching activity.This is very fun.I wont feel sleepy in class. It makes me want to study English again.I not only want to study, but also like to study. This teaching method can make me talk English in class.I do not need to sit listening to the teacher only.I like this teaching method.

Since the whole period of class was proceeding with role -play, it may be hard for the teacher to catch up with the school schedule.Therefore; the researcher asked the students if the role-play teaching method could be used for the last fifteen minutes of every class. Would it be better than the traditional class which is all about grammar teaching? Students attitudes were also positive when this question was raised. They felt this teaching method could help make their learning lively, and raise their learning attitudes/motivation. However, it is very hard to only use role -play for the whole period. The class would become boring easily. Therefore, to use role -play as one of the teaching methods in class is better than using role-play as the only teaching method. Hung, one of the participants said she would be appreciative if the teacher used role-play as one of the teaching methods in class.

Yes, it would be good if teacher could use this teaching method! This teaching method is easier to assimilate.It can also build up my confidence when I perform in front of my classmates.It helps me strengthen my confidence and I feel I am not afraid of English anymore.

Hypothesis One, a negative improvement in Thuan Chau Junior High School eighth graders English speaking proficiency after they attend the role-play course, can be rejected by students answers.The researcher set up a situation for them to think and answer which basic ability could be improved after using this teaching activity.Most of the students answered speaking would be improved. In other words, the answer of this question can reject Hypothesis One which is a negative improvement in Thuan Chau Junior High School eighth graders English speaking proficiency after they attend the role -play course. For example, Quy pointed out what ability role -play can help her improve. I think speaking and listening.Actually, it can help me improve my English a lot; I can also improve my reading ability while I am reading the textbooks.But if you want to ask what ability really improves a lot, it would be speaking ability. Due to some preparation before the role-play course, the researcher would like to find out whether it would be a great pressure for students to be ready in advance.Hence, the researcher asked the students if it is tired or it is stressful to plan the dialogues beforehand. Most students show a positive response to the preparation. Students do not usually preview any lessons.They just come to school and listen to teachers in class, and they may not review, either. However, the researchers request causes them to study and preview before the classes, which makes them

have more idea of the lesson and have more confidence in learning.For example, Giang said how he felt about the preparation.

The preparation is a big burden for me at first.My English is not good. I cannot study it at home without teachers instruction. However, after preparing for the class for several times, I start to feel that preview is really important.I know the lesson prior to class and I realize what the teacher talks about in class.Furthermore, I prepare in advance so I dare to speak on the stage in English. Another participant, Quy, also pointed out her pressure of preparation. I know to preview is good for our study, but it is hard to put it into practice every time.Somehow, I must study in advance this time because I want to perform well in front of my classmates. After previewing several times, I find out it is not very hard and a big pressure to prepare in advance. It just depends on my will to do it or not.And I have more confidence on myself. During role-play, some of the students were very extroverted. Somehow, when it came to performing in front of the classmates, they started to keep avoiding from this opportunity.The researcher wanted to know what resulted in their reaction like this. Some students pointed out they were really shy; some of them did not know how to act. This caused them to make all sorts of excuses to go up to the platform. Quynh also said some of their classmates would not dare to shout on the platform, but they are very noisy in private. Hypothesis Three is not clear for this part. Student s still feels shy to perform in public. According to the statistical data, students had some improvement after role -play, but they were still shy to show it up on the platform. For instance, Quynh suggested a reason why students were afraid of performing in public. Some of the students are shy, and some of them do not know how to act. And some of the boys are really shy. They do not dare to shout on the platform, but they are noisy in private. The researcher was wondering if attitudes/motivation improved during role -play. After all, the activity was used in only one month, so she would like to know whether it would be enough to simulate students learning attitudes/motivation in a long-term role -play. Students responses were positive in this question. The role-play teaching method is more interesting than the traditional activity.They hope their teacher can teach them in a livelier way.For example, Ngoc expressed that it would be better if the teacher can use more teaching activities in their English class. Yes, I am more interested in learning English in this teaching method, and I do not want to listen to the teacher in an uninteresting teaching way. To know more about students opinions, the researcher found out some different answers during the interviews.Although most of the answers were all positive to the role-play teaching activity, there were two students who preferred the traditional teaching method. The grades of these two students were better in class. One of them was the leader of the class. His opinion was that probably higher level students do not like many activities in class.They feel like having traditional English classes and getting good grades.The researcher was asking about their impression of this teaching method.Furthermore, the researcher expected that the interesting teaching method may raise students learning attitudes/motivation. Somehow, these two students pointed out two points of views to make the researcher think of the problem critically, and the researcher hoped to find out the solution.For instance,Vi pointed out another view on using lots of teaching activities in class. It is just like we go back to the days in elementary school. We played a lot in elementary school.The English classes in junior high school are supposed

