STUDENTS’ SELF-CREATED ROLE PLAYS AS AN IMPROVEMENT METHOD IN THE

CLASSROOM OF A MIDDLE-CLASS AT A PUBLIC SCHOOL IN BARRANQUILLA,

COLOMBIA.

Natalia C. Ahumada Soto

Danelys V. Lara Ojeda

Advisor: PhD. José Isaías Lobo Fontalvo

Universidad del Atlántico

Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación

Programa de Licenciatura en Idiomas Extranjeros

Barranquilla – Colombia
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Acceptance page

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Jury

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Jury

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Head Language Program

Barranquilla, _______________ 2019

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First of all, I would like to thank the Almighty for leading me throughout the course of my life

until I reach the culmination of this dream. Also, I thank all the people who have been part of

this process. My parents, for their unconditional support in every way, their sacrifices and love

that prompted me to be the best version of me. My siblings, for growing up and dreaming by my

side. My husband, for being my partner in this and all the goals that we have set and achieved

together. My children, José Julián and Juliana for being the extra force in the moments that I felt

I could no longer. My friends, the ones who never fail, the ones who always gave me their love

and selfless support along this path. My partner in this project, for not leaving me alone when I

did not give my best. All who made this a possible dream, thank you very much. And you, my

precious angel, I dedicate this triumph to you, because with my Juli, your smile is the most

beautiful thing that my eyes have ever seen and the brightness of your eyes is the impulse that

would make anyone fall in love with life and return to believe in love. I will love you forever.

Natalia Ahumada S.

First of all, I thank Jehovah for guiding and having given me the opportunity as well as the

strength to study and finish my career. Secondly, I thank my family for their unconditional

support throughout all of this. Also, I truly thank professor Lobo for having guided and helped us

in this process. Finally, I thank my research co-worker and friends for their support.

Danelys Lara O.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART 1: FINDING THE ISSUES .......................................................................................... 7

Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 8

Statement of the problem ......................................................................................................... 10

Objectives ................................................................................................................................. 11

General objective ................................................................................................................. 11

Specific objectives ................................................................................................................ 11

Justification .............................................................................................................................. 12

Literature review ...................................................................................................................... 14

Theoretical framework ............................................................................................................. 18

Conceptual Framework ............................................................................................................ 20

Methodology ............................................................................................................................ 22

Type of research ................................................................................................................... 22

Population ............................................................................................................................ 23

Context ................................................................................................................................. 24

Administration ...................................................................................................................... 25

Instruments of data collection .............................................................................................. 26

Observation ...................................................................................................................... 26

Survey ............................................................................................................................... 27
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Interview ........................................................................................................................... 27

Procedure ......................................................................................................................... 28

Legal Issues ...................................................................................................................... 29

Proposed timeline............................................................................................................. 31

Data Analysis ........................................................................................................................... 33

Language skills: listening, speaking, writing and reading .................................................. 44

Results .................................................................................................................................. 46

Conclusions .............................................................................................................................. 47

PART II: TEACHING PROPOSAL .................................................................................... 48

Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 49

Objectives ................................................................................................................................. 50

General objective ................................................................................................................. 50

Specific objectives ................................................................................................................ 50

Justification .............................................................................................................................. 51

Literature review ...................................................................................................................... 53

Theoretical Framework ............................................................................................................ 60

Methodology ............................................................................................................................ 62

Setting of the proposal ......................................................................................................... 62

a. Organizing the course ................................................................................................. 63

b. Main features of the workshops .................................................................................. 64

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c. Physical setting of the EFL class ................................................................................. 65

Data collection procedures .................................................................................................. 65

Workshops ............................................................................................................................ 68

Data analysis ............................................................................................................................ 76

Findings................................................................................................................................ 77

Conclusion................................................................................................................................ 82

Pedagogical implications ..................................................................................................... 82

Implications for further research ......................................................................................... 82

ANNEXES ............................................................................................................................... 84

Appendix I. Instruments and evidence of the study (CHAPTER I) ...................................... 84

Appendix II. Evidences of the pedagogic proposal (CHAPTER II) ..................................... 93

References ............................................................................................................................. 122

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PART 1: FINDING THE ISSUES

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Introduction

English is one of the most important languages in the world. It is widely used in many sides of

life. It has been used in global communication and has become one of the obligatory subjects

taught at schools in Colombia. The objective is to make students adept of communicating in

English with internationally comparable standards.

One of the main purposes of learning a foreign language, English in this case, which has

become a lingua franca in many parts of the world, is the ability to communicate effectively with

other users of the language. For this purpose, the Ministry of Education framed the Plan

Nacional de Bilingüismo. All students who graduate from secondary education must acquire a

basic command of English, both written and spoken. They should demonstrate understanding of

both, the texts they read and those they hear in English; to be able to elaborate oral writings and

speeches and to use English in conversations with other people.

Currently, this goal is not met. Nonetheless, as part of our learning process to become future

teachers, we conducted a research at Instituto Distrital Castillo De La Alboraya. The Instituto

Distrital Castillo De La Alboraya is an official institution that offers an educational service of

excellence to the community of the South-East of Barranquilla. In this institution, the cognitive,

socio-affective and communicative dimensions are enhanced through the development of

general, specific competences and work, which allow the student to transform their socio-cultural

environment. At this public school, we will work with a group of students of tenth grade during
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their English classes under the supervision of the teacher in charge of the subject. The research

we conducted had the purpose of analyzing the students’ performance during the English class in

order to identify the different problems they face at the moment of learning a second language.

Teaching to communicate in real, everyday situations is very often neglected and students

have little chance to practice ordinary language in class. Therefore, teachers ought to provide

learners with opportunities to improve their speaking skills. That is the basis of this research

project: to find out effective ways to help students to practice and help them improve

communicate competences in the language. Aiming to fulfil that purpose, based on the results

obtained through the use of different data collection instruments, we will suggest an

improvement plan or a pedagogical intervention based on student’s needs regarding their

learning process of Inglés. Finally, the multiple results obtained during the process will be

analyzed in order to determine the conclusions and evaluate the pertinence and effectiveness of

our research and pedagogical proposal.

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Statement of the problem

Throughout our experience as English teachers during two years and a half, we could perceive

in a different way the struggles students faced when learning a foreign language. The teaching

practices guide us to study the major issues that were affecting tenth graders’ oral production.

We particularly focused on a group of four of these students because they represent well the

whole population.

These students were motivated to learn, but we became aware of their low performance in

speaking. Their participation were not as they would have wanted. The results in participations,

oral presentations, oral productions activities let us know that was something in need to be

worked.

For the above reasons, this research intended to understand the causes students do not

produced neither in an accurate way nor at the level they should have knowledge of. This

encouraged us to seek for the answer to our research question: what major factors can affect the

oral production in four tenth graders from a public school in Barranquilla, Colombia?
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Objectives

General objective

All the above descriptive behaviors encouraged us to find the answer for the research question

and the issues that detracted our populations’ development of oral production through the

accomplishment of the following objective: to identify and assess the different factors that could

affect the speaking skill in students at a public school in Barranquilla, Colombia.

Specific objectives

To be able to carry out our main objective, we established a helpful sequential order into

objectives:

• To investigate about speaking problems in order to find out which of those problems are

facing the students in the classroom.

• To identify students’ weaknesses and strengths in their learning process of English,

especially regarding oral production.

• To obtain suggestions from the students about their interests concerning speaking skill and

possible ways to improve it in the classroom.

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Justification

English has become an international and important language around the world. It is spoken,

taught and understood even in non-native countries, such as in Colombia. It seems imperative for

all students to master it. In this country, English plays a major role in schools as being an

important factor in the education of many children. “Colombia is experiencing a growth in terms

of the presence and roles of English. The interest from the population to learn it, the need to have

teachers prepared to teach it, the establishment of language education policies to regulate its

practices, and the academic debates around all these issues reflect the new relationships between

language and society” (González, 2010). The Institución Educativa Distrital Castillo De La

Alboraya in Barranquilla presents this interest. It has as a main goal to educate students with a

B1 level of English according to the state’s bilingualism program and CEFR. It is stated that

learning to speak and listen is a great chance to discover the world in different edges, and senses.

Therefore, in the school’s program, teachers try to apply and make emphasis on it.

However, learning a language is a complex process. It is evident that even though after having

studied for many years and been trying to master the four skills (reading, writing, listening and

speaking), it is still missing some improvement by students. Thus, the Colombian Ministry of

Education created a strategy called Plan Nacional de Inglés (National English Plan) whose main

goal is for high school students to graduate with a good level of English. In that way, it has been

looking for ways to improve the language teaching. It is exactly what we expected as working on

this research. It was clear for us that grammar, reading and writing are very important in each

English class, but for some reasons, speaking and even listening have been somehow left behind.

Nowadays, developing effective speaking is a general but challenging fact. In order to master it,
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it is fundamental to provide a complete formation to students. But at least there is a “rapid

expansion of English in Colombia” (González, 2010) that allows and facilitates the acquisition

and improvement of this language skill.

“The benchmark of successful language acquisition is almost always the demonstration of an

ability to accomplish pragmatic goals through interactive discourse with other speakers of the

language” (Brown H. D., 2000). It is said that speaking is the most common way to demonstrate

a language’s knowledge. Most of EFL students have as a main goal to master their oral

production; nonetheless, it turns to be one of the most difficult to achieve. Bearing this in mind,

we aim to create a proposal with innovative and semi authentic activities that will hopefully keep

students engaged while they become capable of understanding and sharing their thoughts,

knowledge, experiences and their culture orally through the English language. Through this

research, we detail the great importance of having a better picture of how important the

employment of aids in a foreign language classroom is. Thus, students’ oral response using the

search help of workshops can overcome these difficulties or barriers, while improving and

succeeding in other teaching contexts, as well.

