Improving the English Speaking Ability of Sixth Grade Thai Students Using the Role-play Technique

,

English speakers. Wang (2022) reported that Thai students ranked 97 th out of 111 countries in English proficiency and Thailand is the second-to-last country in ASEAN in 2022. This finding could imply that the methods utilized in English classrooms might not be adequate. From the researcher's personal experiences, Thai students lack the knowledge and confidence to communicate effectively in English, especially in speaking skills. Thus, it is essential to set up appropriate activities to employ in class.
Role-playing is one of the teaching methods that is used to develop students' speaking abilities. Many scholars studied and defined role-plays in numerous ways. Crookall and Saunders (1989) defined role-play as "a social or human activity in which participants 'take on' and 'act out' specified 'roles', often within a predefined social framework or situational blueprint (a 'scenario')" (p.15-16). While Aronson and Carlsmith (1968) stated that role-playing is a study where the participant is asked to act as though they were a certain person in a specific circumstance (p. 26). Stern (1983) in a study also shared the similar idea as mentioned that role-plays help individuals to adapt to different situations better (p. 213). It can be seen that some scholars believe that role-plays can help students cope with any situation that might occur. Moreover, role-playing is an activity that can be carried out both as pair and group work (Brown, 2001). This activity is an effective way for students to interact with other students and converse in English.
Role-playing is a communicative method that language learners can use to improve their fluency (Ladousse, 2004). According to Joyce and Weil (2000), role-play is a teaching method that helps students develop their skills through trials and errors. Therefore, the use of role-play activities can produce a fun and suitable environment for learners to enjoy the lesson and further develop their speaking abilities as well as providing more opportunities for them to interact with other students (Rahimy & Safarpour, 2012;Arham et al., 2016;Setiawan, 2019). Bharathy (2013) stated that students that participate in role-playing have improved comprehension, motivation, and confidence. She added that it enables students to empathize with the character they are playing and inspires them to learn how to cope with the unexpected problems that occur and how to solve them. This implied that a pleasant environment will positively affect the students' skills improvement. Krebt (2017) divided role-plays into three main parts, namely pre-role-play, during role-play, and after role-play. In the pre-role-play stage, teachers are required to prepare input to the activity such as frequently used words or idioms as well as explaining the activity for them to prepare in advanced. The second step, which is during role-play, is a step where students are required to write their own dialogues by using the vocabulary provided in the pre-role-play stage without the help of the teacher. During this step, the students will get to experience working with different people both in pairs and in groups. Finally, Krebt (2017) stated that after the role-play is the third step which is the step to give feedback on their performance and reflect on their mistakes for future improvement.
There are several studies about the impact of role-plays. Aliakbari and Jamalvandi (2010) studied the impact of role-plays to develop EFL learners' speaking ability in the task based language teaching (TBLT) approach. The participants in the study were 60 students using the random sampling method. The instrument of the study was the IELTS speaking test. The results revealed that there was a drastic change in the score from the pretest which indicates the positive impact of using this technique. In addition, Shen and Suwanthep (2011) conducted research on the use of e-learning constructive role plays for EFL Learners on 260 Chinese undergraduate students. The participants were randomly chosen and were equally divided into an experimental group and a control group. Several instruments were used in the study, including oral pre and post-tests, an observation list, questionnaires, and interviews. The results found that the use of e-learning constructive role plays has a favorable impact on students' speaking abilities in terms of both language production and quality, and students are generally supportive of its use.
Several researchers conducted a study on the use of role-plays in various aspects according to the Thai context. Naksevee (2015) investigated the effectiveness of non-scripted role-plays in developing students' speaking abilities. Except for English majors, 35 second-year university students from 8 different majors were randomly chosen. The data obtained from the pre-test and post-test found that adopting non-scripted role-plays was successful in enhancing students' speaking abilities, particularly in those with low English proficiency who showed a remarkable improvement in their performances. Similarly, Phuetphon et al. (2012) conducted a study on the use of unscripted role-plays to enhance university students' speaking abilities. The sample of the study was 13 EFL students in their fourth year who enrolled in English for Communication in a compulsory English course. The instruments utilized in this study were pre and post-tests, a speaking observation form, questionnaires and open-ended questions. The results revealed that the post-test mean score improved significantly compared to the pre-test mean score with a difference of 7.92. It indicates that this technique is really effective for EFL learners in improving their speaking abilities. The results further revealed that the students enjoyed the activity and it encouraged them to interact with their peers independently in English.
Considering the desirable results from the previous studies, the use of role-plays can be beneficial for students. In this study, primary school students were the target group of the study instead of undergraduate students. By applying role-playing as the main tool to teach in English class, it was expected to enhance young learners' speaking abilities and boost their confidence in speaking as well as interacting with other people in public. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of the role-play technique on the students' abilities and to explore the students' opinions on the use of the role-play technique in the classroom.
For this study, the following questions were addressed: 1) To what extent does the use of role-plays affect the improvement of the students' speaking skills?
2) What are the students' opinions toward the use of role-play techniques?