to be like the traditional teaching way.This is the usual way. But students just want to play the games; they still may not study English. In Summary There were more than six questions being asked for eight students to be asked of. Most of the participants hold the positive attitudes to the role-play teaching activity.For example, students showed more interest in learning English while using the role -play teaching activity; students agreed that role -play helped improve their communicative ability; and they showed higher willingness to perform in public.However, there were different opinions that two students preferred the traditional teaching method.Besides, to have a clearer image about the interviews, the researcher made a table of arranging the interviews. The table shows as the following.

Table 4.3.1: The checking list

Students who Questions Students who like the role-play teaching activity. Students like role-play as one of the teaching methods. Students who think role-play helps them improve speaking ability.

Students who think role-play can overcome their shyness

54

Students

Vi Huyen Giang Quynh Ngoc Quy Ha Hung

V V V V V V V V

V V V V V V V V

V V V V V V V V V V V V

think it would be good if role-play would be used teach as a long- term teaching method

Students who still like the traditional teaching method

V V V V V V V V

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION This chapter summarizes the whole study and the result.Furthermore, this chapter offers some contributions according to the significance of the study.It also discusses the limitations of the study and supplies suggestions for further research. Discussion This study was designed to probe into the effectiveness of using the role-play teaching method on Thuan Chau Junior High School students English speaking.Thirty-two tenth graders participated in the experiment lasting for one month. Before and after the experiment were a pre-questionnaire, a post-questionnaire, a pre-oral test, a post-oral test, and several interviews.The questionnaires and oral tests were run by t test to compare the differences. The results of the questionnaires (see Appendix A) showed that eight out of ten questions indicated there were significant differences.Those eight questions included speaking ability, listening ability, attitudes/motivation in English, speaking English in daily time with students learned words, getting used to speak English, having no confidence to speak English, disliking speaking English in public, and having no confidence with the pronunciation.The last two questions which pointed out there were no significant differences were the anxiety and pause while speaking English. The significances of the oral tests (see Appendix I) showed ten out of ten items were all significant differences after the experiment.Those ten items contained the influence of speaking ability, the using frequency of new vocabulary, the accuracy of grammar usage, listening ability, students anxiety, the ability of expressing him/herself, the accuracy of pronunciation, the accuracy of tense usage, the pause while interviewing, and immediate responses during the interviews. The items in the questionnaires and the oral tests comprised students anxiety and the pause.However; the results of the students performances in receiving questionnaires were different from those in receiving the oral tests. There was no significant difference when they received the questionnaires. Moreover, there was significant difference when they received the oral tests.The researcher generalized that this result might be influenced by the researcher during the oral tests.While students were thinking the answers, the researcher would give them some hints.On the contrary, when students were performing along on the platform, the researcher seldom helped them during the performances. Therefore, the anxiety and pause might decrease during the oral tests but remain during the performances. Several interviews (see Appendix J) were held during the experiment.Eight students were chosen to be asked of some questions which were to understand more about students feelings. Most students had positive attitudes to the role-play teaching activity, but two of them still liked the traditional teaching method. Additionally, those two students were in the higher level and their attitudes were more proper than others.This might be because those students were eager to chase good grades. According to the study above, the researcher summarized the answers of the three research questions of this study. Research Question 1 What is the value of the English speaking proficiency improvement of Thuan Chau Junior High School eighth graders after they attended the role-play course?

