Welcome to part 1 of the blog posts dedicated to one of my favourite activities to do in a classroom, specially with kids and teenagers: role play. I'm pretty sure most of you already know what role play is about, but for those of you who don't know, buckle up cause we are going for a fun ride today!
When we are children, we always play and pretend like we are other people, or maybe we invent situations or places or even animals! Role playing can be very similar in that sense. Kusnierek (2015) defined RP as a “complete range of communication technique which develops language fluency and promotes student interaction during the class, increasing students’ motivation, encouraging their learning, but also sharing responsibilities between teacher-student”. Role play exercises “are usually short, spontaneous presentations”. (Bonwell & Eison, 1991, p.47).
This pedagogical technique has lots of benefits like motivate students, enhance teaching strategies, provide real-life scenarios to help students learn skills used in real-life situations and provide opportunities for critical observation (Northern Illinois University Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning, 2012).
Role play, as you can imagine, is a great way to work with your students imagination and communication skills. You have endless possibilities of topics when doing a role play and it will always be a good activity to practice with your students.
Next week, we will upload part 2 of this post where we will talk about some guidelines in role playing as well as some examples of it. So stay tuned for that!
References
Kusnierek, A. (2015). Developing students’ speaking skills through role-play. World Scientific News 7.1, 73-111.
Bonwell, C. C., & Eison, J. A. (1991). Active learning: Creating excitement in the classroom. Washington, DC: The George Washington University.
Northern Illinois University Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. (2012). Role playing. In Instructional guide for university faculty and teaching assistants. Retrieved from https://www.niu.edu/citl/resources/guides/instructional-guide
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