=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2555/paper25
|storemode=property
|title=Role Play to Develop Oral Production of the English Language in Undergraduate
Engineering Students
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2555/paper25.pdf
|volume=Vol-2555
|authors=Orlando Reyes,Alex Pacheco,Victor Apaestegui
}}
==Role Play to Develop Oral Production of the English Language in Undergraduate
Engineering Students==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2555/paper25.pdf
Role Play to Develop Oral Production of the English
Language in Undergraduate Engineering Students
Alex Abelardo Pacheco Pumaleque 1, Orlando Rubén Reyes Carrasco 2, Víctor
Manuel Apaestegui Villegas 3
1
Universidad Nacional de Cañete
apacheco@undc.edu.pe
2
Universidad Tecnológica del Perú
orlandoreyes2@hotmail.com
3
Universidad Tecnológica del Perú
c16096@utp.edu.pe
Abstract. This research aimed to develop the oral production of the English
language in undergraduate engineering students at a national university. It was
based on the need to improve the teaching of oral language production to
promote oral ability in students. The research is interpretive paradigm
educational. The sample consisted of four teachers and 26 students.
Questionnaires and observation were used to collect data in this study. The
information was processed and analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively, which
allowed the generation of emerging categories. The diagnosis showed that
teachers apply strategies that do not promote oral production in students or are
contextualized. It is concluded that the scientific contribution of research is the
design of the didactic strategy, based on the role play, which will generate a
more interactive, contextualized and reflective teaching-learning process.
Keywords: Didactic strategy, Oral Production, Communicative ability, Role
play
1 Introduction
This Nowadays, spoken English has become a great need for people in the workplace,
academic and personal. The mere fact that Peru has improved its economy makes
large international companies decide to invest in the country and, therefore, English is
required as a free language for different purposes. [1] point out that, English
proficiency is increasingly necessary for business and international communication; in
that sense, it is linked to prospects of economic competitiveness and growth in the
global economy. The national university is a technical professional training institution
that contemplates the English course as part of the academic training it provides to its
students. The objectives of the oral production skills of this course are based on
Copyright c 2019 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons
License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
international standards established by the Common European Framework of
Reference for Foreign Languages (CEFR).
Due to the importance of the course, lately, it has been observed that the oral
production skill is not being adequately worked by the teacher in the teaching-
learning process, because the students do not show up to the standards when asked to
hold a Natural conversation in English in different social contexts. In this regard, [2]
in a research on the improvement of oral ability, affirm that speaking a second
language is important for the development of humanity in different areas; as political,
economic, social and cultural. Nowadays it is essential to be aware of this detail,
otherwise we could be excluded from the social environment, which is globalized.
The teachers of the institution have evidenced that they are not using the appropriate
strategies and techniques of oral communication, which demonstrate a lack of didactic
knowledge. Many of them only take their students to a simple grammar teaching and
structure formulation. [3] emphasizes that as language teachers we must look for new
ways to provide students with the most effective and efficient language learning
experiences possible. For the reasons stated above, it is foreseeable that students will
not reach the expected communicative level to express themselves naturally and
fluently. To propose role play, as a didactic strategy to develop the oral production of
the English language in the students of the Systems Engineering career of a national
university, is the main objective of this research to be able to achieve the
transformation of the object of study from its initial state to the ideal state. [3] states
that activities must often be carried out through contextualized role plays in various
social situations to put into practice what they have learned in class.
2 A Study on the current state of the teaching strategies for the
development of oral production in English in undergraduate
engineering students.
2.1 Methodology
The research is part of the interpretive or naturalist and socio-critical paradigm [4, 5].
The research was developed through a qualitative and quantitative approach in the
educational context as it seeks the study of processes and objects of education to
contribute to the improvement of educational practice. In this regard [6,7] consider
that educational research must be committed to improving the quality of the teaching-
learning process
The type of research is applied educational with descriptive design since it seeks to
solve the problem of oral production. [8] emphasizes that it starts from a problematic
situation, which needs to be intervened and improved. With regard to this research,
the population is made up of 90 teachers and 800 students from the systems
engineering specialty of a National University of Cañete.
Table 1. Study population.
Carreer Subject subtotal
Male Female
Systems Teachers 52 38 90
Engineer
Students 455 345 800
Total 507 383 890
The type of sampling applied in the research was not probabilistic, that is, at the
discretion of the researcher and for convenience, in this sense the study sample was
made up of four teachers of the specialty of the English language taught in the
institution under study and 26 English students, from the Systems Engineering degree
of a national university. The unit of analysis is made up of teachers of the specialty of
English, students of English and specialized bibliography.