There are six tables to show the relationship between role-play and students speaking ability, which indicates the evaluation of whether students benefit from role-play. These six tables are from the researchers perspectives while doing the pre and post oral tests. Table 4.2.1 displays the influence of students speaking ability.The t test reveals a significant value at p value <.05 (p=.000). Students speaking ability can be seen as a little progress; somehow, this study is just a one-month experiment.The influence of students speaking ability may have big development if role -play is used for a long period of time. Table 4.2.2 examines how frequent students used their learned words.The t test reveals a significant value at p value <.05 (p=.000). During the oral tests, students tried to talk more and think hard to answer the researchers questions. They spent time thinking of the new words they learned in the dialogues and spoke them intermittently during the oral tests. Those words could not comprise a complete sentence, but the researcher could see the students trying to do their best. Table 4.2.3 explores students accuracy of grammar usage.The t test shows a significant value at p value <.05 (p=.000).During the pre-oral tests, students seldom spoke in complete sentences, which meant it was hard to discover their wrong grammar usage. However, they started to use some simple sentences in the post-oral tests.The researcher knew that students were willing to speak in complete sentences with their learned words. Longer sentences they said, more grammatical rules appeared; somehow, there was an improvement in their performance between the pre and post oral tests. Table 4.2.6 shows the ability of students in expressing themselves.The t test indicates a significant value at p value <.05 (p=.000). Students lacked the ability of expressing themselves by using complete sentences. Somehow, they could describe themselves with some key words. Table 4.2.7 indicates the accuracy of students pronunciation.The t test displays a significant value at p value <.05 (p=.000). Before the experiment, students seldom had the chance to speak English in public, so they might not concern about their pronunciation. However, they started to practice their pronunciation before performing on the stage; sometimes they would ask the researcher how to pronounce the words correctly. Therefore, they showed more attention to their pronunciation during the oral tests. Table 4.2.8 shows the accuracy of students tense usage.The t test points out a significant value at p value <.05 (p=.000).As mentioned in Table 4.2.3, students seldom gave answers in complete sentences.Moreover, there were very few tenses used in their sentences. Somehow, the using frequency of some active students increased during the post oral tests. The six tables show the relationship between role -play and speaking ability and are showed the positive outcome.After the use of the role-play teaching method for one month, there is an improvement on students performances.Therefore, if role-play could be used extensively, there will be a great progress in students communicative ability. This positive speaking proficiency improvement can also be seen in the interview data. When asked which skill students feel was improved significantly after attending the role-play course, some emphasized that their speaking ability improved most, then listening, and the last part would be reading and writing. Hung said, The part that I improve most is speaking. It is not easy to speak English in front of my classmates, but I try my best to do it. Ngoc and Giang also pointed out that our speaking ability has improved gradually. Through the role-play course, it is a big challenge that the researcher forces us to speak English in public. Also, we start to pay attention to our pronunciation.We have to pronounce it correctly so that people can understand. Ngoc and Giang continued.The second improving ability students think is listening.Giang claimed, Listening can be improved as well.Ngoc spoke English to me; I listened and was able to give her some responses. I can understand some English now if I pay attention to the person who speaks English now. Its good! In summary,both quantitative and qualitative data present certain results toward Research Question One, what is the value of the English speaking proficiency improvement of Thuan Chau Junior High School eighth graders after they attended the role -play course.

Tables 4.2.1, 4.2.2, 4.2.3, 4.2.6, 4.2.7, 4.2.8 all show significantly. Furthermore, students gave highly positive responses after attending the role -play course. Therefore, Hypothesis One, there is no improvement in Thuan Chau Junior High School eighth graders English speaking proficiency after they attended the role -play course, can be refused. Research Question 2 What is Thuan Chau Junior High School tenth graders attitudes/motivation toward the role-play course? Table 4.1.1 presents the significance of students attitudes/motivation toward role-play before and after the experiment.The t test shows a significant value at p value at<.05 (p=.000). It means that students have positive attitudes/motivation toward this teaching method. This positive attitudes/motivation toward role-play could also be found from the interview data.When asked if they enjoyed role-play, most students gave positive responses. Huyen, Ha, Quy and Hung said they all liked this teaching method. The role-play teaching method is livelier than the traditional teaching method, said Huyen.Others said, It will result in less pressure in class if a teacher uses this teaching method; also, students are willing to talk more in class. Most of the students held assured attitudes to the role-play teaching method. When asked if they hoped teachers could keep using this teaching method or if they liked learning through role-play, most students showed positive attitudes toward role-play. They also pointed out role-play was more vivid than the traditional teaching method. Huyen said, I like it, because this teaching activity can increase my confidence in English.It is more vivid than the previous teaching way. Furthermore, the students reacted positively when told about the possibility of using the method of role-play in future classes.It is assumed that this positive energy would be accompanied by a higher motivation to acquire language through the role-play method. Huyen continued to claim that our original English classes are more oppressive and boring, but role-play causes less pressure. . Another participant, Ha, also pointed out how he liked role -play. I do not need to sit listening to the teacher only. I like this teaching method. During the interview, not only Huyen and Ha showed positive responses toward role -play, but also the other six students presented affirmative manner toward role -play. The students expressed a high motivation and eager attitudes toward learning English when asked about the introduction of the role-play method. Ha, one of the participants pointed out how he liked role-play and how role-play increased his motivation of learning English. I really like this kind of teaching method.This is very fun.I will not feel sleepy in class. It makes me want to study English again. I not only want to study, but also like to study. Moreover, Hung said she would be Ngocful if teachers could use role-play as one of the teaching methods, and she was no longer afraid of English. Role-play can build up my confidence when I perform in front of my classmates.It helps me strengthen my confidence and I feel I am not afraid of English anymore, she said. Besides, according to the researchers observation, students positive feedback can be seen during the role -play course.When students were asked to make preparations before class, some of them showed antipathy. They felt to do it in advance caused trouble because they did not have the chance to experience the role-play course before. The researcher was very aware of students feeling.Therefore, students learning goal and preparations were led by the researcher every time after the class.During the experiment, students improvement could be seen obviously.Their reactions first were resistant, and then became acceptable. At last, students enjoyed the role-play course.Students even asked their homeroom teacher to change an English teacher because they had lots of fun during the role -play course. In summary, students showed positive attitudes/motivation toward role-play by both quantitative and qualitative data. A significant value shows at Table 4.1.1 and students responses are all affirmative if role-play would be the teaching method in their English class.