Research Design
To answer the research questions, this research was divided into 2 phrases as follows: Phase I 1.1 Reviewing the theories and studies related to the use of role-plays.
1.2 Reviewing the vocabulary and expressions used related to 6 topics: greetings and introductions, ordering food, ordering drinks, shopping, booking a hotel, and interviews.
1.3 Wrote down conversations related to the aforementioned topics and gave them to 3 experts to review the appropriateness of the dialogues.

Phase II
To investigate the effectiveness of the use of role-play in improving students' speaking skills, this study used a pre-experimental design which was carried out in the study only on one experimental group. The role-play technique was applied in the classroom. Due to the small size of the population, this study conducted an experiment on one group using pre and post-tests during a span of 6 weeks.

Participants
The participants in this study were 24 students, who were chosen through the purposive sampling method. The participants were sixth-grade students at a primary school in Namon District, Kalasin Province, Thailand. The school is considered a small size school with a total of 24 sixth graders who were all selected to be the subjects of this study. Due to the small number of students at the school, this study was carried out using one experimental group during a span of 6 weeks. More specifically, the sample was composed of 8 boys and 16 girls aged between 10-11 years old. The research was carried out during the first semester of the 2021/2022 academic year.

Instruments
The instruments of this study were a learning management plan, pre and post-tests, and an opinion questionnaire which were presented to the experts to get the content validity and authenticity validity. The instruments were modified according to the recommendations from the experts.
The instruments utilized in this experiment were shown as follows: 1) The learning management plans used in this study were developed based on 6 topics: greetings and introductions, ordering food, ordering drinks, shopping, booking a hotel, and interviews. There were three main steps in the learning management plan. First, the vocabulary and expressions related to each topic were introduced to the students to increase their knowledge about the topic. Next, the students were paired up and the script, which had been prepared by the teacher, was handed out for the students to practice their assigned role. Lastly, the students performed their roles in front or the class and switched roles with each other. There was a total of 6 plans in the span of 12 hours. All the learning management plans are detailed as follows: Table 1. Learning management plans used in this study.

Greetings and Introductions 2
Ordering food 2 Ordering drinks 2 Shopping 2 Booking a hotel 2 Interviews 2

Total 12 hours
The learning management plan had a reasonable suitability of 4.55 with an Item-Objective Congruence (IOC) of 1.
2) Regarding the pre and post-tests, the same 20 questions were used for the pre-test and post-test in which they have to be answered orally. By using the oral test, the students were assessed on the basis of their speech which is consistent with the learning management plans. There were 4 questions for 'greetings and introductions' and 'ordering food' topic, while the rest of the topics had 3 questions each. The IOC of the item was 1.00. The examples of the questions asked in the test were 'How are you feeling today?' or 'What would you like to eat?' to which the students had to orally give appropriate responses to the questions. After a pilot test with 30 students with similar characteristics, the test was developed accordingly with the discrimination (r) and difficulty (p) were 0.30-1.00 and 0.30-0.90 respectively. The test reliability tested by alpha Cronbach correlation was 0.75.
3) The opinion questionnaire consisted of ten items of closed-ended questions with a five levels rating scale according to Likert's principle and one open-ended question which resulted a consistency index of 1. The questionnaire's items were created in accordance with the study's objectives. A questionnaire is an easy and effective way to see respondents' opinions related to the topic statistically as all the students submit their responses.
To elicit a better understanding of students' opinions toward the use of role-plays in class, one open-ended question was added to the questionnaire. According to Creswell (2015), closed-ended and opened-ended questions should be included in the questionnaire. The question added in the open-ended section was 'What is your opinion toward the use of role-play in an English speaking lesson?'