Different methods, techniques and instruments were used during the investigation
process. Methods such as: the historical-logic to analyze the historical evolution of the
object studied in the research background search; the analysis-synthesis was used
during the analysis of the information both qualitatively and quantitatively; the
induction and deduction method was used to establish logical inferences about the
problem; The modeling method was used to model the proposal based on the
theoretical and methodological foundations and to be specified in the design of the
didactic strategy; the empirical method was used in class observation, teacher
interviews and student surveys; the mathematical and statistical methods were applied
for the percentage analysis during the processing of the data obtained and allow the
corresponding analysis with the use of the statistical package SPSS-v25 and the Atlas
program.
2.2 Moments of the research process
First moment: Data reduction and generation of categories: The instruments were
developed and validated by the experts for their application, the information collected
from the field was collected, the information was processed qualitatively and
quantitatively, the result was analyzed through the Atlas software and the statistical
package SPSS-v25. New emerging categories were generated with data reduction.
Second moment: the comparison and classification of categories began with the
triangulation process, whose objective was to generate the first conclusions from the
“oral production” category by comparing and relating the data by similarity or
contrast. During the analysis process all the information collected was integrated
through the pedagogical test, the interview and the observation to classes.
Third moment: in the interpretation and discussion of the results, the similarities,
contradictions, causes and consequences found about the “oral production” category
from dialectical and holistic positions were analyzed in order to reach the partial
conclusions of the investigation.
2.3 Results
Survey conducted to students. The questionnaire applied to 26 students allowed to
obtain relevant information. Regarding the question about the importance of the
content of the English subject for them, it was evident that 53.85%, 14 students,
expressed that the content of the English subject is important; 42.31%, 11 students,
said the course is very important and 3.85%, a student, said it is of little importance. It
is then affirmed that the student does believe that learning English is necessary and
important.
Table 2. How important is the content of the English subject you receive in class?
Frequency Percentage
Little important 1 3.8
Important 14 53.8
Very Important 11 42.3
Total 26 100.0
Regarding the question if the English subject contributes to the development of
communication skills for professional training, it was evidenced that 65.38%, 17
students, said that the course does not contribute much to the development of their
communication skills; 19.23%, five students, said that the course contributes little to
the development of their communication skills; 15.95%, four students, said that much
contributes the course to the development of their communication skills. This
indicates that the teacher does not promote communication strategies that promote
oral production in class.
Table 3. Does the English course contribute to the development of your communication skills
for your professional training?
Frequency Percentage
Little bit 5 19.2
Not Much 17 65.4
A lot 14 15.4
Total 26 100.0
When asking the question: Does the teacher encourage an active learning method in
class? 65.38%, 17 students, said that sometimes the teacher encourages an active
learning method in class and 34.62%, nine students, revealed that the teacher does
promote an active learning method in class. Which shows that the teacher does not
work an appropriate learning method that involves the participation of all students.
Table 4. Does the teacher propose participatory tasks or activities at the beginning of each
activity?
Frequency Percentage
Never 1 3.8
Rarely 12 46.2
Usually 12 46.2
Always 1 3.8
Total 26 100.0
Teacher Interview. The interviews with three teachers were analyzed and codified
through the application of the Atlas program. Two teachers showed that they have
some mastery of theoretical and methodological knowledge about communication
strategies, but in practice they fail to apply them correctly. With regard to their
knowledge of oral production, they agree that it is a very important category since it
promotes interaction and the ability to function in daily life, however, one of them
said that it is the most difficult of the four skills.
Regarding the question, how do you arouse interest and motivation in your
students at the beginning of each class session activity? One of them stated that the
motivation must be contextualized and energized so that the students can connect that
activity to their life and be memorable. Another interviewee stated that the motivation
must be permanent through experiential strategies.
Class observation to teachers. The observations were made to two teachers, this was
analyzed and codified through the application of the Atlas program. From the findings
found, the punctuality that both teachers have to reach the classroom can be rescued.
An important aspect to highlight was the varied materials (visual and digital)
available to work. However, they do not make proper use of these resources. One of
the teachers said he knew didactic strategies, but in practice I did not carry it out.
Another of the findings that could be obtained was that both teachers often used
Spanish to explain some points. It is clear that teachers are not aware of the
importance of using and adapting the level of language to the group taught.
The communicative activities were very scarce and rarely productive, minimum
monitoring of the production of the groups or peers, which caused the students'
performances to be unproductive.
An intense grammatical practice was evident. In one of the observations, what led
the students to boredom and that they begin to focus on other issues. In this regard,
we firmly believe that in a class session there should be simulation activities,
dramatizations and above all role play to generate an experiential environment and
lead the student to live the language.
3 A didactic role-play-based intervention for the development of
the oral production in English
3.1 Theoretical reflections on role play and oral production
The role play as a didactic strategy belongs to the communicative approach, theory of
the nature of learning a second language. [3] states that students are often taken to
perform activities through role plays or dramatizations, contextualized in various
social situations to put into practice what they learned in class. [9] state that with the
communicative approach, emphasis is placed on using the language rather than
learning it structurally. Students are responsible for their learning with tools provided
by the teacher and point out that there is an intrinsic motivation. [10], argues that
through play you can strengthen and strengthen social relations with family, friends
and other people in society.