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Literature review

Humans are social beings who are in need of continuous communication and interaction with

each other. Thus, developing fluency not just the accuracy has become the main objective in

language teaching methodology (Brown H. , 1995). For that reason, it is important to foster

situations in which learners can face real communication in the foreign language. Bygate (1987)

supports this statement by expressing that “our learners often need to be able to speak, to

produce orally with confidence in order to carry out many of their most basic transactions. It is

the skill by which they are most frequently judged, and through which they make or lose friends”

(p. 1). In the following lines, we will present ideas on speaking from authors such as Crystal &

Davy (1969), Byrne (1984), Tarigan (1986), Brown (2000), Wold (2006).

In their book, Investigating English Style, Crystal & Davy (1969) claim that time is a main

factor which distinguishes written from spoken language. Speaking skill is measured in terms of

the ability to carry out a conversation. Speaking is a productive skill in which someone expresses

their ideas by using language. From that statement, we can see that oral production is very

important in our daily life activities. One of the basic features of oral production is that it takes

place in real time.

In regards to speaking, Byrne (1984) states that speaking is oral communication. It is a process

that goes in two ways between the speaker and the listener. That is mean, it involves the productive

skills and the receptive skill of understanding. During the speaking interaction, the speaker has

double role: as a listener and also as a speaker. In language learning, discourse is an important part
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in the process of learning a foreign language. At times, it seems to be very difficult to teach and

practice this ability in the classroom. In Urrutia and Vega (2009) research study, the data collected

suggests that oral production is the most difficult ability to improve in the classroom. Students

usually present lack of vocabulary, nervousness, shyness and fear of being humiliated in front of

their classmates. Also, the authors explain that students show evidence about the importance of

implementing new innovative ways of learning in the classroom for improving oral production.

According to Tarigan (1986), discourse is also an instrument to transmit a message to a listener

whether the listener understands it or not and, as quoted in Šolcová (2001) research project,

speaking and therefore, oral production has its own patterns and structures that are different from

those of writing. Furthermore, oral production is also “the process of building and sharing meaning

through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts” (Chaney & Burk, 1998,

p. 13). Oral production is fundamental in learning a second language since it is the starting point

for communication. Tarigan (1986) also states that speaking is the instrument of language and the

primary purpose of speaking is for communication. Based on the explanation above, we can see

that the goal of speaking skill is to communicate meanings.

Brown (2000) mentions that speaking is found on the tree of learning a second language as

one of the branches. The ability to converse is highly valued by students, but teachers often find

it hard to develop. Students often feel a great deal of anxiety around speaking. The goal of

language is communication and the aim of speaking in a language context is to promote

communicative efficiency. Because of the time limitations that give speakers only limited

planning time, speech production involves “real-time processing” (Thornburry, 2005). Being this
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one of the main reasons that make language learners from all levels have a tendency to find

speaking difficult. Strategies used to “buy planning-time” significantly shape the nature of

speaking and distinguish it from writing (Thornburry & Slade, Conversation: From Description

to Pedagogy, 2007).

In his research project, Wold (2006), talks about the struggles a foreign language learner

faces. He expresses that those difficulties play a pivotal role in classroom attendance. It provokes

a wavering motivation to learn and a lack of progress. He worked with adults, which let him

explore more tangible difficulties when learning a new language. This guides us to know the

barriers to success for learners. It might be frustrating, since they feel that they are not able to

express ideas correctly. It also leads to “shame and embarrassment and further inhibit the

learner’s practical and natural acquisition of the new language” (p. 7). Nonetheless, learners can

enjoy learning through struggles. They are still reasonably able to attain high levels of English or

make modest progress. In order to achieve that goal, learners need an effective language learning

with a variety of skills, practices and abilities. For Wold (2006), for instance, it is essential the

“implications of basic sound/letter training to be implemented in basic ESL programs, especially

for nonalphabetic first language learners” (2006, p. 3). Teachers’ perceptions of FL learning and

proficiency are a clearly aid to EFL students, because he guides them into the foreign language

skills and FL aptitude relationship (p. 21).

Moreover, based on Brown and Yule’s (Discourse Analysis, 1983) theories about the main

functions of spoken language, we started to think in possible strategies that could help us to

address the main difficulties students were facing regarding speaking skill, more precisely, oral
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production. Those functions of spoken language are strongly important to take into account at the

moment of analyzing the students’ performance during their English classes. Teachers ought to

pay close attention to the way students use oral production in class at the moment of facing task

belonging to those different function of verbal language.

In this same vein, teachers want students to actually be able to use the language as correctly as

possible and with a purpose. Students often value speaking more than the other skills: reading,

writing and listening so motivation is not always as big of an issue. But what often happens is

that students feel more anxiety related to their oral production. As speaking is interrelated with

the other skills, its development results in the development of the others. One of the primary

benefits of increased communicative competency is the resulting job, education and travel

opportunities: it is always an asset to be able to communicate with other people. That is the

reason why those different functions of oral production in human interaction should be

understood by teachers in order to apply those concepts at planning time of the classroom

activities.

In conclusion, in foreign language teaching and learning, the ability to speak or to produce

orally is the most essential skill since it is the base for communication but it is also the hardest

skill to be developed by learners (Oradee, 2012). Consequently, in teaching speaking, the teacher

should have a stimulating strategy and joyful activities to boost the student to practice the language.

Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving, and

processing information. In order to do that, the speaking activities in class should cover those

aspects: producing, receiving and processing information.

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Theoretical framework

This section deals with the framework that support our research project. The aim of this study

is to investigate the main factors that affect the oral production process within a specific

population. Therefore, the research question guiding this study is: what factors can affect the

oral production in four tenth graders from a public school in Barranquilla, Colombia?

Literature related to the speaking area was already reviewed in the previous section and now,

the main theories and studies that frame this project will be acknowledged.

In this paper, we will use Byrne’s theories as a support to helps us answer the research

question. Byrne (1984) states that speaking is oral communication. According to Byrne, oral

production is a process that goes in two ways between the speaker and the listener. Then, it

involves the productive skills and the receptive skill of understanding. It is important to point out

that during the speaking interaction, the speaker have double role: as a listener and also as a

speaker.

Those criteria frame the evaluation parameters we must take into account at the moment of

assessing oral production within the classroom. Teachers must bear those aspects in mind since

the very beginning of the study: from the observation phase to the proposal and finally the

analysis of results. That is exchanging information, negotiating meaning, supporting ideas,

facing oral defenses.

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That is related to what Ganschow, Sparks & Javorsky (1998) said about the essential help of

direct teaching of the phonological/orthographic and grammatical rule system to poor FL

learners. When teachers work on those aspects with students, their low motivation would not be

a main factor of difficulty in their learning process (Ganschow, Sparks, & Javorsky, 1998).

Likewise, Harris (1974) states that there are several aspects of speaking that must be fulfilled,

but learners can achieve them. Harris defines oral production as the encoding process in which

we communicate our ideas, thought, and feeling orally. Thus, following the theories of Byrne

(1984), training in oral skills will let students to communicate and interact in a meaningful and

fruitful form. In other words, we produce ideas, thought, and feeling that we want to share,

influence, or interact with other people.

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Conceptual Framework

In order to have a better understanding of the current research, there are some concepts whose

meanings are the following:

According to Harris (Testing English as a Second Language, 1974), oral production must

fulfill the following criteria:

✓ Pronunciation: Pronunciation refers to the ability to produce easily comprehensible

speech.

✓ Fluency: Fluency is about how fluently students use the target language orally.

✓ Grammar: Grammar is about the structure of the language.

✓ Vocabulary: Vocabulary refers to the words used in a language.

✓ Comprehension: Comprehension for oral communication requires the student to

respond to speech as well as to initiate it.

Additionally, we are going to refer to the works of Brown and Yule (Discourse Analysis,

1983) about the functions of spoken language:

a. Talk as interaction: It is what we normally call “conversation” and its main objective is

to uphold social relationships. In the meantime, speaking as interaction has several main features
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as follows: social function, it reflects role relationships, speaker´s identity. It may be formal or

casual. It uses conversational conventions, and reflects degrees of politeness

b. Talk as transaction: This function of spoken language makes reference to situations

where the focus is on what is said or done. Meanwhile, speaking as transaction has several main

features as follows: a primary information focus, which is the message and not the participants.

Participants employ different communication strategies to make themselves understood. There

are frequent questions, repetitions and comprehension checks. There may be negotiation, but

linguistic accuracy is not always important

c. Talk as performance: This refers to public talk, that is, talk that transmits information

before an audience, such as classroom presentations, public announcements, and speeches. The

main features of talk as performance are: a focus on both message and audience, predictable

organization and sequencing, importance of both form and accuracy, language is more like

written language, and often monological.

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Methodology

Type of research

The research question in the study addresses the issue of speaking skill problems. After

making observations in the field of action of the present investigation, we decided to analyze and

try to find a solution to this problem. The research question that guides the current qualitative

case study is: what major factors can affect the oral production in four tenth graders from a

public school in Barranquilla, Colombia?

We collected data and evidence that support this research directly from the students and their

context. We considered their opinions and experiences in the school as an essential tool, which

can set the path that this study should follow, if it is intended to answer the research question that

was defined at the beginning of this investigation (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994). For that reason, this

present research embraced a qualitative approach in order to explore four (4) tenth grade English

learners’ oral production concerns in a public school in Barranquilla, Colombia.

The qualitative approach provides a point of view onto the social world whose goal is to

obtain understanding of a social issue or problem that privileges subjective and multiple

understanding (Hesse-Biber, 2005). This type of research extracts meaningfully experiences,

circumstances and situations as attributes gathered from data. In other words, it involves the data

collected into a testable hypothesis that helps us, as researchers, seek for the correct information

and confirm it while discovering the subjective meaning. That is the case of these four young

learners. They have faced the language without being able to speak in a good and natural way,

even though they can understand grammar very well.

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We developed some ideas and tested students out to compose diverse perspectives for

generating knowledge and bringing a feasible solution. The use of games and role plays give a

strong positive input in language learning teaching. This qualitative study focused on the

improvement of oral production in English through Role Plays in the students mentioned above.

