Are role plays effective to develop students' speech?

Abstract

Since long time ago, many native Spanish speakers have immigrated to other countries in order to find a better job or just find a job. Some of them get the job and others do not. This is not because they are not qualified in the specific field but their English speaking level. Spanish people are known as those who have a high level in writing, reading and listening but not in speaking. The problem comes to the methods taught in the schools. For that reason, this research is about Task-Based Language Teaching and Communicative approach in order to develop the speaking skill to see how learners respond through using role-plays activities. The investigation was carried out by analyzing the data taken from records, in which the participants were recording doing the three role-play sessions. Thus, the data was evaluated according to different points related to the content (originality, grammar and vocabulary) and speaking (pronunciation, fluency, communicability, interaction and voice), both are necessary to develop the speaking skill. The results were established to see the students‟ evolution through three different sessions. Moreover, the results show what points are most developed and which ones are the hardest to develop by the students. Finally, a brief advice to the ELT field is provided in order to produce more speaking activities in the English lessons.