[11], due to its didactic nature, considers three types of role play: (a) Role play
controlled through clues and signals; (b) Role play controlled through clues and
information; and (c) Role play controlled through the situation and objectives. [12]
points out that, the role play would be the representation of a real or unreal context
that generates a lot of oral production in the classroom, while [13] points out that, role
play is a strategy that allows students to assume and represent roles in the context of
real or realistic situations typical of the academic or professional world.
[14] defines oral production as a communicative process, in which a message is
transmitted and constructed in an intentional way. For this, two important tasks are
required. The first is to make the decision of the content of the message; and secondly
to formulate the order and relation of the words, as well as the formulation of the
sounds. Similarly, [15], states that oral production is considered the skill and ability of
orality in communicating messages actively.
3.2 The Role-play didactic intervention
The proposed strategy is designed to develop and improve oral production in students
of the English course of the systems engineering career of the third cycle of a
National University in Cañete, an institution with more than 5 years dedicated to the
training of professionals, to research, and university extension and projection.
The proposal based on the diagnosis is based on the emerging categories, obtained
in the field work, which will be useful for the construction of the modeling and
achieve the transformation of the object of study.
The modeled strategy is based on the role play that has an interactive and
communicative nature which is highly essential, since it has the function of favoring
significant oral skills in students in situations of daily life and allows the student to
give opportunities to express ideas and respect coexistence. In this regard, [10],
argues that the game develops personality and character and learns to deal with
situations and decisions that must be addressed.
3.2.1 Functional graphic design of the proposal
The didactic strategy based on the role play to develop the oral production of the
students, is a proposal that emerges when reflecting on the result of the field work, the
situation of the teacher to teach the oral ability and the difficulties that the student
shows for be able to communicate.
We focus on the didactic strategy How is it applied? What is it for? What is your
end? What are the improvements when applied to the object of study? All of this,
applied in a didactic way, will lead us to strengthen the communicative practice and
the improvement in the teaching and learning practice.
Fig. 1 Functional graphic design of the proposal
3.2.2 By staging and acting we improve our oral language ability.
The role play proposal is designed in three learning sessions, each session based on
one type of game. (a) Role-controlled games through clues, (b) role-plays controlled
through clues and information, and (c) role-play controlled through the situation and
objectives. Each session designed in four stages: (a) motivation, (b) preparation of the
situation, (c) representation of the situation, and (d) debate.
Fig. 2. Subtle development of the strategy
Next, we present the structure of how the learning strategy should be treated in its
different types, put in context, leading to problematization and reaching the ideal state
Table 5. Treatment of the learning session based on the type of role play.
4 Discussion
Thus, after the field work where the instruments and techniques were applied to
obtain information on the object of study, the findings obtained allowed the formation
of influential emerging categories that were decisive for the modeling of the proposed
strategy. The benefit of applying the role play in the classroom generates a climate of
real and experiential situation in the students and at the same time improves the oral
expression, which coincided favorably with the assertion by [18] who argue that the
Role play has a positive effect on improving oral ability.
Generating oral production in the classroom systematizing methods and techniques
has positive results in all types of students, not only in matters of oral expression but
also in the improvement of personality development. [12,19,20] demonstrated that
this technique fosters self-confidence, generates communication skills in social
relationships and at the same time gives shy students another identity to express
themselves.
From the current state of the study phenomenon, teaching in English is required
that considers oral skills as the most relevant and necessary skill, and also the most
anticipated to be mastered by students. [3] asserts that language teachers must also
familiarize themselves with research in the field of acquiring a second language.
The use of digital tools energizes and motivates the teaching process learning of a
language. However, the proposal based on the role play requires a real and
contextualized interaction in the classroom to develop the oral production of the
student. In this regard, [21] in his theory of the innatism and faculty of language,
argues that the language is specific enough for it to be learned through cognitive
procedures, since the acquisition of language is innate and acquired from the
individual from birth. [16] reports that role play is beneficial in developing interaction
skills for L2 students who are normally reluctant to speak in the target language.
5 Conclusions
The didactic strategy of the role play was designed to develop and improve the oral
ability of the students. This proposal is based on the different theoretical, practical and
methodological criteria of the theoretical framework, as well as the criteria of the
experts for the final validation. Being innovative and consistent with the didactic
sequences required by the communicative approach.
The diagnosis of the field work allowed us to obtain an objective result on the
development of the oral production of the students taken as a sample for research. The
application of different techniques and instruments of data collection through the unit
of analysis was fulfilled. The findings found were contrasted with the a priori
categories, emerging categories and emerging influential categories were identified in
the research problem, which would be essential for modeling the proposal and give
solution to the object of study.
The application of Role Play contributes to the development of oral language
production as long as student participation and production is maximized through
dynamic and real activities.
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