Population

For this research, we chose four (4) young learners. They belong to tenth grade of a public

school in Barranquilla. We decided to select them as a sample of the whole population,

considering the fact the in the classroom there are thirty-five (35) students. Therefore, they

represent the different types of learners present in the classroom. All of the participants are of the

same background and economic level.

They will be our object-study population. The first student, Alejandro, is a 13-year-old boy,

considered as the smartest student in the classroom. However, he misbehaves during class

sessions. During the observations, we came to the conclusion that his misbehavior is caused by

the necessity of being accepted by his classmates. He has always attended the same public

school, since he lives near the school.

The second, Sebastian, is a 14-year-old boy. He lives near the school. He is very interested in

learning English as a second language. He represents the kind of students that do not suffer from

shyness and are not afraid of making mistakes when speaking or doing an activity in class. He

usually reads and listens to music in English as a hobby. So that, he is one of the students who
 24

has much contact with the language. For this reason, he feels in a way confident. Nevertheless, it

is common that he has moments of frustration when he does not know how to do an exercise.

The third student, Angela, is a 14-year-old girl, who does have a lot of interest in learning.

She represents most of the students for which learning a new language does not seem an easy

thing. As an example, she pays attention to what the teacher explains, understands the theoretical

part of the subject and even tells her partners what the topic is about. However, at the moment of

doing exercises she gets confused and makes mistakes. As a result, she feels frustrated.

Otherwise, she has been there since third grade of primary school.

The last student is another boy. Leandro is 14 years old. He lives relatively near the school.

He has to take a bus to arrive there. He is the type of learner who is only interested in making

friends and socializing in class, even though is a good student when focusing. He is not

concerned about English and his grades to this term are not the best. Also, his participation in

class is low and presents a lack of interest in what the teacher says.

Context

The current research takes place in Barranquilla. The city is located in the Northern

Colombian coast. In 2015, according to a census conducted by DANE, the city was populated by

million inhabitants (DANE Información para todos, 2016). From this amount, 651.800 are of

school age, according to the considerations estimated by the National Education Ministry. A

huge percentage of this children attend public schools.

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Each one of the students represents the field of action and observation of this research work.

All the four students described above live in the neighborhoods surrounding the school. Every

student has a family belonging to the middle class. By the time in which this research was made,

the school was facing some adjustments in its physical plant made by the local government.

These adjustments intended to improve the quality of classrooms and spaces in which students

develop their academic activities. For the moment, the school has approximately 56 classrooms

divided into three buildings. Half of the classrooms count with air conditioner and three fans per

classroom. That is the case of the room in which this research took place. It is a spacious

classroom that measures 16 square meters. It also has two large windows and electrical lamps,

which make possible the room’s good environment with a well-installed internal illumination

most of the time.

Administration

For this research, we were working in a public educational institution. The school has an

inclusive nature with preschool, basic, academic media and technical media levels. According to

the mission of the school, it is based on humanistic and axiological principles towards the

formation of an integral citizen. It means, the institution is prepared for the academic, technical

labor, and the management of new technologies. It counts with great capacity in thought

processes that tends for cultural, sports, and coexistence values. Likewise, it is peaceful while

promoting quality policies based on the National Constitution.

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Instruments of data collection

In this study we implemented three instruments to collect data. The tools were applied in a

consecutive way. They included observations, surveys, and interviews. We decided to use these

methods because they provide us precise information that can help us with the development of

the process of the current research. Since we were in a constant interaction with the learners, we

could see what and how they did or did not something during class. Also, it allowed us to make

statements about students’ production. Surveys, tests and interviews let us know our participants’

ideas and thoughts about their class and English learning process.

Observation

Observation is defined by Marshall & Rossman (1989) as “the systematic description of

events, behaviors, and artifacts in the social setting chosen for study" (p. 79). It is a way of

collecting data from participants’ information. This fieldwork method involves “active looking,

improving memory, informal interviewing, writing detailed field notes, and perhaps most

importantly, patience” (DeWalt & DeWalt, 2002, p. 7). It means that observation enables the

researcher to discover and describe existing situations in the field, such as learning about

people’s activities and natural setting.

Following these approaches, we observed our students. Firstly, we analyzed the whole class to

get to know the common problem and statement that affected their progress in learning the

language. In that moment, we became aware of the students’ main problem: oral production.

Then, we identified that a certain group of students in class had the same characteristics of some
 27

others. Consequently, we agreed to work with four students as leaders of those who they

represent.

The observations were applied at the moment students were working on some exercises in

class. As they were doing the activities, we were observing attentively their actions. Anytime we

observed them, we wrote down in a fieldwork notebook their every different aspect and attitude

towards the class.

Survey

Surveys were a focus for our case study research. The procedure of asking students questions

encompassed a measurement of issues they had. Surveys are “related directly to the simple

frame, research topic, characteristics of the sample, and available staff and facilities, (…)”

(Fowler, 1984, p. 61). They help to go straight to the goal and the objective of the research.

We planned to run a smooth survey that helps student answer not only easy, but important

aspects of our main idea regarding their learning problem. The questions were based on what the

participants had in common. For doing so, we determined our population’s needs, what we

wanted to know, and what hopes we were waiting for. Thus, we could have a more accurate data

and refine in more details our objectives in order to have a clear purpose and proceed to keep on

with the following steps.

Interview

This is a very helpful tool that guided us to gather and access for much information than the

one we could get from the two instruments employed before. According to Giorgi (An
 28

application of phenomenological method in psychology., 1975) an interview is an application of

phenomenological method in psychology. We discussed with students about different aspects

related to their English learning life process, for instance.

Agreeing with what Kvale & Brinkmann (InterViews. Second Edition. Learning the Craft of

Qualitative Research Interviewing, 2008) stated, the used interview was made to understand

themes of the lived daily world from the learners’ own perspectives. It was performed as an

everyday conversation that involved specific approaches and techniques of questioning in order

to have more detailed data.

Procedure

The purpose of this data collection focused on learners’ responses and interactions. The

procedure of the study included the use of observations, surveys, and interviews. After the data

was gathered, it was triangulated. The procedure of data collection is divided into three

procedures.

Procedure 1: observations

“Where observation is concerned, chance favors only the prepared mind.” (Louis Pasteur).

The researchers were immersed in a period of observation. Firstly, they began their internship at

this school, and got into contact with the population. In that time, students’ learning problem was

evident to identify. The researchers even distinguished the classroom environment to pinpoint

whether it affected their learning process. However, the problem remained the same. Thus,

students were asked to work on different exercises during various sections. Each one of the

section was related to a skill, so that researchers took notes about students’ reactions and
 29

development of the tasks. It took some days in order to analyze properly what was the main

problem among learners, even though it was clear to find out.

Procedure 2: surveys

Following some detailed observations, the researchers decided to apply students a survey. The

purpose of the survey was to know better students’ situation, how did they learn, how do they

like to learn the target language. These were some of items to be evaluated by the population. It

took place after class. As the case study is based on four students, they went with the researchers

to the teachers’ room. It was arraigned like that in order not to disturb them and attract attention

from their classmates.

Procedure 3: interviews

The interviews were implement right after the survey. They were applied in order to have

answers by students’ own words. Since all of them presented the same language learning

problem, the young learners were interviewed with the purpose of building a deeper

understanding of the issue. For doing so, they were asked to give their honest answers. They

would not have any grade with their answers. Thus, they would not feel ashamed for answering.

Moreover, the interviews were conducted in Spanish for a better comprehension.

Legal Issues

This study focused on improving oral production or speaking skills in four tenth graders at

Marco Fidel School. It is legally supported in the Political Constitution of Colombia 1991 which

says in its article 27th “El estado garantiza las libertades de enseñanza, aprendizaje,
 30

investigación y cátedra”. The constitution guarantees Colombian people’s freedom of teaching,

learning, and researching.

Also, in the article 67th of the same constitution, it is said: “La educación es un derecho de la

persona y un servicio público que tiene una función social; con ella se busca el acceso al

conocimiento, a la ciencia, a la técnica, y a los demás bienes y valores de la cultura. La

educación formará al colombiano en el respeto a los derechos humanos, a la paz y a la

democracia; y en la práctica del trabajo y la recreación, para el mejoramiento cultural, científico,

tecnológico y para la protección del ambiente. El Estado, la sociedad y la familia son

responsables de la educación, que será obligatoria entre los cinco y los quince años de edad y que

comprenderá como mínimo, un año de preescolar y nueve de educación básica. La educación

será gratuita en las instituciones del Estado, sin perjuicio del cobro de derechos académicos a

quienes puedan sufragarlos. Corresponde al Estado regular y ejercer la suprema inspección y

vigilancia de la educación con el fin de velar por su calidad, por el cumplimiento de sus fines y

por la mejor formación moral, intelectual y física de los educandos; garantizar el adecuado

cubrimiento del servicio y asegurar a los menores las condiciones necesarias para su acceso y

permanencia en el sistema educativo. La Nación y las entidades territoriales participarán en la

dirección, financiación y administración de los servicios educativos estatales, en los términos que

señalen la Constitución y la ley”.

Law 115 of 1994, General Law of Education. It orders the organization of the Colombian

General Educational System. This establishes the general norms to regulate the Public Service of

Education that fulfills a social function according to the needs and interests of people, family and
 31

society. Also indicates the constitutional principles on the right to have a proper education that

every person has, in the freedoms of teaching, learning, research and cathedra (professorship)

and in its character of public service. In accordance with article 67 of the Political Constitution,

defines and develops the organization and provision of formal education at its pre-school,

elementary (primary and secondary) and secondary levels, not formal and informal.

Proposed timeline
 32

The planned dates are captured in the present timeline. It describes the months and years in

which we have been working on our case study. As it is shown above, we started our process of

teaching and researcher in March, 2017. By that time, we began as trainee teachers, our

population was in eighth grade. We encountered immediately the learning problem that students

had. In this period of observations, the institution and students coped with a school strike.

