论文总字数：34872字

摘 要

角色扮演活动是交际法中一种典型的课堂活动形式。在初中英语课堂中有效运用角色扮演活动能够使教学内容趣味化，并营造活跃的课堂氛围，从而激发学生的学习兴趣，提高学生的口语交际能力。本文首先列举了角色扮演活动在英语课堂教学中存在的问题，然后从四个方面阐述如何设计一个合理有效的角色扮演活动：制定教学目标、创设情境、输入语言知识和制作角色卡片。本文的重点在于结合具体案例从准备、表演和后续三个阶段探讨角色扮演活动在英语课堂教学中如何实施：在准备阶段，教师给学生分组、分配角色以及让学生操练对话；在表演阶段，教师先安排观察员和进行示范表演，然后挑选学生上台表演；在后续阶段，师生共同对表演者进行纠错与评价。研究角色扮演活动及其如何设计与实施可以促进英语教师对教学的深入理解，提高英语课堂教学效率，也可以提升中学生的课堂参与性和自主学习能力。

关键词：角色扮演活动；英语课堂教学；设计与实施

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

3. Role-play in English Classes 2

3.1 Theoretical Foundation of Role-play in English Classes 2

3.2 Definition and Classification of Role-play in English Classes 3

4. Problems of Role-play in English Classes 4

5. Design of Role-play in English Classes 5

5.1 Formulating Teaching Objectives 6

5.2 Creating a Situation 6

5.3 Providing Language Points 7

5.4 Making Role Cards 7

6. Implementation of Role-play in English Classes 9

6.1 Preparing Stage 9

6.2 Performing Stage 10

6.3 Follow-up Stage 12

7. Conclusion 15

Works Cited 16

1. Introduction

The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is an approach used in foreign or second language teaching and emphasizes communicative competence as the objective of language learning. CLT has been warmly welcomed by many researchers and teachers since it was introduced into China in the early 1980s.

Role-play, one typical activity in CLT, refers to a classroom activity in which the teachers set situation and assign roles to get the students make utterance in a certain role and a certain situation. Compared with other classroom activities, role-play can set a relaxed and delightful atmosphere to stimulate students’ learning motivation, cultivate their language skills, enhance their knowledge acquisition and increase their interests in learning English and interpersonal relationships. So, it is acknowledged by many researchers and teachers as an effective way to enhance the students’ communicative competence in English.

What’s more, the Oxford English textbook of junior high school contains a great deal of materials suitable for role-play in every unit, such as comic strip, dialogues and topics. In addition, although the junior high school students are weak in grammar and vocabulary, they are active in thinking, good at imitating and keen on self-expressing. They like new and vivid things. Role-play is coinciding with the characteristics of the students because it creates specific real language situation to make English class vivid and full of interest and joy, to arouse learning interest of the students, and finally to instruct them to associate the language with lively situation. Therefore, in recent years, role-play has been widely used in English teaching and favored by many teachers and students.

However, in the process of applying role-play to English classroom teaching in junior high school, there have been many problems. Based on making a deep exploration on the problems of role-play in junior high school, this paper aims to discuss how to design a proper and effective role-play activity and implement it successfully, making it adapt to English classroom teaching in junior high school.

2. Literature Review

Role-play has gained great popularity and drawn much attention from the researchers and teachers homes and abroad for a long time. Different researchers have carried out studies on the application of role-play in English teaching from different angles.

In China, Li Xiaoyan, in her paper The Applied Study of Role-play in Classroom Teaching of English in China, stated the definition and classification of role-play, and the procedures of implementing role-play in English classes (Li Xiaoyan, 2012: 18). Wang Yin concluded some problems in the process of applying role-play to real English class in junior high school through long-term research (Wang Yin, 2013: 32).

Other researchers, such as Cai Min, Li Xuemei, Ma Xiaofang and Wu Haiying, also did researches on the application of role-play in English classroom teaching.

What’s more, there are many researchers abroad who have been showing great interest in studying role-play.

Livingstone has elaborated three major advantages of role-play in English teaching classroom: (1) (Role-play can) maximize student activity; (2) (Role-play can) prevent discipline problems by ensuring that classroom material is relevant and interesting; (3) (Role-play can) be accessible to students of different ability levels (Livingstone, 1983: 25). Brown illustrated the conduction of role-play in English class. He argued that role-play involves “giving a role to one or more members of a group and assigning an objective or purpose that participants must accomplish” (Brown, 2002: 183).