Therefore, Hypothesis Two , Thuan Chau Junior High School eighth graders have negative attitudes/motivation toward the role-play course, is rejected. Research Question 3 Do Thuan Chau Junior High School tenth graders overcome their shyness significantly? When speaking English on stage after attending the role-play course? Tables 4.1.2, 4.1.6, 4.1.7, 4.1.8 and 4.2.5 show the relationship between role-play and students overcoming shyness. The t test of Table 4.1.2, comparing how students feel shy while performing in front of their classmates, shows a significant value at p value <.05 (p=.000).That is, the shyness of students decreased after experiencing role-play. The t test of Table 4.1.6 presents a significant value at p value <.05 (p=.011). Table 4.1.6 is to show how confident students feel of their English ability.Students might not have much confidence at the first time when they tried to speak English, but their confidence of English was increased after the use of role-play for a period of time. Table 4.1.7 points out a significant value at p value <.05 (p=.001), which shows how calm and peaceful students could be.The table claims role -play has a positive influence. Additionally, Table 4.1.8 displays how students felt while speaking English in public. The table gives an assured result which shows a significant value at p value <.05 (p=.003). In this case, students felt more and more relaxed while experiencing role-play again and again. They might feel more comfortable to perform in public. Table 4.2.5 reveals a significant value at p value <.05 (p=.000). This table, concerning how anxious students felt, was done by the researcher during the oral tests. In comparison with the two oral tests, students anxiety seemed to decrease. No matter whether they were more familiar with the researcher, they felt free to talk what they wanted to discuss. On the other side, interview data also show significant result as to Research Question Three.When asked if the preparation was a big pressure for students, most of them felt stressful at first.After previewing some times, they were used to it and had more confidence in themselves.They even think to study beforehand is important for their learning now. Giang said, The preparation was a big burden for me at first.My English is not good.I cannot study it at home without teachers instruction. However, after preparing for it for several times, I started to feel that preview is really important. Furthermore, I prepared in advance so I dare to speak in English on the stage. Quy also pointed out the importance of previewing. It is not a big stress for her and it is useful to overcome her shyness. I know to preview is good for our study, but it is hard to put it into practice every time. Somehow, I must study in anticipation this time because I want to have good performance in front of my classmates. After previewing several times, I found out it is not very hard and a big pressure. It just depends on my will to do it or not. And I have more confident in myself. Quy claimed. Students improving situation can also be seen by the researchers observation. Before the researcher asked students to perform on the stage, she would give three minutes for students to have more practice. When it came to the performance, the researcher would always ask for volunteers first. If there are no volunteers, then they had to present the dialogues in order.There was not any volunteer in the first few times, but when students were used to the role -play teaching method, some active students would like to try to act first, especially when the dialogues were interesting and easy to bring talent into full play. Furthermore, those active students would invite their good friends, who might be shier, to act the dialogues together. During the performances, they tried to act the dialogues lively and funny.When other students were influenced by the joyous atmosphere; they would also try