Fortunately, we counted with enough information to work with. Thus, we started to prepare the

following steps. Since there, we began to write our study. After holiday, we took into account the

methodological considerations. And, it was in 2018 when we started to be more focused on our

research. Consequently, we designed the proposal, applied the instruments in order to have the

data analysis, so that we could apply the proposal.

 33

Data Analysis

In this case study, three tools were used to collect data. Observations, surveys, and interviews

were applied in different sessions for several weeks in the school year. The instruments were

employed throughout the development of many classes considering the problem dealt with at the

beginning of the process. The first tool was the most employed one. Nevertheless, the other ones

were applied in just two different but consecutive classes. Every one of them depended on the

students’ learning process problem. Furthermore, the information was triangulated. Uwe Flick

(Managing Quality in Qualitative Research, 2007, p. 98) mentioned that triangulation integrates

the fieldwork. In other words, this process validates data through verification of two or more

sources. This technique was used because more than one method was implemented.

The purpose of the implementation of those methods was principally to gather the data

required, as previously mentioned. Also, it had an effect on the students since they started to ask

questions about it. The researchers explained to them that the object of this activities was to

identify a problem in their language acquisition. Thus, researchers could help them to improve it.

They began to show more interest in what they considered as their major problems regarding

English learning. In other words, they felt ashamed of committing mistakes and errors when

speaking. In addition, they said they did not know how to speak English because they did not

have any type of interaction with the language as their English class was given in Spanish.

Finally, they considered that their lack of vocabulary and practice were the principal factors that

limited their oral production. Those reports matched perfectly with the facts found in the

observations, and the answers given in the survey form and the interview.
 34

The first instrument, observations, was applied over three months. In order to determine the

issue that students faced the most, they were observed along this period of time. As they

presented some other troubles in the learning process and the classes were covered in just one

hour per day, twice a week, it took a long time to discover the original problem. While learners

were working on the exercises teacher demanded to do, they showed their difficulties when

learning a new language. Every type of observation taken in class such as teacher-student

interaction was written down in the field notebook. One of the models taken into account to

enhance and write observations for a more effective, precise, and useful tool as an evaluation

instrument was the one from Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Teaching (2011 revised

edition).

Transcript evidence 1. Class observation field notebook (Charlotte Danielson Model).

10th GRADE STUDENTS

ALBORALLA SCHOOL.

March 14th, 2017

Domain 1 – Planning and Preparation Domain 2 – The Classroom Environment

The teacher gave a class about the present There is no air conditioner in the classroom,

simple. He brought some photocopies in order to but there are several fans that provide a

practice what they have learnt before. He wrote up comfortable climate to the classroom. In

the agenda on the board. Also, he wrote up the addition, it is ordered and clean. The temperature

topics that were going to be covered in the class. and the illumination help the correct

development of the class.

 35

Domain 4 – Professional Responsibilities Domain 3 – Instruction

The teacher showed domain of the language. This is a traditional class. There is a lack of

When the students asked something about the participation from the students. The major part of

topic, he answers properly. The way he explained the time is the teacher who speaks. On the other

was dynamic and clear, even though it was hand, they understand the structure of the tenses.

observed that the teacher does not use very much They can develop the activities in a proper way.

English language during the class. Almost all the However, they are not well instructed in

topics are explained in Spanish and the teacher understanding English as another language, but

focuses just on the students’ learning grammar as as a structural issue like mathematics. They use

best as they can. Other skills as speaking and formulas to comprehend topics such as Present

listening seems to be less important during the Simple. They write in their notebooks, i.e. “To

session form an affirmative sentence in Present Simple

we need to write: S+V+C*”

*Subject + Verb + Complement

Besides this model, many of the observations were made by writing down about the

methodology that teacher employed, and how students reacted. At each observation, researchers

wrote different aspects from objective to subject points of view. The approach of this

investigation not only focused on what researchers thought the problem was, but what the results

actually showed. Since the lack of speaking exercises, the whole population displayed weakness

in this skill. Whereupon, they did not speak in a proper way and were ashamed of making

mistakes when talking.

 36

Secondly, a survey was conducted to the target population involved in the present research

project. This instrument was applied in order to assess and confirm students’ thoughts and

believes when it comes to their strengths, weakness, motivation and preferences in class. When

applying the survey form, the four (4) students were given a paper with seventeen (17) questions

related to skills in the English learning process. They answered individually and returned them to

the researchers. A sample of this survey is presented below, and the following graphics show the

results obtained from learners’ answers.

Figure 1. Survey applied to the learners.

 37

Since some of the survey questions have to do with the research question that guides this case

study, they are going to be analyzed in this part. For instance, we obtained a one hundred percent

(100%) in the question “Do you like English?”.

Graphic 1. Result from the survey applied to the students. Question 1. Do you like

English? Yes, no.

However, in certain cases, we received different answers from students. These answers

reflected their lack of some skills that hindered them from learning English. That is the case of

the second graphic’s question shown below: “What is the most difficult aspect for you when it

comes to written production?”.

 38

Graphic 2. Result from the survey applied to the students. Question 5. What is the most

difficult aspect for you when it comes to written production? Grammar, vocabulary.

Researchers wanted students to express their thoughts towards other skills. As they presented

some other issues when learning a second language, it was better to precise in which one they

had icy stages. That is why, students answered questions such as the one shown above.

Consequently, students, being aware of their lack of speaking skills, answered the survey

questions that had to do with oral production. They did it in the following way:
 39

Graphic 3. Result from the survey applied to the students. Question 10. Do you like to speak

in English in class? Yes, no

According to the results, 75% of the students expressed that they liked to participate in class.

The 25% ones showed little motivation to speak in class. It might be because they are more shy

and afraid of failing.

 40

Graphic 4. Result from the survey applied to the students. Question 12. How do you think is

your oral production in English? Good, regular, bad

This chart depicts the half (50%) of the students believe that their oral production was good.

The rest of them (50%) thought it was regular. Therefore, we proceed to ask the following

questions to find out what they thought could help them to solve that problem.
 41

Graphic 5. Result from the survey applied to the students. Question 13. Would you like to

work more on speaking exercises in English class?

This question displays that 100% of the population wanted to work more on speaking

exercises to improve their oral production. They expressed how is important being able to

express ideas in this world, in the business world. That is why, all of them agreed that they

should work on their oral production. (see Appendix I: interview).

 42

Graphic 6. Result from the survey applied to the students. Question 14. Would you like to

perform theatre plays, dramas and roles plays in the English class? Yes, no.

This question inquired students to participate in performing roles plays in front of the class.

The whole population (100%) agreed. They showed their desire of learning English as a Foreign

Language.

As the figures show, students agreed with working more in their oral production. In the same

vein, they showed a lot of interest in doing role plays to achieve this goal. During the

implementation of the survey form, they asked the researcher if they had to present those role

plays in the front of the class. They thought that their partners might bully them. However, a

piece of peace of mind was given to them since researchers assured that they would help them to

prepare each role play.

 43

Finally, students were interviewed. For doing so, researchers gave learners a parent’s letter in

order to have their permission to work with them. After the waiting time, the interview took

place. Learners had their English class as usual. As soon as the class ended, they went downstairs

to do the interview. It was made at the school’s laboratory because other rooms were extremely

noisy.

It was a group interview. As Judi Aubel (Guidelines for studies using the group interview

technique, Volumen 68, 1994, p. 5) stated, a group interview helps researchers to foster more

horizontal analysis. Also, it brings a better communication approach since the collaboration and

relationship between the participants is more supportive and bearable. Thus, the group interview

was done with the population. Apart from, they needed to attend other classes. These four (4)

learners felt more comfortable and share their ideas without affliction. They took into account

their partners’ opinions and were more concerned when providing answers.

The interview was in Spanish. At the beginning of it, they were asked to participate

spontaneously. So that, it would be in their mother tongue. They were told to approbate once

more their participation. Consequently, the interview began. It included simple questions about

their feelings towards the English class, whether they liked how the classes were recently. As

learners said that they enjoyed much their class, researchers went to the main point of the

interview: oral production problem. Students were asked if they wanted to improve their

speaking skills, and how they wanted to do it. One of them expressed that it would better if

teachers speak more in the target language during the class. Also, they wanted to work with some
 44

activities such as karaoke, poems, and copies as one of the researchers did some classes before

the interview. Then, researchers proposed them Role Plays as a method solution to their problem.

One learner said that it would be a great idea, but he did not like it because he is not a good actor.

He thought that if he becomes a character, he would leave it behind. The rest of the learners

agreed because dramas would make the class much funnier and dynamic while interpreting

different characters. And eventually, they wanted to receive advice and support before

performing them in front of the class.

Language skills: listening, speaking, writing and reading

First, the purpose of the observations was to analyze and study in a detailed way the teaching

and learning process in an English class. Observations were a way of recording what researchers

saw (O'Leary, 2013). It helped understand students’ role, and the context of their situation.

Through the handwriting of every single factor of learning a second language, researchers could

obtain a critical reflection of what affected students the most. It provided basis on decrease in

oral production in these tenth-grade learners. Thus, the learning problem could be conceptualized

for conceiving the idea of the problem.

Fear

Second, a survey was given to students after obtaining interpretations from the first

instrument. It was conducted to identify their thoughts when facing any speaking activity. For

this, they made an oral activity after the survey. This could show how students were afraid of

mispronouncing words, since they were not always closed to the target language as the teacher in

charged used to speak in Spanish most of the time. Because of the lack of hearing and learning
 45

new vocabulary, they could not produce as they wanted. This fact affected their grades even

though they were diligent students. Third, after doing the interview, all of them agreed with

doing more speaking activities. Even if they were ashamed of laughs and critics by their

classmates, which flustered them, they wanted to do it.

After collecting and analyzing data, we obtain three categories. The following chart shows the

three categories and their codes found at the end of the analysis.

