Applying Role Play to The Integrated Skills of English

In teaching english, it is needed to measure what and how far students have mastered each skill. There are many methods that represent on how to teach english and also many books provide some kinds of  material related to the skill that they will apply in language teaching. However, some teachers get difficult when they have to combine the integrated skills at the same time to measure the students’ abilities mainly for assessment. They may still use one method for each skill, like in teaching listening, they use metacognitive method or in teaching speaking, they use debate and so on. It will be good that the focus on each skill will be more detail, however, it needs more time to access the four skills at the same time. Actually, there is a way that in teaching english, teacher can measure students’ abilities based on one method by using role play. This method is an effective technique to animate the teaching and learning atmosphere, arouse the interests of learners, and make the language acquisition impressive (Feng Liu & Yun Ding 2009). As the main process in teaching consists of three approaches such as presentation, practise, and production, this method will engage the third approach. Role play is an affective method which emphasizes much performance to reach the target languge. Although most teachers think that role play is only applied to measure or improve speaking ability, but it can measure the integrated skills too such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

The first is that in teaching listening and speaking, teacher can apply role play as the method which is more practical. This way, the students’ abilities can be barely exposed. It can be explained that in role play, the actor will act based on the topic that is chosen. Then he talks without reading a script that is read by the narrator. He only uses gestures and explanation orally to make the listeners understand what he wants. Then the listener will try to gain what the speaker is doing, and if the listener can respond the speaker, it means that the listener understands what the speaker says. It is clear that the teacher can measure the students’ abilities based on the conversation that students do in role play. Moreover, the nature of role play is that there is no written dialogue which the students have to memorize. The narrator only reads its script and the speaker will arrange his own words to explain or make a conversation with the partners. Another hand, it can connect the students to the real world, because the speaker makes his own dialogue to explain the listeners that they do not know what the question of the speaker will be about. In a real condition, when someone is going to talk about something, the listener does not know what he plans to talk about, after the speaker finishes talking or asking, the listener will respond automatically based on what the speaker wants. It is impossible that the listener knows what the speaker will talk or ask. It is same as that if the students only memorize the dialogue, it will not be efficient, because the listener has already known what the speaker is going to ask and it has been planned to what the listener will answer. Thus, it can not be measured by the teacher as they just copy the sentences based on the dialogue. Besides it, the real-time nature of spoken language not only affects to the listener but also affects the speaker who must speak in real time (Ochs, 1979). It means that the relationship between listening and speaking are absolutely unplanned, the listener will arrange and construct the words based on his knowledge to respond the speaker. In real time, it is unplanned discourse, both skills are spontaneous and there is no much time to organize or make a plan. So by doing this method, students are hoped that they can practice it in a real world where the target language is flowing naturally and spontaneous in a fluent way.

The second is that the role play can role as in reading skill too. Middle grades students need to read with automaticity, the ability to decode words, recognize word meanings, the meaning of sentences, and the meaning of the text (LaBerg & Samuels 1974). It can be interpret that in role play, one of the students of the group is hoped to narrate the story so that the actors know what to do. After the narrator reads the script, then the actors begin to act. To measure the reading skill based on what they are doing, it is absolutely clear that when the narrator reads the script, the other partners (actors) will try to recognize and understand what the narrator tells. If the they know and understand what to do, so the comprehension of their reading skill is mesured. However, it may seem that the teacher does not know how to measure the narratos’s skill ability. Well, in this case, the teacher can test him by asking some questions before the role play is begun. It purposes to know or judge the ability of his speaking skill. Moreover, by reading aloud, teacher can measure his pronunciation also. So here role play can measure the students’ reading ability through the script of the role play they are practicing.

The last one is writing. People may think that it is impossible to use this method through writing skill. Well, it can be explained that in giving a judgement of writing ability, teacher should consider about the nature of writing itself. In speaking, it may consist of the originality that the spoken language runs automatically (spontaneous). However, in writing, the characteristic is permanent, it means that the text can be read and reread as often as one likes (Brown 1994). They do not need a teacher’s supervision like in practicing speaking. Thus, it is fine that the students arrange their script at home by working together. Then the teacher can ask for the students to copy the script and giving it to him as a writing assessement. The script then can be analyzed based on what to be measured, such as vocabulary, grammar, tenses and so on. In this case, students are hoped to work cohesiveness, because in giving the result, teacher should generalize for each group. Instantly, role play is also able to judge students’ writing skill in english.

It is the example how the teacher should do in applying this method. Firstly, the teacher divides the students into some groups consists of five or six members each group. He then lets the students choose their own topic, it is purposed to make easier the students to master the topic based on their background knowledge. If the teacher chooses his own topic for them, it may effect that students will be difficult to master it while they do not familiar with the given topic. After that, the teacher asks the students to make a script at home and copy it, one for the teacher and another for the narrator. The script does not consist of dialogue, but it is just a plot, like “ A long time ago there was a boy standing alone at the bank of the river and talked to himself why he is upset”. Then, the actor acts as a boy that is talking to himself why he is upset by arranging his own words. But before they start the role play, the teacher asks the narrator about the role play is about, such as the content of the topic, moral value, or characters that they will act. It is to measure the narrator’s speaking ablility because he will not speak naturally in roling the play, another hand he just reads the script. Then, the role play can be started. Teacher observes them and make a list of what should be corrected. After it finishes, the teacher gives a praise and feedback to each group.

By the explanation above, it can be concluded that using role play to teach the integrated skills of english is more beneficial for the teacher to measure students’ competences. The students will enjoy the play as they imagine that they speak in a real world by adapting the environment of the class. The teacher can also measure the skills through their performance and easier to make a judgement based on their abilities.