Data Collection
This study was conducted during the first semester of the academic year 2022. The pre-test was assigned to the students before the first week of the class to assess their speaking ability in each situation. This study adopted Krebt's (2017) three stages of role-play which are pre-role-play, during role-play, and after role-play. Regarding the methodology of the study, the students are required to learn English using role-play techniques where students can work both in pairs and in groups when acting out their roles. Twenty-four sixth graders were the subjects of the study. There were 6 learning management plans during a span of 6 weeks, 2 hours a week. In each plan, the first step was to introduce some frequent used vocabulary, common expressions, and model conversations for each topic during the first hour. For example, a conversation between two classmates greeting each other for the first time in class. After learning the vocabulary and expressions, the students were asked to work in pairs or in groups depending on the conversation prepared by the teacher during the second hour. The students had 10-15 minutes to memorize the scripts and had to act in the assigned role in front of the classroom. After the students finished their performance, they were asked to switch roles with each other to let them experience both roles. Finally, they were asked to reflect on their performances and mistakes as well as how to improve their performance next time.
Following the activities during the week, the post-test that had the same 20 items as the pretest was employed which had to be answered orally. Its goal was to determine whether the role-play approach is helpful in teaching students how to communicate in English.
Finally, an opinion questionnaire was administered after the post-test to explore learners' opinions on their experience of using roleplay in class to improve their speaking skills. The questionnaire consisted of ten items with a 5-point Likert scale and one open-ended question. A questionnaire is an easy and effective way to get respondents' opinions related to the topic statistically as all the students submit their responses.

Data Analysis
The results of the speaking test were analyzed using SPSS statistical software. The descriptive statistics were measured by calculating t-test dependence, and the mean and standard deviation were used to examine the pre-test and post-test. The questionnaire was used to find out the students' attitudes based on five agreement extensions, namely, strongly agree, agree, be uncertain, disagree, and strongly disagree, as proposed in Likert's work (Likert, 1932). The questionnaire was analyzed using mean and standard deviation for the closed-ended questions. Meanwhile, in the open-ended section, the responses were categorized and grouped to produce perception themes.

Results
To answer the research questions, the findings are presented in three main parts: the students' achievements, the students' opinions after using role-playing activities and in-depth perspectives of students' opinions toward the use of roleplay.

Q1:
To what extent does the use of role-play affect the improvement of students' speaking skill?
To answer the aforementioned question, the result of the t-test in the pretest and post-test is presented in the following table. According to the data presented in Table 2, the result revealed that the use of role-plays in the classroom can help students improve their speaking ability. The total score of the test was 20 points, which the mean score in the post-test was significantly improved from the pre-test from 9.38 to 14.79. The result of the t-test mean score indicates a significant difference (t = -28.012, p 0.05).
It can be clearly seen from the overall post-test score, which shows further development in the speaking skills of the students after one semester of role-playing activities.

Q2: What are the students' opinions toward the use of role-play techniques?
To answer the second question, the finding of students' opinions toward the use of role-plays to improve their speaking ability is presented in the following table:  Table 3 shows a positive opinion among the students concerning using role-play to improve their speaking abilities. When considering each aspect, it was found that the highest mean score of the students was "The role-play makes you feel more enjoyable and less stressful" which has the mean score of 4.63. The following aspect that received the second highest mean score of 4.58 is statement 4, "I enjoy working with others during role -play activities." Statement 2 which mentioned that students think they can speak English fluently has the mean score of 4.54 which is the third highest score. Meanwhile, statement 6 which mentions that the role-play helps students understand how to speak English in different situations better, has a mean score of 4.53. The fifth highest mean score of 4.50 is statement 9 which emphasizes how role-play helps students gain confidence. Furthermore, statement 10 received the sixth highest mean score of 4.49 as it emphasizes how role-play helps them with their pronunciation. Statement 1, "My English-speaking ability has improved", and statement 8, "The role-play activity makes students fall in love with English speaking", gained the mean score of 4.46. Moreover, statement 5, which indicates that the teacher empowers the students to independently communicate with other people received the second lowest mean score of 4.38. Lastly, statement 7, which highlighted that the use of role-play fosters creative thinking and creates opportunities for learners to interact with one another, got the lowest mean score of 4.33. Despite the lowest mean score as previously mentioned, the overall mean score was still considered high which demonstrated that the students strongly agree with the idea that role-playing activities allow students to enjoy speaking activities and relax while learning and playing in a realistic setting.

