Spontaneous role-plays using a board game

Hi everyone,

Before we begin this one, a quick definition of role-play: spontaneous speech involving pretended situations. A role-play is not a written dialogue that students develop and perform.

Let's say you want students to do brief role-plays based on suggestions for scenes, but the students themselves are slow to come up with suggestions, or that they want the element of choice. What can you do?

Using the principle of yes-and, students can come up with short dialogues based on suggestions provided on a grid.

They will have some ability to choose among these suggestions. The suggestions can be three different kinds of nouns: persons (and their relationships), places, and things. Each row on the grid allows you to choose among three choices, but for higher levels, students may combine suggestions on each row.

They can play a cooperative board game using a hexagonal pattern. Students can roll a die or flip a coin. The coin they flip allows them to move one space or two. Students work in pairs to create a short scene of five lines: A B A B A.

The competitive part can be based on a teacher's judgment about which was the best scene, or the quickest scene where each line yes-ands the reality provided.

This version is best done in groups of four: a yellow team and a blue team. Each team is limited to that color.

This one is geared toward children, but the same thing could be adapted to older ages.

The element of choice is important. Allowing them different directions to move gives them greater control over this activity, as does allowing them a choice of the topic. Choice within structure allows students to take control of their learning.

Here's a sample dialogue of the sort of thing I have in mind. Let's say that a team has three choices: fisherman and fish, the Eiffel Tower, computers. They can choose one:

A: All right! I caught you!
B: Nooooo! Please let me go!
A: I can't. I'm very hungry. I need to eat you.
B: Please don't. I'll buy you a hamburger.
A: OK. Let's go to McDonald's.

Or they could combine two or three of these ideas:

A: So, what are you doing on top of the Eiffel Tower?
B: I'm fishing for French fish.
A: Sorry, but there's no lake down there. Did you check the Internet?
B: No, but I'll use my computer now. [Click click click.] Oh, sorry. No lake.
A: That's right. Get down from the tower and go to ta nice French river.

Of course, the examples won't look as clean as those done above. As long as each player affirms the other's reality, that's enough.

Don't be too picky about the rules. If it goes to six, seven, or eight lines, great! That's fine. Your goal is fluency and fun, not total surrender to artificial rules.

Some adaptations that are possible:

• Vocabulary learned before is put on the grid.
• Local or regional references provided, such as a city in the country the game is being played, or a local business well-known to students in that country.
• Longer time to come up with role-plays may be allowed for lower-level students.
• Grids that mix nouns, verbs, and adjectives.
• Grids for other parts of speech that create scenes.
• This can be used as an assessment of fluency for a speaking test, particularly a placement test.
• A point system if one kind of clue is more difficult than another.
• No grid at all -- just choosing based on the color, and performing for the other group.
• Providing a rubric that allows for evaluation of the students, taught ahead of time, of course.
• Having students rate the best performance or best sketch from the group.

Even trickier suggestions include:

• Allowing the opposing team to choose among the three choices on a particular square, but only if the students are confident with this game.
• Having student complete the blanks for their own team or for the opposing team or for the class as a whole.

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns about this activity.

-- Roger