Bobrovnyk S.M.

NTUU “Kiev Polytechnic Institute”, Ukraine

ROLE-PLAYING GAME IN TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES

In modern pedagogics, role-playing game is considered as a specific kind of human activity, aimed at the reflection of reality, in particular, the work of people, their life and social relations.  The nature and content of the role-playing game are social by nature and are determined by specific cultural and socio-economic conditions of life. Role-playing game as a foreign language teaching method is focused on the reflection of reality and reproduction of social and cultural relations in another language. It is particularly organized activity that requires mental and emotional forces. It always involves a decision - what to do, what to say. The desire to address these issues aggravates mental activity of participants in the game. In this kind of activity rich training opportunities are hidden. That means the game is the development of cognitive sphere of people: perception, memory, creative thinking, language development and formation of speech skills, because mastering the language skills of a foreign language is similar to the mastering of language skills of native language. On the basis of the role-playing game a new activity - teaching begins to develop. The game, first of all, has lots of fun. The sense of equality, passion and atmosphere of joy, a sense of easiness of the task, all this gives the learners an opportunity to overcome shyness, that hampers to use new words of the foreign language in speech freely.

Role-playing game is believed as self-expression of a person, a way of his or her self-development, thus implementation of this method in training will be justified for different age groups. Role-play as one of the methods of human activity, complicated and interesting phenomenon that attracts people’s attention of different professions, and undoubtedly, it has a great application in learning of foreign languages. Being an unproductive activity, the game has a motive, which is not in its results, but in the process itself. Motivation plays a great role in educational process, as it promotes the activation of thinking and interest to both the implementation of a specific task and the learning process as a whole. Role-play is a strong motivating method that satisfies the need of the learners in novelty of the studied material and diversity of the exercises. In the process of role-play the consolidation of linguistic phenomena occurs firmly in the memory, and the interest and activity of students are increasing. Role-play is a conditional reproduction of a real practical activity by its participants; it creates conditions of real communication. The effectiveness of training is stipulated primarily by an increase of motivation and interest to the subject. As a model of interpersonal communication, role-playing game is the need for communication which stimulates interest in participating in the dialogue in the foreign language.

A teacher plays the role of a facilitator, spectator, and participant. Learners can need new vocabulary to be 'fed' in by the teacher. The teacher watches the role-play and offers comments and advice at the end. It is sometimes appropriate to get involved and take part in the role-play. Teachers should keep the playing real and relevant trying to keep the roles of the game as real to life as possible. Learners working in the business world may find it easy to role-play a business meetings with colleagues from abroad. Students of technical universities can be given situations at the factory participating in production line or at the conference discussing something with their collegues.

Gillian Porter Ladousse in his book “Role Play” shares his ideas about role-playing game. This book contains stories to read and the tasks as post-reading to paly the situations, e.g. “Imagine you were one of the customers of the pub or a witness of an incident, describe the situations what you saw and act in roles of a policeman or a passer-by, etc.

Mastering the role-playing games in the classroom of a foreign language has a direct "bridge" to the realities of modern life, that is, prepares learners for everyday communication in a foreign language environment.

American psychologist George Gerbert Mid in his book “Mind, Self, and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist” considered a game as a general model of formation that psychologists call “collecting of ego”. A game is a sphere of self-expression, self-determination, self-control, self-realization of a person.

Role games help to create psychological readiness of the learners to speech communication, they make natural necessity of frequent repetition of the learning material, and they train learners to choose the necessary speech patterns. Role-play accurately reconstructs the atmosphere of communication. The participants of the role-play are fixed to a definite role; they are involved in certain relationships in the frame of a concrete situation that is supposed to get involved in various speech reactions, including emotional ones as well. The participants of the role-play have the need to express joy or anger, excitement or disappointment. They have to find the means to express their emotions. Role play activates striving for the contact with each other and the teacher. It creates conditions of equality in speech partnership, ruins traditional barrier between the teacher and the learner. Role play gives an opportunity to speak and, thus, to overcome the barrier of uncertainty. In usual discussion learners-leaders tend to get hold of the initiative, and timid ones prefer to remain silent. In a role play, each learner gets a role and is supposed to be an active partner in speech communication. Due to the games learners acquire the following elements of communication as ability to start a conversation, keep it or interrupt the person who they are talking to if it is necessary at a definite moment or agree with him or her or reject his or her opinion. Learners also develop their listening and speaking skills, their ability to ask questions, etc. Thus, role-playing game is an inherent method in teaching foreign languages.

1. Gillian Porter Ladousse Role Play Oxford University Press. 1987 – 181 p.

2. George Herbert Mead. Mind, Self, and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist. University of Chicago Press. 2009 – 440 p.