Qualitative Findings
In order to gain a more in-depth perspective of the students toward the use of role-play in class, the students were asked to answer the open-ended question in the questionnaire. Out of 24 students who participated and answered the questionnaire, there were only five students who answered the open-ended question. Their answers to the open-ended question, however, generally align with their answers to the opinion questionnaire that was discussed in the earlier section. Therefore, the findings revealed that the students agree that the use of role-play in class is helpful and enjoyable.
However, there were some responses that agreed that roleplaying was still a challenging approach for them and that they were reluctant to speak in front of the class. Some respondents also share that they felt anxious and nervous at the beginning because they were shy to speak English in public. Some of the students' comments are shown below.
Extract 1 "I felt scared at first because I don't have any confident to speak in front of so many people even if they are my friends" (student 1) "When I first heard the word "roleplay," it made me a little uneasy because I'm not used to speaking English in a long sentence and never act in a role before. (student 3)

"I don't really like to speak English because I don't know many words, so I'm quite nervous when it's my turn to go in front of the class" (student 4)
The respondents also emphasized how the use of role-play helps them overcome their stage fright and nervousness. As mentioned previously, students tend to get tense when they are asked to speak in public due to their lack of confidence and fear of making mistakes in front of other people. In the open-ended section, some respondents stated that they felt less nervous after a few tries and they gained more confidence after they acted out their roles. They further mentioned that it helped them improve their speaking ability and helped them to speak more naturally.
Extract 2 "However, my anxiety level when speaking in front of a crowd is lower after using roleplay. I suppose one needs to experience it directly in order to gain that confidence." (student 3) "I think this activity gives me courage to speak in front of the crowd and I think it also make me less nervous." (student 4) Some of the respondents mentioned that this activity assisted them in memorizing more words and it also felt that they speak clearer.

Extract 3
"Anyway, role-play helps me remember more words because I got to use it in the conversation after I learn it" (student 1) "I got to know how to use some expressions that I never knew through role-play. Also, I feel like I speak more fluently" (student 2) "I also remember more words and I think I speak better" (student 4)

"I think this activity made me speak more naturally because I got to speak with many people and tried many roles. So, I think I know better of what I should say in each situation." (student 5)
Moreover, all of the respondents agreed that the use of role-play in class is fun and enjoyable. Some also added that it differs greatly from learning in the traditional way of only reading the contents from the book and doing some exercises. By doing roleplay, it allowed students to practice utilizing those words or expressions in a conversation and real-world situation. In addition, one respondent stated that there is some drawback in this activity as she found it was difficult to do a roleplay with a student who has low English proficiency. She found that a student like that did not speak much and took a lot of time to remember the dialogue.
Extract 5 "But I don't like it when I pair up with a person who isn't good at English. They usually stutter and really take their time to remember their lines. It was also hard for me to catch what they say sometimes." (student 5)