to act their dialogues amusingly. The improvement is increased gradually, but the researcher could see that the role-play teaching activity did offer students a more interesting way to learn English. Therefore, according to those five tables, interview data and the researcher s observation, Hypothesis Three, Thuan Chau Junior High School eighth graders do not overcome their shyness significantly when speaking English on stage after attending the role-play course, is rejected. Pedagogical implications The finding of this study may offer three practical implications for English teachers in Vietnam to help students develop speaking ability.The first implication for an English teacher to help students is to apply a communicative teaching technique in English classes, such as role-play.The second implication is to affect students learning attitudes/motivation positively by lively activities.The last implication is to provide a harmless environment with tender discipline in the class. Teachers correction should also be gentle. English teaching in Vietnam should try to add livelier and interesting communicative teaching methods in class. Since the Ministry of Education and Training has regarded communicative ability as an important element in English curriculums, communicative language teaching should be the basic teaching method.In this study, it is recommendable that role-play should merge into the traditional English teaching. Haas claimed engage students in activities in which they must think critically, and provide opportunities for students to use the target language in meaningful contexts and in new and complex ways. (Haas, 2000, p.1). Role -play forces students to think while they are performing, and also offers students a chance to speak L2. Additionally, their textbook is not only the meaningful object to learn English, but also the content they will have to study to pass the BCT. The other aspects are provided by Kitao.He pointed out communicative language tests are intended to be a measure of how the testees are able to use language in real life situations (Kitao, 1996, p.1).This idea also connects to role-play, which attempts to give students a real conversation environment to use L2 very naturally. Kitao further explained the notion of a real life conversation: In real life, the different skills are not often used entirely in isolation. Students in a class may listen to a lecture, but they later need to use information from the lecture in a paper.In taking part in a group discussion, they need to use both listening and speaking skills (Kitao, 1996, p.2).Role-play is one of the communicative teaching methods; it helps students strengthen the communicative ability while learning it.Students learning attitudes/motivation could be improving easily through attractive and fun teaching activities. To meliorate students learning attitudes/motivation, Galloway directed students attitudes/motivation to learn comes from their desire to communicate in meaningful ways about meaningful topics (Galloway, 1993, p.3). Furthermore, the other aspect that role-play can improve students learning attitudes/motivation was provided by Livingstone, who said role-play promotes interaction in the classroom and peer learning, which increases motivation (Livingstone, 1983, p.23). This is to say, if students can more readily share their ideas and think in a meaningful way, they will tend to perform more freely. Those results are because of the lack of anxiety and the positive effect of attitudes/motivation. The fact that students are willing to share their thinking and brave to act means that they have decreased their anxiety or shyness and improved their learning attitudes/motivation. The interesting communicative teaching method should be provided in a safe and harmless learning environment. Finally, most teachers in Vietnam tend to correct students in a harsh way and teachers seldom provide a safe environment for students to talk freely in class. Marvin suggested to learn by doing in a safe environment (2002, p.209). He further explained that classrooms that utilize role-play tend to create environments that are less anxious and fearful (2002, p.211).Therefore, if a junior high school teacher tries to offer a safer environment for students to act in class, students may not be afraid to learn a L2. Furthermore, their English

speaking ability may be progressed, their attitudes/motivation may be raised, and their may be decreased. Limitations of this study

