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INTRODUCTION AND RATIONALE

A role-play is a short drama or play performed in the
target language without much preparation by two or more
participants. It is meant to simulate real conversation. This
handbook is intended as one solution to make lessons more
communicative. These role-play situations and activities can
be used at any time during an EFL lesson, from the warm-up
to the wrap-up. Role-play in the classroom is very useful
because students must think quickly in English, become
creative assuming different roles, and practice real life
situations in an authentic way. A very important point is that
their language is less restricted. Students can make the
situations more meaningful by using their own personal
experiences in the role-play situation; this makes the role-
play a more powerful learning experience. In addition, role-
playing can also be applied to a lesson to reinforce grammar
structures or vocabulary.

Simply put, role-play is a game in the target language in
which learners act out parts that have been assigned to them in
well-defined situations. There is actually very little difference
between role-play and the guided dialogues. Both differ from
controlled dialogues in that they develop more or less
spontaneously and unpredictably within a conversational frame.
No pre-fabricated conversations are presented for memorization
and no conversation segments are provided as aids. In this sense
both role-play and guided dialogues approximate natural language.
In this handbook as in most teacher training programs role-play is
treated as a separate classroom activity with its own set of
procedures.
Every speech situation consists of speakers, location, and
topic, with purpose or function as an added dimension. While the
speakers, location and topic of a conversation are the normal
framework for general dialogue practice, functions such as
greeting, questioning, and apologizing provide a practically

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