Discussion
The findings of this study suggest that role-playing activities can assist sixth grade students in improving their speaking ability. This study also showed that the participants were highly satisfied with using role-playing in class. According to the post-test's mean score (14.79), which is 5.41 points higher than the pre-test's mean score of 9.38, there has been a considerable improvement. The result is consistent with several research studies on the use of role-play in class to improve learners speaking ability (Aliakbari & Jamalvandi, 2010;Shen & Suwanthep, 2011;Krebt, 2017;Moreno-Guerrero et al., 2020). In the study on the use of role-play in task-based language teaching (TBLT) by Aliakbari and Jamalvandi (2010), the result revealed that role-play is effective in assisting learners to develop their speaking ability. Similar to the research from Shen and Suwanthep (2011), the findings highlighted the improvement of learners' speaking skills, which was greatly improved following the usage of role-play. In addition, Krebt (2017) studied the effectiveness of using role-play in class for college students in which the outcomes demonstrated that the experimental group's speaking abilities have significantly improved. From the results of this and the previous studies, it can be implied that using role-plays to improve students' speaking skills is effective for students at all levels from primary to college.
Regarding students' perceptions toward the use of role-plays in English classrooms to develop their speaking skills, the study showed a positive result as students were satisfied with this technique. Out of ten items on the questionnaire, the students agreed that role-play makes them feel more enjoyable and less stressful in class which had the highest mean score of 4.63. The results also indicate that role play helps them cope with different situations and learn to cooperate with others better. Moreover, students feel that they can speak more fluently, which has a high mean score of 4.54. The outcome of the questionnaire emphasizes the positive attitude of the students toward using role-plays in teaching speaking skills.
In regards to students' opinions on the application of role-plays to develop speaking skills, the responses in the open-ended section provide a clearer view of their perceptions and feelings after experiencing it in class. The findings presented that students tend to feel nervous and anxious after they learn about the activity. Some respondents shared the same thought that they lack confidence and are afraid to speak in public. However, the respondents further mentioned that they gained more confidence after the activity, and it helped them reduce their anxiety. In addition, all the respondents agreed that role-playing is an enjoyable activity which provides them with the opportunity to work and interact with other students. Some of the respondents noticed that the role-play technique helps them to memorize more vocabulary and have a better understanding of how to use the expressions in different contexts. From all the responses, it clearly showed the benefits of the use of role-play as a teaching method which can also be satisfying for the learners.
However, there is also a weakness in using this method as mentioned by one of the respondents. It is mentioned in the questionnaire that the respondent found it hard to work with some students with low English proficiency as they took time to familiarize themselves with their lines, and it was difficult to catch the words they said. From this response, it can be implied that some students were still struggling during the activity. This outcome is in line with Bharathy's (2013) study that some students are passive listeners which can result in unproductive performances. Despite the drawback of the method, the results in the post-test indicate the improvement of students' speaking achievement. Therefore, role-play can minimize the number of passive learners and encourage them to engage more during the activity which allowed them to develop their speaking skills.

Conclusion
This study explored how using role-plays in class improved the students' speaking abilities. Based on the findings of the study, it can be concluded that the use of role-play is highly effective in helping develop the students' speaking skills. The results of the pre-test and post-test showed a significant difference, and the difference of the pre-test and post-test mean score was 5.41. It clearly revealed the impact of using role-play as a teaching method which had a positive response from the participants. Students who are encouraged to practice their speaking abilities through role-playing grew in confidence and were able to speak more naturally. After exploring the students' perceptions using the opinion questionnaire, it could be found that they had a better understanding of the usage of the expressions and phrases through doing role-plays. Creating a suitable atmosphere in class also motivated them to study English and will enhance their ability to cope with unexpected situations in their daily life. Role-playing is a fun teaching method which allows the learners to take a break from the old and boring traditional teaching methodology.
This study can be beneficial to those who study the effectiveness of role-plays in classrooms. Referring to the outcome of the study, it is highly recommended to use this method in English speaking classes as it is not only providing a fun environment for the students but also enhances their motivation to speak English with their friends. As role-play can help them gain a direct experience of using words and phrases, the teacher should employ this method to a wider range of topics, not limited to everyday conversations, which allows them to gain a variety of experiences.
Regarding the limitations of the study, the problem lay in the applied sampling techniques in which the sample consists of only 24 sixth grade students due to the small size of the targeted school. Therefore, the sample of this study cannot be divided into two groups to further compare between the use of role-play and the traditional way of teaching English. The researchers suggest carrying out research on Thai students with two groups in the future: an experimental group, and a control group. The students should try to write their own dialogue to help improve their creativity and practice their grammatical usage as well.