Table 1. Initial codes and categories

Category Coding

Lack of speaking a. Focus on grammar

activities b. Non-use of target language

a. Lack of vocabulary
Vocabulary b. Poor participation
c. Lack of learning new vocabulary

Mispronunciation a. Lack of hearing

b. Non-production in EFL
c. Shame of critics
 46

Results

1st category: Lack of speaking activities

After the process of collecting data, it was remarkable the lack of activities from the teacher.

Since he focused only on grammar and exercises related to tenses, he did not use to talk in the

target language. Thus, he did not implement many speaking exercises in class, which affected

somehow students’ oral production. (See data from field notes above)

2nd category: Vocabulary

The second notorious aspect was the lack of vocabulary. During the class sessions, it was

evident that some students did not participate in class. They did not know how to say something

in the target language. In addition, they depended a lot on their dictionaries when seeking for a

word they did not know while reading. At some other times, when students were doing an oral

activity, they asked the teacher for a word they needed to say to complete their sentences. But,

they did not know anything in English as they used to know in Spanish.

3rd category: Mispronunciation

Finally, researchers could identify that they mispronounced several words when talking. At

the moment they faced a speaking activity, they pronounced the words the way they thought it

was correct. Thus, when they received feedback from the teacher, they mentioned that they did

not know the correct pronunciation of the word. They did not speak English, they only could

write and read it. (See data taken from field notes up above)
 47

Conclusions

At the beginning of our research in the Marco Fidel Suarez school, Barranquilla, we started by

observing and recording the tenth (10th) grade students in a fieldwork. During these

observations, some difficulties in the students’ performance became evident. The most

noticeable one was the lack of oral production. However, the population was somehow changed.

We counted only with some students, whom we worked with before. They showed the same

problem, as well as the new whole population. Whereby, we applied a survey that corroborated

our preliminary findings. Then, we decided that this research approach focused on developing

oral production in a group of four (4) students. Therefore, these students became the leaders in

the classroom.

Besides the observations and the survey, we conducted an interview. With all these methods,

we confirmed that the principal population’s problem was the lack of speaking skills. For that

reason, we decided to continue implementing strategies, which could help students improve their

oral production.

We arrived to the conclusion that the best way to do so, is by implementing a lot of speaking

activities so that they could interact with the language. Among these activities, we found that

role plays are very attractive to them. Students, seemed to have fun while playing them. They

perceived this type of activities as an opportunity to learn something new in a different and more

dynamic way. Then, if students receive the proper support and motivation to perform role plays,

they could enjoy to participate in that activities because of the fact of becoming another person.

Moreover, students feel free to express themselves in this way. That is due to the fact they feel

that the whole class is part of a piece of theatre, and not just another academic session.
 48

PART II: TEACHING PROPOSAL

 49

Introduction

Government has the fundamental commitment to create the conditions for helping students

develop sound communicative competence in a second language. Therefore, the Ministry of

Education framed the Plan Nacional de Bilingüismo. It has the big challenge of getting students

develop competence in English. After being in the position of teachers, we were concerned with

the acknowledgement that speaking is an effective means to express our thoughts and ideas in a

foreign language. Time has changed and teachers should be aware of that.

Time has changed and teachers should be aware of that. It is crucial to reinvent the way in

which communication skills in English are addressed in the classroom. Therefore, changing the

approaches that are used in most of the classrooms by new methods that motivate students to

learn, allow having another perspective about the learning process of a second language.

This study, thus, aims to provide a useful and helpful method to implement in an English

classroom. This study’s intention is to increase awareness of how the implementation of

interactive activities such as role plays bring students the idea of being capable of

communicating in English. It is a reality and we can only achieve the established goals if we are

convinced and able to take the children to communicate in this language.

 50

Objectives

General objective

To help students in their process of learning and improvement of the English language, we

have as a main objective: to increase students’ oral production through dynamic and semi

authentic role plays.

Specific objectives

For the appropriate implementation of the proposal in order to students accomplish a better

development of their oral production, it is necessary the following:

• To identify students’ learning interest to implement activities as the methodology

grounding that help to foster their oral production.

• To design role plays as resources that fit with learners’ language issue and interest.

• To implement a pedagogical proposal with dynamic and semi authentic role plays (drama

class resources) to motivate and increase students’ oral production.

• To evaluate students’ oral production increase after the implementation of the present

pedagogical proposal.
 51

Justification

When learning, students encounter problems related to the culture, impossibility to achieve

fluency, and mastery over it (Kannan, 2009). On the way to be bilingual, the four English

learners who became the population under study of this research showed an evident problem

with oral production. They did not produce the language as they wanted to. And, after a process

of researching the reasons why they could not, it was found that because of the English stress

pattern, the chunks of the language of different length, the use of an adequate number of words,

and the accomplishment of communicative functions according to situations and goals. In

addition, they were ashamed of using the language when speaking in front of others. They

believed they were not able to produce something, even though they were good at word order

and rules related to grammar, which normally other learners are not comfortable with.

Martin Bygate (1987) states that a language is a form of expression, which students need to be

able with to produce along confidence in order to carry out many of their most basic transactions.

Thus, these young students depend on a communicative effectiveness in their process of learning

to advance and succeed not only academically, but also personally. It also enhances their

personal lives by facilitating them the confidence they desire to have.

Through dramas, students approach the usage of English in a daily life much more than

through monologues, for instance. Meanwhile a monologue focuses on just a point of voice and

does not allow people to interact, role plays do. Dramas imply more points of view, more contact

with the language because students can interact with other voices, sounds and thoughts than just
 52

only one. Besides that, while preparing a role play learners could achieve more vocabulary than

through a monologue, since this one implies certain and close words.

Bearing this in mind, we aimed to design a workshop that would help these four tenth graders

to achieve and develop their oral production in the English language. In this way, they would

possess the communicative competence, which will help them with any advancement, career or

business they choose to pursue. For that reason, we planned to implement Role Plays as a way of

improvement and motivation for students in their language learning process. With this proposal

our students not only can become better at speaking, but also improve their oral production in

their mother tongue. Furthermore, due to the dialogues they will perform in front of their

classmates, they will articulate sounds that will help them to talk in a better and more

understandable way.
 53

Literature review

The current case study aims to seek for the effects of implementing role plays as an aid to

help students improve in English oral production. The research question guiding this research is:

how does the implementation of Role Plays help improve oral production in four tenth graders

from a public school in Barranquilla, Colombia?

Playing is a way of learning and discovering the world. Drama activities have a very real role

to play in such a process, since they are a way of motivating students to study the second

language. It demands learners to get involved with the activities as they learn the target language

by playing life. This study explores how the use of role plays or dramas helps young learners to

sort out the major issue that affect their oral production in EFL.

In her postgraduate research project, “Developing oral English language skill through Role-

Play”, Angela Hoffman (2000) mentioned that the implementation of role plays “helps in the

memorization of new vocabulary, expressions and grammar” (p. 2). In other words, students will

not only improve with their oral production, but also, they will practice and get better at their

reading, writing and listening, which are truly essential in the whole complex process of learning

a language.

Hoffman’s (2000) field research was made of some groups of students from fourth to sixth

grades. She noticed that there was a big lack of using the spoken English in them. They used to

see speaking as a barrier to acquire English language. Thus, Hoffman (2000) perceived a
 54

necessity to have a real oral communication. She decided to apply role plays activities since

speaking “a language gives a reason for learning it. A play is all communication" (Via, p. 158).

Implementing role plays provided an interactive and friendly learning environment. As it

focuses on emphasizing pair and group work, students felt more comfortable in speaking, and

could develop self-confidence. Hoffman (2000) considered crucial points for the success of role

playing in classes. She took into account the class management and the kind of students she was

about to work with. She did it like that before setting up each role play. Then, she worked with

role plays related to the content they had learnt in the coursebook.

Blatner (2002), in his web article “Role Playing Education”, claimed that “role-playing

exercises can be used to develop skills important inside and outside of science: the kind of skills

needed to make learned information useful in the real world. Many of these are very difficult to

teach using more traditional methods of instruction: self-awareness, problem solving,

communication, initiative, teamwork” (Role Playing in Education, 2002). In this vein, students

portray themselves in an imaginary but realistic situation, set up previously by the teacher -or

even by themselves with the teachers’ help.

They would be more interested in using, learning and improving the language, and will not

see “English as an isolated subject with no great relevance in their lives” (Cárdenas & Robayo

Ruiz, 2001, p. 12). learners make use of their bodies and voices to play life situations whilst

discovering somehow the world. In addition as Kenneth Chastain (1988), we consider that
,
 55

“people learn to do things by doing things” (p. 889). We can say that through Role-Plays and

Dramatization students learn to and how to speak by using the target language in real life

situations inside the classroom.

Ann (2008), “Is Role-Playing an effective Teaching Method?”, presents role plays as

exercises applied by educators to learners. These exercises build on knowledge the students

already possess. Likewise, role plays “maximize students involvement and conflict” (Ann

Graves, 2008, p. 11) when giving them a specific situation to be played. Debate and participate

in different topic is perceived as a must in the classroom. Students will see “real-world”

situations through role-playing. This help students overthink, deal with attitudes, feelings, and

produce orally.

It is mentioned that this type of activities helps teachers out with working on the four

linguistic skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking. Their process of learning through

drama exercises include different grammar and structure items of language and make the

students enjoy the process. According to Hoffman (2000), these activities provide opportunities

for socialization not only for students, but also for teachers as important role in the process.

While students improve, teacher observes, guides and corrects with an excellent attitude towards

mistakes. As well as he helps students with the classroom and students’ preparation, vocabulary,

and doubts. Important points for us to keep in mind, because we will help students with the

preparation of workshops and guide them during the process.

 56

Avila, Hoyos, Orozco & Parga (2009), in their research project named as “Estrategias para el

desarrollo de las habilidades comunicativas mediante Role-Plays and Short-Stories en el área de

Inglés en los estudiantes de quinto grado del colegio mixto Jose Barros Manotas de Soledad”

applied these improvement methods not only to strengthen the lack of speaking skill, but also to

address them to teacher. They created a congenial and familiar atmosphere, where students could

use different lexis that allowed them take part of the class in a dynamic way. They used

methodological strategies such as contest, games, songs, tales and so on.

