(2)Is students’ oral English proficiency improved through role play teaching? If yes, in what aspects?
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 The Definition of Role Play
There are various definitions of role play proposed by the researchers aboard and at home from different aspects.
For the first time, the word “Role” appears in the drama stage. The word “role” is proposed by Mead to expound personal behavior in the social role in 1934. He points that life is controlled by instinct. If people want to grow up, they should role play, trying to solve the problem in the role play and understand the real life. (Mead, 1934).
From the point of Paulston and Bruder (1976), role play is a kind of practice. In this activity, students get an imaginary role and they perform an impromptu connected to their roles’ characteristics. They highlight the creativity of role play. It seems that it is high-value improvisation but it ignores the process of imitation to free expression. Penny (1996) regards role play as different kinds of activities. In the activities, students image themselves being in some situations outside class and play some roles who aren’t themselves. In this way, students actually use language and behave, which match the situation. In a word, role play is a kind of class communicative activity based on students’ real life with giving imaginary performance. Richard (1998) considers role play as a kind of class activity which is similar to dramatic performance. In this kind of activity, students play different role in a situation and perform the typical event in this kind of situation. Brown (2001) points out, in role play, students imagine they are in a specific situation and imitate the role, and then they use the language to communicate with their partner, which help students get to know how to use the language appropriately.
Some Chinese scholars also presents concepts of role play in their researches. Xiao Weina (2003) states that role play is the group activity through which a specific scene is provided and students are in different groups to play their characters through their language and actions in group. Gao Fan (2004) points out role play is a kind of activity in foreign language class, and he emphasizes the importance of the real language situation. Yan Houming and Dai Jun (2009) point out that in role play, students act the role in simulation scene and perform a series of the role’s behaviors according to these roles’ specific status and the situation. In English teaching, it aims to let the students communicate in English in the play and fully feel the charm of English context. According to Liu Zhiyun and Dong Jingfeng (2011), in role play, many learners communicate and cooperate with the same learning content to achieve a deep understanding and mastery of the teaching content. Liu Zanrong (2012) concludes that in role play, students imitate and experience the roles, and learn these roles’ emotional&nb