shyness

Two limitations in this study may influence the outcome of the study. The main limitation in this study is time limitation which could be divided into three parts. The first part was that their school schedule could not be influenced because of the tight teaching schedule. There were only two periods of classes for a week for students to practice English speaking ability.The outcome of students improvement could not be seen clearly. The second part was the one -month duration of the experiment.The experiment had to start in October and end before December because of the monthly exams the students had.The researcher had to promise those two exams would not be influenced. Therefore, the one-month experiment is too short for speaking ability training.The third part was that students did not have extra time to do more interviews, so it was hard to ask deeper questions in the interviews. The second limitation is the lack of sufficient recording equipment and a quiet environment.The equipment used in this research included a digital camera and a digital recorder which was an mp3.The pre-oral test, post-oral test, and interviews took place during the break time in another classroom. Therefore, it was during the break time that the students and the researcher who took part in the tests and interviews were interfered because there were students talking, playing, and passing in front of the classroom All of these interferences did have negative influences on students responses, the quality of recording, and the researcher s transcription. Suggestions for further research In order to get a more reliable and complete result, further study can be done with the cooperation of the involved students English teacher. There are two advantages to work with the English teacher. The English teacher might help the researcher understand every students English level in a short time. Additionally, it would be better to have two instructors to judge students during the oral tests and performances. Besides role-play, the researcher would like to add some other activities to class and think of some interesting topics for students to act in role-play. On the one hand, it would be boring if the whole period of class was preceding in the role-play teaching activity only, so to add some other activities may help students concentrate in class more effectively.On the other hand, the dialogues in students textbooks were still uninteresting for them.Students already had those contents in their regular English classes.It would affect students attitudes/motivation positively if there were more interesting topics for students to discuss and act. Last but not least, future research may videotape the whole process of the experiment which includes the oral tests, interviews and performances.Studentsgestures, facial expressions or body languages could serve as the sources to interpret their intentions as well. Some non-verbal languages could appear unexpected, so those expressions are also important for descriptive data. Conclusion There are two aspects for conclusion. First, the benefits of role -play are not limited to students. Role-play forces the researcher to think critically and gets involved into the whole process actively. Therefore, role -play could bring the good to both teachers and students in a productive learning environment. Second, there are thousands of ways for English teachers in Vietnam to help students develop their speaking ability, affect their learning attitudes/motivation positively, and overcome their shyness.English teachers can think of a great deal of different and advantageous teaching methods to incorporate with the lessons and make English speaking ability become an easy part to learn.Moreover, English teachers can stir up students eagerness to speak in English spontaneously. Then, to speak English with great self-confidence will be a possible dream for students in Vietnam to achieve.

REFERENCES Abdullan, I. A., & Elhami, A. A. (1997). Role-Playing for Inhibited Students in PaternalCommunities. Forum, 35(3 ), 43-47. Brophy, J. (1996). Working with Shy or Withdrawn Students. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 402070) Brophy, J., & McCaslin, M. (1992). Teachers Reports of How They Perceive and Cope with Problem Students. The Elementary School Journal, 93 (1), 3-68. Huyen, R., & McCarthy, M. (1995). Grammar and Spoken Language. Applied Linguistics, 16 (2), 141- 158. Adian Doff, L. M. (2002). Washback of a Public Exam on English Teaching. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 472167) Deci, E. L. (1975). Intrinsic Motivation. New York: Plenum. Dornyei, Z. (1996). Moving Language Learning Motivation to a Larger Platform for Theory and Practice. In R. Oxford. (Ed.) Language learning motivation: Pathways to the new century (pp. 71-80). Honolulu: University of Hawaii, Second Language Teaching & Curriculum Center. Dornyei, Z. (2001). Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Downing, A. (1994). Paper Presented at the Conference of the Australian Teacher Education Association (24th Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, July 3- 6, 1994). (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 377159) Galloway, A. (1993). Communicative Language Teaching: An Introduction and Sample Activities. Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics Washington DC. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 357642) Gillian, P. L. (2002). Role Play. Oxford University Press. Haas, M. (2000). Thematic, Communicative Language Teaching in the K-8 Classroom. Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics Washington DC. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 444380) Joyce, B., & Weli, M. (1986). Models of Teaching, 3rd Edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon,239-257. Kitao, S. K., & Kitao, K. (1996). Testing Communicative Competence. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 398260) Kunze, J. P. (1991). A Tractor or an Automobile? A 1920 Farm Family Faces a Decision. OAH Maganize of History, 5(3), 36-38. Lacina, G., & Lorna J., & Kher, N., & Besant, K. (2002). Preservice Teachers Knowledge of Effective Classroom Management Strategies: Shy or Withdrawn Students. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 465748) Laura, M. (2003). English through Drama for Oral Skills Development . ELT Journal, 52(7),122-129. Oxford University Press. Leary, M. R. (1986). Affective and Behavioral Components of Shyness: Implications for Theory, Measurement, and Research. In Jones, W; H., Cheek, J. M., & Briggs, S. R. (Eds.), Shyness: Perspectives on research and treatment (pp. 27-38). New York: Plenum. Lin, H. P. (1995). A New English Teaching Design for Adult Vietnamese Learners. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 385119) Livingstone, G. P. (1983). Role-play in Learning Language. London: Longman. Marvin, C. (2002). The Use of Role-Play in Teaching Evaluation. Alkin and Christie