Students could build their abilities in the target language. Learners got motivated by working

with games and using their target language. They mentioned that through this implementation

students were able to maintain a dialogue and say some expressions correctly. In the same way,

teachers could be able to make clear some doubts and make contributions to the good learning

environment. Through the implementation of these Role-Play and Short-stories, these researchers

could help improve students’ speaking and listening skills by using the English language

constantly. At the end of the whole process, this forty-children-population could learn in an

interactive and meaningful way, even if they were shy at the first try. They all could interact

naturally and spontaneously, losing the fear of participating in class.

It was a new learning alternative at the school. They obtained personal satisfaction, since they

could notice the familiar and pleasing environment students had while learning. Their students

felt oriented and encouraged to learn. It motivated us to use this method as they based their work

on the communicative approach, which focuses not only on grammar, but on helping the learner

achieve a better way to communicate and to be more active and participative. It also takes into
 57

account students’ linguistic necessities and motivations. Those aspects were important to this

project.

Furthermore, role play is an effective technique that animates the process of learning by

bringing environment. As cited in their work, it encourages thinking and creativity (Liu & Yun,

2009). It allows students practice the target language and develop behavioral skills as interacting

with others. Therefore, games were a great and efficient way to introduce and develop topics.

Students practice all languages systems areas, such as vocabulary, grammar. Likewise, they build

confidence.

In Urrutia & Vega’s (2009) piece of work, “Encouraging Teenagers to Improve Speaking

Skills through Games in a Colombian Public School”, it is presented the participation in oral

tasks by students. Their research results showed that students felt better, free and confident when

participating in class. For making it possible, they applied some games within three lessons. This

innovative application allowed a collaboration and interaction among students.

Their project was carried out with a group of tenth-grade students. They were forty, which

made them face some obstacles during the process. Besides, their English knowledge was not the

one expected from that population. They were apathetic, making more difficult the motivation.

Therefore, Urrutia & Vega (2009) decided to implement oral games as the best motivation to

promote and help students’ development in speaking. For this development, they organized the

games based on Wright, Betteridge & Buckby’s (1984) classification: picture games, psychology

games, magic tricks, sound games, card and board games, word games, true-false games,

memory games, caring and sharing games, guessing and speculating games, story games.
 58

Thinking of the usefulness to encourage students, they chose only three kinds of games:

caring and sharing, guessing-speculation, and story games. They designed a complete lesson plan

for each game. In it, they took into account the fact that their students were not fluent and felt

afraid to speak out loud because of their partners’ jokes. Also, some of them were shy and

nervous when expressing ideas in front others. Then, they began with story game. Secondly, it

was caring and sharing game. And lastly, they applied the guessing and speculative game.

Urrutia & Vega’s (2009) concluded that “role plays and dramatizations were good activities

for developing speaking in a fun and interesting way” (p. 18). Their project invited us to analyze

and understand the importance of applying strategies in the classroom. They were very organized

with each class arrangement. Moreover, they based on different kinds of games that helps create

a good atmosphere inside the classroom when creating and implementing our research project.

“This kind of activities motivate students and help teachers to develop good, interactive and

dynamic classes to achieve in a good way communicative competence in a foreign language”

(Arroyo Guardiola & Gil Soto , 2013) . In accordance with what Arroyo & Gil (2013) mention

in their research project, “Improving Speaking Skills in the Students of Third, Fifth and Seventh

levels at La Salle Languages Center (CLUS) Through Teaching Techniques such as: Role

Playing, Students’ Presentations, Games and Group/Pair Work”, this kind of activity in the

classroom is useful and fun. It is a technique used to help students improve their English level

and skills.
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Thus, role plays promote spaces for students. It contributes to cooperative learning (p. 26). In

other words, this kind of activities allow learners to practice much more the language and share

experiences. The purpose of carrying out and pair work activities supports the development of

students’ improvement in English as second language.

In this way, the complete concentration on improvement of one of the skills: speaking, will

impact on students’ oral production. As well as Cárdenas & Robayo (2001), we realized that

“role-plays and dramatization are effective activities to help students develop speaking (...) by

creating an appropriate environment in which students feel secure and are able to speak

naturally” (Improvign Speaking Through Role Plays and Dramatization, p. 13).

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Theoretical Framework

In order to achieve our goal to help students get better at their oral production skill, we base

our teaching proposal on the one from Angela Hoffman (2000): Developing Oral English

Language Skills through Role Play.

All articles gave us ideas about how and what semi authentic ideas of dramas and role-plays

use in order to help students in their process of learning English as a second language. If it was

demanded for us to take one that goes more with our population and needs, it seemed at the

beginning that the ones implemented in our local and national space were an accurate option to

choose. Colombian population at public schools tends to be broad and have certain

characteristics such as the way students perceive the acquisition of learning another language.

Out of all the articles above, Hoffman (2000) describes theoretically in her research project

“the importance of drama in foreign language teaching classroom, emphasizing the use of role

playing” (p. 1). She also mentions that role plays demonstrate a development in oral production.

According to Ladousse (1987), “role play is one of a whole gamut of communicative techniques

which develops fluency in language students” (p. 7). In this respect, role plays can be used along

with other teaching tools such as literary texts. It is what Urrutia & Vega (2009) did. They

worked on the improvement of speaking skills in their students, but their workshops were mostly

with stories.
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On the other hand, Hoffman (2000) employs a model of field research alike to ours, since her

students also were good at writing and listening, but not at speaking. In the practice, she put in

practice and proved the theories presented by her in the research. Her students experienced some

role plays not only based on their coursebook syllabus, but also on some aspects of the daily life

language. Depending on the flexibility of the program, Hoffman proposed a replacement of some

activities which the teacher and students could feel comfortable with. Besides that, she took into

account the classroom management, the vocabulary and the structure already given in class to

reinforce them during the role plays.

Hoffman research’s population grades was indeed the same or similar to the ones mentioned

above. However, she worked in a different way with them. In other research, it was given to

students the model, script and dialogue model, sometimes to be modified. It helped them out

with their speaking skills, but not totally to improve. Yet, in concordance with the ministry

parameters, in the classroom should exist a construction of senses and meanings created by

individuals. Otherwise, there is no effectiveness to learn a language since they cannot acquire it

and achieve a better pronunciation. In our case, we helped students build speaking skills because

they had never interacted with English in that way. Moreover, they had never often used their

oral production in the classroom. Thus, role plays will help students lose tightness, improve

pronunciation, and learn the new vocabulary, which they will write down with their dialogues, as

well Hoffman (2000) shows it in her research project.

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Methodology

We found out that three major issues were affecting EFL young learners’ oral production at a

public school in Barranquilla, Colombia. We considered these problems as an important topic to

be studied and analyzed. Therefore, we planned to design and implement a pedagogical proposal

aimed to sort out the issues which students were dealing with. This quality proposal was based

on the use of semi authentic resources such as drama and role-plays in workshops. In this vain,

our research question intends to explore the effects of implementing role-plays for the

improvement of oral production in an English classroom. The research question guiding this

proposal is: how does the implementation of Role Plays help improve oral production in four

tenth graders from a public school in Barranquilla, Colombia?

Setting of the proposal

At the school, the English program for high schoolers depends on the level and grade students

are in and takes care of thousands of learners who have a strong interest in learning a second

language. As being stated throughout this research, our focus population is composed by four

students who represent the whole population of thirty-five (35) young learners. At the time of the

implementation of our proposal there was a university-and-public-school strike in the country.

This strike lasted more than three months, not allowing us to keep in contact neither with schools

nor with university’s professors. It affected us in a big way by that time, since we needed

approval in a signed letter in order to implement our proposal at the school.

Fortunately, we could continue our project when the strike ended. It did not take us a long

time to move further with the documentation and preparation of the workshops. When returning
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to school, all students’ willingness to learn English was still perceived in classes. As they are

tenth grade students, and are almost on the verge of graduation, they are supposed to have an

intermediate level. It means, they should finish school with minimum as B1 level according to

MEN. Thus, our implementation would help them improve and to be able to achieve that

requirement.

Bearing in mind these facts and the results of the main study, we decided to design five

workshops free-of-charge, because the data showed that students had a low performance in

speaking. These workshops would offer students the opportunity to get better at their oral

production through dramas. We desired to foster a new conception of speaking as an everyday

process and as a social construction. This would lead to better performances in oral production

activities and tests. Likewise, it will help them out to communicate fluently and express their

thoughts with confidence.

Then, we proceeded to ask once again for permission to our supervisor at the university as

well as the teacher in charge of the class. This permission allows us to carry out this proposal in

the English classroom at Instituto Distrital Castillo De La Alboraya school. Once we obtained

approval, we began with the reorganization of the already prepared workshops.

a. Organizing the course

To begin everything with, we organized the role-plays workshops for the EFL class. We

followed teachers’ recommendations on students’ level, as well as on what the Ministry has been

stated about this kind of population: they should think of society issues, and solutions. Also, they
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should be able to express feeling and thoughts. Information about the role-plays workshops was

presented to professors and sent to all parents via a letter. We explained our purpose, and how it

would not affect them in a bad way. By contrast, it would help them improve at EFL. We

explained them our project and the important role of the young learners. Afterwards, the

implementation schedule was given by teacher in the English class during two weeks. First day

in the first week was to let students our goal and their role. On other day, we showed them how

they would work. Then, we work along them to present the scripts orally as dramas. The whole

class attended the workshops. Yet, our focus was emphasized on our four-tenth-grade students.

These four students who participated until the very end were: Alejandro, Sebastian, Angela and

Leandro.

b. Main features of the workshops

These performance workshops were somehow semi authentic. We based our ideas to carry

them out on some exercises already played in our career as well as on suggestion from a research

guidebook, “Role-Playing Methods in the Classroom” (Chesler & Fox, 1956). We always took in

mind our main goal: to help students to succeed and improve via the implementation of real-life-

situation-dramatizations. We never aimed to evaluate or rank them. We talked with them and

explained them it in order to they could feel free of making mistakes. The idea was learning

while having fun, rather than being under pressured of receiving grades. At the end of the

activity, there will be a feedback and the badges, since it is demanded to do so. In this way, they

will be rewarded for their effort and hard work.