In fact, compared with the studies on the theories of role-play, the studies of role-play in real practice are comparatively few. In this paper, based on making a deep exploration on the problems of role-play in real practice, this author aims to discuss how to design a proper and effective role-play activity suitable for students in junior high school and implement it successfully in real English classroom teaching.

3. Role-play in English Classes

3.1 Theoretical Foundation of Role-play in English Classes

Role-play is generally characterized as a classroom activity to approximate “real life” experiences in certain settings. The studies on its theory and practice show that Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is the direct theoretical foundation of role-play.

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is an approach used in foreign or second language teaching, and emphasizes communicative competence as the objective of language learning. That is, CLT aims to cultivate the learners’ communicative capability or communicative skill. And it is agreed that the learners’ communicative competence is acquired through a series of communicative activities. According to Harmer, communicative activities mean “getting students to actually do things in language, and it is the ‘doing’ that should form the main focus of such sessions” (Harmer, 2001: 151). In another word, communicative activities are activities that motivate students to use the language they are learning in the real world.

As far as the classification of CLT activities, different scholars have different criteria. But Littlewood’s classification gains more recognition because it is terse and concise, and it is in accord with the tasks of language teaching. In his view, role-play is one typical communicative activity adopted in CLT for it can set up a more authentic communicative situation and interpersonal relationship, in which the students are able to use target language to exchange ideas with each other and thus to improve their communicative competence.

3.2 Definition and Classification of Role-play in English Classes

Role-play is a kind of effective teaching activity which can be applied with almost all the students of different ages and with different levels. This part tries to give an introduction of its definition and classification.

Different researchers give role-play different definitions based on their own researches. But the widely recognized definition is Ladousse’s. According to him, role-play is “one of a whole gamut of communicative techniques which develops fluency in language students, which promotes interaction in the classroom, and which increases motivation” (Ladousse, 1987: 7). He also presents that role-play might be the most flexible skill in the range of communicative activities, and teachers can fulfill an infinite variety of needs by conducting suitable and effective role-play activities.

As to the classification of role-play, it also varies from different researchers. The classification of role-play approved highly is the one made by Luo Yongqin with controllability consideration. As far as he is concerned, role-play can be classified into the following four types: 1) Controlled role playing; 2) Half-controlled role playing; 3) Half-free role playing; 4) Free role playing. But in the real English teaching in junior high school, half-controlled role-play and half-free role-play are often adopted. Teachers’ control is comparatively less in a half-controlled role-play activity: one role is given detailed cues and requirements while the other one is given sketchy cues and requirements. The former starts the dialogue and the latter makes responses accordingly. In a half-free role-play activity, students are required to communicate with each other using prescribed English knowledge to fulfill a learning task in a certain situation while language forms are not prescribed. This kind of role-play requires initiative from the roles as well as an overall capacity including verbal and non-verbal abilities.

4. Problems of Role-play in English Classes

Role-play is the most favorable classroom activity adopted by English teachers. However, there have been many problems in the process of applying role-play to English classes in junior high school. Based on many researchers’ studies on the problems of role-play in real English teaching practice, this paper lists some main problems.

4.1 Big Class Size

The large number of students in one class in junior high school makes it impossible for teachers to take care of everyone. The noise and chaos produced by a class of over 50 makes it also difficult for teachers to organize and carry out a role-play activity smoothly. What’s worse, because of the large-scale class, role play can be performed by a few students, making others silent or having no opportunity to express their ideas so that they lose interest in taking part in the activity.

4.2 Limited Time

In junior high school, an English lesson usually lasts 40-45 minutes, and the time used in role-play is limited, about 10-15 minutes. But students have to learn a lot to pass exams, such as language points, sentence structures and grammar rules. As a result, in order to save time, some teachers make no any preparation for role-play and just ask 2 or 3 pairs of students to read the dialogue in front of the class.

4.3 Inactive Participation

Many students are not active at all and keep silent in role-play. Some of them are used to the habit of accepting whatever comes into their mind from the teacher; some of them are perhaps too shy to speak because of being afraid of being laughed at for their mistakes; some students talk nuances or some tiring things and pay no attention to the performance.

