Using role plays and simulation activities in teaching speaking

4. Simulation speaking in teaching speaking
Simulations and role-plays are very useful for speaking activities, where the emphasis is on fluency and not so much on accuracy. They can be fun and your students could really grow to like them if you adapt them to their age and level of knowledge.


Firstly, let's refresh our knowledge of the difference between simulations and role-plays. When it comes to simulation students speak and react as themselves, but the group role, situation and task is imaginary. In role-plays, on the other hand, students are given a situation plus problem or task, but they are also allotted individual roles, so they are not acting as themselves, but as though they are someone else. The most important thing for both is that students imagine themselves in a situation outside the classroom and use language appropriate to this new context. You can give your students a variety of roles (profession, status, personality, attitude, mood), variety of physical settings, variety of communicative functions and purposes, which all lead to varied language.

Here you can find descriptions of situations great for starting simulation activities. Let your students prepare a short dialogue, but make sure not to let them read from their notes, they should only help with the preparation. These situations are hilarious if you are just the observer, so they should really have fun.
When it comes to role-plays, the easiest thing to do is to give them different settings, professions, moods and situations, so that they can really act it out. They could be the judges on the X-Factor, who have to tell a person that he/she really sucks at singing, or Angelina and Brad in their home trying to find all their children who are playing hide and seek, or even Barack Obama addressing public after being re-elected president of the USA. Just think outside of the box and keep in mind the aims of your activities. And have fun, of course.
Simulations
The most common view of simulations is that they provide a way of creating a rich communicative environment (a representation of reality) where students actively become a part of some real-world system and function according to predetermined roles as members of that group. More important, however, is the notion that a simulation becomes reality and the "feeling of representivity fades" (Crookall & Oxford, 1990, p. 15), so much so that the world outside the simulation becomes, paradoxically, imaginary (see Black, 1995; Jones, 1982, 1985, 1987; Taylor & Walford, 1978, for a more detailed explanation of the mechanics of simulations).
The innate benefits of simulations include: (a) fulfill students' need for realism---a desire to "relate to life 'out there' beyond the classroom's box-like walls" (McArthur, 1983, p. 101); (b) increase student (and teacher) motivation, especially for those in EFL situations who might see English as a deferred need at best (Jones, 1982; Stern, 1980); (c) dismantle the normal teacher-student relationship so that students take control of their own destiny within the simulation, leading towards "declassrooming" the classroom (Sharrock & Watson, 1985); (d) help the learner confront and identify with the target culture (Oxford & Crookall, 1990); (e) reduce anxiety levels which is essential to language development (Dulay, Burt, & Krashen, 1982; Krashen, 1982); and (f) allow teachers to monitor the participants progress unobtrusively.
Simulations are very similar to role-plays but what makes simulations different than role plays is that they are more elaborate. In simulations, students can bring items to the class to create a realistic environment. For instance, if a student is acting as a singer, she brings a microphone to sing and so on. Role plays and simulations have many advantages. First, since they are entertaining, they motivate the students. Second, as Harmer (1984) suggests, they increase the self-confidence of hesitant students, because in role play and simulation activities, they will have a different role and do not have to speak for themselves, which means they do not have to take the same responsibility.