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As mentioned before, we based our material on some sources. We chose carefully the topics

according to the time, the tastes and suggestions from the teachers or the textbook, besides the

ones we found in another guidebook. Consequently, the strategies were thought in sessions. We

were in charge of photocopying the instructions learners receive each session and helping them

to carry the activity out. Students worked in line with the instructions given.

c. Physical setting of the EFL class

The EFL class took place in a classroom. The classroom is located on the third floor of one of

the buildings the school counts with. The room is generally used for English class. It is decorated

with some posters related to EFL. The room has air conditioner, which let students be

comfortable in class rather than misbehaving because of the warm weather. It is rectangular in

shape with around thirty-five (35) rectangular desks and chairs for each student. There is a big

erase board hung on the wall, near to the door, as well as a T.V. The walls are under

construction. The whole classroom is normally clean and organized.

Data collection procedures

Data collection procedure focused on both written and spoken data. The written data was

taken from students writing samples. As they did not have so much trouble with grammar and

most of them like to write, we considered that they would write the dialogues before presenting

in from of the class. It did not take much time from ahead of schedule. This helped them to

organized their ideas beforehand, and then they would present the drama in a better and more

comfortable way. The idea was not that they learn the presentation by heart, but to be awareness
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of what they are going to present. Consequently, it came the spoken data. They presented the

dramas. The amount of time of each role-play-activity is unlike. Every drama activity varies

depending on the topic. Each one of them got involved in their roles, which help them

understand better the topic, speak fluently and the others could understand. At the end of the

workshops, we triangulated the data. This process is divided in five tasks that reflected what

happened in the application of this proposal.

Task 1: Observation: we observed students’ reactions towards the workshops. At first, we

noticed how they understood and got to the point of the activity. Lastly, we observed their

behavior, whether it was in favor or not. They got involved step by step.

Task 2: Moment 1: this was the presentation’ time. We were asked to work with students a

class before in order to explain, guide, and help them get involved beforehand with this process.

It took us one section for doing so. It was a great chance to get along with them, since they did

not know us very well as our latest population. During this time, we introduced them the purpose

and topics. Their doubts were also answered. We made examples. Afterwards, we made sure that

all workshops were appropriate to move onto the next task.

Task 3: Moment 2: In the second meeting, students worked with the first workshop: “who is

right?”. They chose topics affecting society those days. As the teacher recommended us, the

Ministry claimed that students should recognize their community’s issues. Then, they proceeded

to create the script. They had certain time to do so since our time was arranged to the English

class schedule. We were rotating between groups in order to help them with vocabulary,
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grammar or just corrections. After finishing dialogues, we recalled them how they would do it.

All of them began to present their roles and talk.

Task 4: Moment 3: We implemented others workshops during other days. These workshops

were “S.O.S! There is an emergency!”, “Could you help me, please?”. They were always part of

the activity in the creation of dialogues or script. They used vocabulary and grammar tenses

already learnt in class. In that way, we noticed in this third moment their commitment with their

improvement and EFL acquisition. They felt that their creativity and opinions were taken into

account in class sections as we were always around the classroom monitoring their good job.

They followed our suggestions, even though they did not understand at first time.

Task 5: Focus with students, and general feedback: after completing our proposal

application’s weeks, we asked students to participate in the last workshop, “At the party!”. The

aim of this one was to “observe and practice new ways of behaving” (Chesler & Fox, 1956, p.

14). This topic is based on a “farewell party”, which made sense to them as it was our last

moment in the classroom. They got excited about it, and they did their part as always. Each one

of them performed their role, especially our four-students-research base. At the end of this final

section, we gave them feedback, and complimented them for their well-done work. It is relevant

to say how our implementation proposal motivated them to speak fluently in class, when they

expressed their thoughts and feeling about the knowledge and improvement they could acquire.
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Workshops

1. Who is right?

Summary: This activity takes as a basis a TV show. This program is about showing a familiar

problem to the students, in this case the students, so they can decide who of the family members

(a little group of students) is right. On this occasion, the program is about four siblings fighting

for the property of the house left by their recently deceased father. Each member of the public

has to give his opinion about this issue and cast a vote in favor of one of the family members,

based on his or her version of the story.

Characters

•The presenter: a student from the whole class chosen by his/her partners.

•The family: a four students group. Two girls and two boys.

•The public: the rest of the class.

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Preparation: The classroom has to be arranged in a semicircle. The previous class, students

should be given a homework, in which they have to look for vocabulary that can be useful for

this activity. Each one of the “family members” has to receive the script with his or her version

of the story. In addition, the presenter has to have the script with his interventions in the

program.

Arranged time: We will use thirty-five minutes from the class to perform the whole activity.

2. S.O. S! There is an emergency!

Summary: For this activity, students have to works in groups of three people. They have to

create the script for the role-play, with the proper guidance of the teachers. They need to design
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the dialogue for a telephonic conversation with the emergency line, in order to communicate that

there is an emergency (of free choice) in their neighborhood.

Characters:

•Neighbor 1: The first one in communicating the situation to the police. He feels nervous

since he is an elderly person and he is anxious that the authorities come to help.

•Neighbor 2: He is desperate because the first call to the authorities was made more than 15

minutes ago, and nobody comes to the rescue.

•Emergency Line Operator: He is trying to reassure the complainants because the competent

authorities are already on the way to the site of the events.

Preparation: The classroom has to be arranged in some small groups. The previous class,

students should receive a lesson with the vocabulary and expressions used for the situations that

will be performed. They will need some elements as a telephone (it could be fake) and some

elements to represent their roles.

Arranged time: We will use the whole class (55 minutes) for this activity.
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3. Guess who I am?

Summary: This activity provides five role-play cards. They contain information related to

work and study, routine, family and hobbies. Students can simply ask each other yes or no

questions and collect information, in order to figure out who another person is.

Characters:

•The Singer: A world-famous Colombian singer, well known because her hips don´t lie.

•The Writer: He is a Colombian Writer who was born in Magdalena. He received a Nobel

Prize because of his excellent work.

•The Student: He is a Student from tenth grade from a Public School in Barranquilla,

Colombia. He loves English classes and want everybody in his classroom to learn this language.

•The Soccer Player: He was the author of the best goal in 2014 FIFA World Cup. He is a very

talented Colombian soccer player who currently plays for the Bayern Munich soccer team.
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•The Mayor: He is considered as the best Mayor in Colombia. He is highly committed to the

construction of parks, works and roads that contribute to the development of the city. He always

wears a cap.

Preparation: The classroom must have a semicircular arrangement, so that the students who

perform a role can be in front of the rest of their partners and can be seen by each one of them.

Equally, each student has to listen the speech given by the performers in order to create a

question that help them to guess the characters. It means every student has to ask, at least, one

question to the actors. In addition, some elements for dressing up will be required.

Arranged time: For this activity, we will need thirty-five minutes of the class.

4. Can you help me, please?

Summary: This activity is designed to accomplish in groups of three students. There will be a

person who is lost in the city and is looking for a restaurant. The other two will be the ones who
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will indicate the directions he need to follow to get to the place he is looking for. One of them

will give him wrong information and the other will give him the correct directions to get to the

restaurant. Students will design the script for the activity with the proper aid given by the

teachers.

Characters:

•The lost: He feel nervous because of being lost in the city. He just wants to get to the

restaurant since he has a date with his girlfriend.

•Helper 1: This individual has no idea about where the restaurant is. However, he just wants

to help to the lost person.

•Helper 2: He is a native inhabitant of the city and he knows very well every single place

there. He correctly guides the first person to find the restaurant.

Preparation: We will need customs and some elements like maps to perform this activity. The

classroom arrangement has to be a round table. At the same time, students have to know the

vocabulary they will need for the activity. For that reason, they will receive a lesson for the basic

understanding of asking and giving directions prior to the implementation of this activity. It has

to include basic vocabulary, prepositions of directions, conversations and common usages.

Arranged time: We will need the whole class (55 minutes) to design the script, practice the

pronunciation and perform the activity.

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5. At the party!

Summary: This activity takes place at a good friend’s party. This friend is leaving the city

very soon because of studies. Students, as good friends of that person, decide to organize a

farewell party. They can review what they have learned by using verbs and tenses they have

already learned whilst having fun.

Characters:

•The host: the one who comes with the idea and borrows the house.

•The event organizer: she is the one who agrees with the idea and divides the teams to plan the

perfect farewell party.

•The DJ: he is the one in charge of the music and chooses someone to sing in case he does not

know how. (In this part will also participate the researchers, because they should make sure what

they listen to is appropriate, but also the most important: in English.)

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•The one who leaves: this student will act like he does not have any idea about it and will

share some thoughts.

Preparation: The classroom must have a semicircular arrangement, so that the students who

perform a role can be in front of the rest of their partners and can be seen by each one of them.

Equally, each student has to listen the speech given by the performers. Some elements for

dressing up will be required. They will be asked ahead of time to bring some gloves, music and

snacks to share in class.

Arranged time: For this activity, we will need forty-five minutes of the class.
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Data analysis

When the data was collected and the recordings of the focus group were transcribed, we began

with the analysis of the data. The analysis was done in three different stages. The first step was

examining the data. We read the samples collected in four sections. Moreover, we read the

transcripts of the focus group and we took notes of the comments that helped us understand how

the use of role plays would improve the major issues affecting this group of four young learners’

oral production.

The second step had to do with finding some codes. The coding process assisted us in exploring

the persistence and the improvement of issues registered to affect students’ speaking skill. We

made an attempt to narrow these results by focusing on the issues that exhibited a high number of

mistakes. Lastly, the third step dealt with the classification of these components into small

categories. Through this process we identified the implications of each code and joined these

different keywords into categories.