4.4 Wrong Linguistic Expressions

Students resort too often to their mother tongue among themselves whenever they have any comprehension barrier. Accurate forms are usually ignored when students concentrate too much on the content of the activity. Wrong linguistic forms and expressions will be reinforced in the activity if the teacher pays no attention to it.

5. Design of Role-play in English Classes

Since the above problems lie in the application of role-play in real practice, the solutions are to design a proper and effective role-play activity and implement it better in real English classes. Here, the author cites a case ---- Speak up: I want some history books ---- from Unit4 A good read in Fun with English 8B to illustrate how to design a role-play activity suitable for English classes in junior high school. The following is the text:

Speak up: I want some history books.

Daniel is talking to Mrs Li, the school librarian. Work in pairs and take turns to borrow books from a library.

Daniel: Excuse me, I want some history books, but I don’t know where to find them.

Mrs Li: Don’t worry. You can search for information on the computer here.

Daniel: Thank you. How many books can I borrow at a time?

Mrs Li: You can borrow one Chinese book and one English book.

Daniel: I see. How long can I keep the books?

Mrs Li: For two weeks. You must return them on time.

Daniel: Could you tell me how to renew them?

Mrs Li: You don’t have to come to come to our desk every time. Just renew them on line.

Daniel: OK. Thanks for your help.

Mrs Li: You’re welcome.

5.1 Formulating Teaching Objectives

No teaching activities are carried out without an objective. Therefore, teachers need to formulate a clear and definite teaching objective according to the teaching contents, teaching tasks and students’ actual language level when they design a role-play activity. There are two teaching objectives in role-play: the macroscopical teaching objective and the specific teaching objective.

The macroscopical teaching objective is to develop students’ ability of using English to communicate with others masterly in real life.

The specific teaching objective is to learn and acquire language knowledge and language skills of every unit. Although the role-play lay more emphasis on developing students’ communicative competence, it doesn’t mean neglecting the grasp of language knowledge. Students are required to do role-play activities on the basis of a certain amount of language input, and finally to consolidate their new acquired knowledge and skills and improve their ability of using English in the implementation of role-play activities.

In the role-play of “I want some history books”, the teaching objectives are to learn and acquire some language knowledge and language skills related to borrow books from a library, and to use learned knowledge and skills to have a conversation with the school librarian on the basis of a certain amount of language input.

5.2 Creating a Situation

Creating a situation is to let students have a sense of authenticity, connect the language knowledge they used with certain specific situation in real life, and perform role-play activities well. So the situation should be practical and based on daily communication.

In the role-play of “I want some history books”, the situation is the school library. It is impossible for teachers and students to perform it in the school library. As a result, in order to create a situation as real as possible in English classes, teachers should take an advantage of the resources they have. For example, teachers can use a spare desk as the librarian’s office desk, and put a laptop on the desk. In addition, teachers can put two bookshelves against the wall in front of the class. Furthermore, the teacher can show some pictures of the school library to students by using multi-media to create an atmosphere of borrowing books.

In brief, role-play is impromptu and usually lasts 10 or 15 minutes in real English classes. Teachers should try their best to create a situation close to daily life, which will make students feel real and let them perform role-play well.

5.3 Providing Language Points

In order to perform role-play activities successfully in English classes, some language points are needed to be provided before carrying out it. It is wise for teachers to provide the students with necessary language input and to help them take in new knowledge, which can enable the students to make language output efficiently in acting.

Language points refer to some new and key words, phrases and sentences that students will use in role-play activities. In the role-play of “I want some history books”, language knowledge is related to borrow some history books from the school library, for example:

Words: borrow, library card, history books and renew;

Phrases: at a time, search for information on the computer, return books on time and renew books on line;

Sentences: I don’t know where to find them. How many books can I borrow at a time? How long can I keep the books? Could you tell me how to renew them?

In fact, teachers can provide language points to students by asking some relevant questions, for instance, “What do you must bring to borrow books from the school library?”, “How can you find the books you want?”, and “Do you know how to renew books?” etc. Students get needed language points by using the knowledge they have learned or their experiences of borrowing books to answer these questions, which can encourage them to think and stimulate their learning interest. What’s more, teachers should write them on the blackboard to help students in real practice.

剩余内容已隐藏，请支付后下载全文，论文总字数：34872字