American Journal of Evaluation, 23(2), 209-218. Maxwell, C. (1997). Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Japan Association of Languages Teachers (23rdHamamatsu Japan, October 9-12, 1997). (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 416688) Miller, G.R. (1990). Teaching Interpersonal and Small Group Communication. In J. A. Day, G.W. Friedrich, & A.L. Vangelisti (Eds.) Teaching communication Theory, research, and methods (pp. 77-92). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Oller, J.W. (1977). Attitudes Variables in Second Language Acquisition. New York: Plenum. Ray, N. L. (1992). Motivation in Education. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 349298)

Salies, T. G. (1995). Teaching Language Realistically: Role play is the Thing. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 424753) Scarcella, R. C., & Oxford, R. (1992). The Tapestry of Language Learning. Boston: Heinle & Heinle. Seliger, H. (1977 ). Does Practice Make Perfect? A Study of Interaction Patterns and L2 Competence. Language Learning, 27, 263-78. Shaftel, F., & Shaftel, G. (1967). Role Playing for Social Values: Decision Making in the Social Studies. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Witt, D. E. (1995). Role-Playing Strategies for Instruction and Assessment. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 383172) Chu Quang Binh, B. (1993). Role Playing in Foreign Language Teaching: An Application in an Elementary Vietnamese Class. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 3369289)

APPENDIX B

Lesson Plan for Role-Play

Subject English Unit Students Teacher
Visual aids no

Class

206

Have you ever been to New York? 10th, 11th, 12th graders

Amount 32 Location Classroom 206 Time 100 minutes

Testing The performance of students English speaking ability by role-play Teaching Methods Teaching Goal Teaching Activities Before preparation, Divided students into groups, 2-3 students a group. It depends on the dialogue every week. I. Preparation A. Teachers 1. Ask student to and act it out by role-play in class. 2. Bring timer. 3. Lots for drawing order. 4. Evaluation form for each group and students to evaluate their classmates. D. When the performance finish, teacher point out the weakness of students speaking ability, and ask them to correct next time. C. Unless break time, the role-play will be continued until all groups finish. 5 Teacher has the evaluation form of role-play Prepares the machine and record the role-play B. After drawing lots, it starts the role-play for this week. (Group performance team A. Draw the order for todays role-play Time Method Visual aids Testing Memo The group members will be changed every week. Role-play

prepare the dialogue by team.)

Teaching Activities B. Students 1. Prepare the dialogue and act it out in class. 2. Memorize the whole dialogue. 3. Bring the materials they need in role-play. II. Warm up E. Ask every group to hand in their evaluation form.

Time Method Visual aids Testing for five minutes

Memo

Each group

Classmates also evaluate their classmates performance

APPENDIX C

Information Letter for the Study

Email: doctor_ofdeath@yahoo.com Mobile: 0912702655

79

Student Consent Form for the Study

AP PE N DI X D
80

81

AP PE N DI X E

Parental Consent Form for the Study

APPENDIX F

Evaluation Form for Role-Play (Teacher) Student: ___________________ Observer: ______________________ Date: _____________ Time: _____________

1=strongly agree 2 =agree 3=No comment 4=disagree 5= strongly disagree

1. The pronunciation is very clear. 2. Student uses materials appropriately. 3. Student speaks naturally. 4. Student memorizes the content of dialogue. 5. Student is very nervous. 6. Student seems interested in the dialogue. 7. Student smiles very often. 8. Students body language is good. 9. Student feels shy. 10. Student performs great.

Overall Comments:

APPENDIX G

R le-P o lay

2. The usage rate of new vocabulary 3. The accuracy of grammar usage 4. Listening ability 5. Students anxiety 6. The ability to express him/herself 7. The accuracy of pronunciation 8. The accuracy of tense usage 9. Pausing while being interviewed 10. Running out of ideas during the interview Reflection and comment:

Teacher: ______________

Date: ______________

APPENDIX I

Pre and Post Oral Test Questions

Pre oral test 1. What is your English name? 2. How old are you? 3. Do you like English? 4. What is your favorite subject? 5. Why? Post oral test 1. What is your English name? 2. How old are you? 3. Do you like Christmas? 4. When is Christmas? 5. What Christmas present do you want to get?

APPENDIX J

Interview Questions