Table 2. Initial codes and categories

Coding Categories

a. Language
b. Improvement Learning motivation
c. Commitment
d. Courage

a. Fluency
b. Vocabulary Language performance
c. Pronunciation
d. Shyness
e. Dialogue maintenance
f. Interaction
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a. Preparation
b. Self-correction Previous knowledge
c. Participation
d. Investigation

a. Distraction Learners’ problems

b. Lack of attention
c. Lack of confidence

We examined the data categories. We encountered the relationship between the categories and

the codes. The table displays some few codes to each category. They emerge from students’

acquisition process. Thus, it exists a correlation from one to another linked by participants and

teachers’ interpretation taken from data collected. The codes and categories will be more explained

in Findings section. Finally, we carried out a final step by comparing the issues emerged from the

first chapter with the assumptions proposed by the theoretical framework.

Findings

The research question guiding the application of the proposal was: how does the

implementation of Role Plays help improve oral production in four tenth graders from a public

school in Barranquilla, Colombia?

The data in this study showed that Role Play as an interactive strategy in the classroom had a

great impact on improving issues affecting the four-tenth-grade-young learners, and their

classmates, of this case study. It is important and necessary to mention that after applying this
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strategy, students’ issues did not disappear totally. Yet, the data collected indicates that through

this use of Role Play games, the learners problems were reduced.

The data in this case study show participants’ past and current language proficiency. In

addition, it is reflected their expectations and future plans, as mentioned in previous data. They

stated the great impact EFL approach has towards them. Therefore, they understood and respond

to interactive activities. In order to explain this, we made the following chart containing

examples taken from field notes, where they showed their attempt and proficiency during

proposal sections.

Table 3. Experiences in proposal sections

Categories Code examples

Learning From the very beginning of our case study, students showed their willing
motivation to learn and produce in English. They knew the importance of getting better
at this worldwide language. Hence, they kept that commitment over the
whole process. They accepted with desire our proposal activities. For some
of them, it meant a challenge because of fear of talking in public or making
mistakes.

In the case of our proposal sections, they showed their commitment when
asking questions about the topic, about what and how they were going to
perform the activities. (See transcribed data).

Language During the four sections, they presented their activities in front of their
performance classmates. Over these moments, we could appreciate their fluency while
talking.
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Moreover, they could overcome their shyness and fear when talking in
their second language. There was an interaction between them. They also
could maintain a dialogue with the teachers, when we asked them some
questions related to the topic, as shown in their first role play. (See 1st. Role
Play presentation in field notes).

Previous For each presentation, they had to write a script. They could require our
knowledge help, but in the praxis they did not. We were with them on a Drive
document and could observed their real quick work. They put into practice
what they had had learnt before.

While performing their roles, their previous preparation was notable. For
instance, they had to make some research about the role they were going to
play in the second presentation. They did it well, since they did their work.
(See 2nd. assessment in field notes). In addition, as they talked, there were
moments of mispronunciation, but they corrected themselves, which proved
their understanding about it. (See After 2nd. Presentation part in field
notes).

Learners’ It is understandable that students do not feel very confident before

problems performing. We could notice it when they addressed to us via the teacher in
charge, saying that they were not ready to present next day. They said that
they thought they needed much time to present. They asked us to do it later.
(See field notes).

Also, during sections they got distracted and did not pay the correct
attention. It mostly happens at the final activity with some students of the
whole population, but not with the ones from this case study as they were
always part. (See Last section in field notes).
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The four young learners’ experiences with Role Plays in the classroom present certain

improvement characteristics that are worth to explain. Each one of them had his/her problem

related to EFL. Nonetheless, each of them could overcome some problems and obtained a better

knowledge and language development.

Alejandro

He made a great work. He used to misbehave in class, but this kind of activities helped him be

focused and work at home and in the classroom. His English had a notable development. He was

one of the smartest and best students in English, but he would prefer to write instead of speaking.

However, he knew how important is to be able to communicate. Thus, he put some effort in it,

and the results showed that he has achieved a better level.

Sebastián

He produced so well as expected. He used to be a good and smart guy in English class, but

with many mistakes in the process. As well as his classmate, he put even more effort on his

work. He made research. He dared to speak and achieved to do it fluently. His vocabulary

suddenly got better, and he came to know when and how to pronounce and use a word or a group

of them.

Angela

As any other shy child, it was a little hard for her at the beginning. Since she was used to not

participate much in class, she did not want to do it at first. Yet, once she did it, she liked it. She

realized how interesting and beneficial it was for her. Her lack of interest in regards of making
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mistakes became to disappear. At the end of the process, she could overcome a little her fears.

She continues being a shy person with the courage to talk in a second language.

Leandro

He did the exercise as a form to participate. Even though he was not the kind of students who

like to participate and be active in class, he put some effort on it. As mentioned in the previous

chapter, he was only interested in making friend and talking. Therefore, these topics helped him

be active and talk. He presented a lack of interest at the beginning of the first section, but the

more he started to speak, he realized that he was having fun, and felt comfortable. His grades

were always low, and with this strategy did not get higher as wanted. But, he did get better at

oral production and grades.

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Conclusion

The findings of this case study showed that this strategy became an important part of the

participants’ oral production. This allows us to say that it helped have a significant implication at

the time of improving speaking skill issues regarding EFL students. The following paragraphs

summarized the main conclusions taken from the study.

Pedagogical implications

The results of this study clearly show that Role Plays in the acquisition of a second language

is a complex and ever-changing process. Students recognized role playing activities as steps that

helped them speak and produce easily. They already had some clues about how to write well and

had always tried to speak fluently. Then, we can claim that students employed it effectively.

These four young learners, or even the rest of the class, will be able to talk about any topic. The

context or subject matter will not be a limitation for them at the moment of expressing opinions.

Implications for further research

The findings indicate that the use of role plays works with students easily. Most of the time, it

is needed to create a friendly environment, depending on the topic to be played. More studies

could be conducted that explore the impact of linguistic, affective and social factor on oral

production. The following are certain pedagogical recommendations that we intent to conclude

with.

1. Take into account students level of proficiency. It is an important aspect, since the

topics are arranged from simple to complex as in a scale. In our case, it was not difficult
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since the school breaks students down into levels. Since sixth grade, they take an exam,

and the results of this show in which level and group should they be in. Our students were

in an intermediate one.

2. Several role-playing activities with clear instructions. For doing so, it is important

to take into account students, and MEN suggestions. It is important to possibly increase

students’ autonomy by the time of creating the workshops. Its design should present clear

instructions, which is very important too. This has to be related to real life or semi

realistic situations.

3. Time arrangement. For further applications of this proposal, it is suggested to

have enough time to develop completely all the guides designed. At least, it is necessary

to set an appropriate time to apply several activities and have the opportunity to let

students try, overthink, make corrections, and improve. Learners can apply their

knowledge in real practice. At the end, evaluate the final results against the traditional

teaching. Learners can apply their knowledge in real practice. Therefore, time is needed.
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ANNEXES

Appendix I. Instruments and evidence of the study (CHAPTER I)

Surveys
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Interview (in Spanish)

• Entrevistadoras: En el día de hoy les vamos a hacer una entrevista que está

diseñada con el fin de conocer su opinión. Como les dijimos, no pensamos tomarle una

nota ni nada de eso, simplemente queremos conocer qué piensan ustedes acerca del tema

que vamos a trabajar, que ya saben ustedes: es la producción oral o el speaking en inglés

para que ustedes puedan mejorar este aspecto en sus clases en los años que siguen y en su

vida diaria. Primero que todo nos gustaría saber si están de acuerdo en participar en esta

entrevista. ¿Leandro?

• Leandro: sí, sí, sí.

• E: ¿Angela?

• Ángela: sí.

• ¿Lechuga?

• Lechuga: sí.

• E: ¿Sebastián?

• Sebastián: sí.

• E: listo. Bueno, la primera pregunta: ¿cómo se sienten en la clase de inglés?

¿quién quiere empezar?

• L: bueno, me siento, yo me siento (este) bien por las nuevas cosas que estamos

aprendiendo últimamente y que, bueno, hay veces que las clases pueden ser como, no sé,

algo, me parecen como algo aburridas, no sé por los nuevos diálogos que están dando,

nuevos compromisos y los temas que nosotros hemos dado ya antes, ya.

• A: pues, me siento bien, pero a veces es como, hay unos temas como que no he

dado y, entonces, sí como que es algo nuevo…

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• AL: eh, para mí parecer, para mí parecer a mí me gusta la clase de inglés porque

es la clase como en la que más sobresalgo, porque en la mayoría no, no sé, no me tienen

confianza, no me tienen fe de que no pueda sobresalir en algo. Entonces me gusta la clase

de inglés.

• S: verdaderamente en la clase de inglés me siento inspirado por que en un futuro

se sabe que el inglés nos va a facilitar cuando uno vaya a traer empresas, empresas

grandes, aunque también, así como dice mi amigo Leandro uno se aburre en las clases,

así como cuando están dando temas nuevos que uno se lo han dado durante el transcurso

del año escolar, y…

• E: ¿les gusta cómo se trabajan las clases actualmente? Algo de lo que tú estabas

diciendo, Leandro.

• L: hay veces en las que me siento bien, pero hay veces en las que me siento

aburrido porque bueno, el aprendizaje es algo como lento, ¿verdad?

• E: ¿cómo en cuáles?

• L: por ejemplo, como todos nos quedamos pronunciando una simple oración.

• E: pero ¿piensas que es importante llegar a perfeccionar la pronunciación, aunque

sea un poco aburrido?

• L: exactamente.

• E: Ángela, ¿cómo te sientes en las clases de inglés actualmente?

• A: pues bien. O sea, yo en la pronunciación no me siento tan bien a veces porque

no soy muy buena en inglés. Lo único es que lo que tiene que ver con escritura, ahí sí.

• AL: a mí me gusta el inglés, pero me gusta que me digan las oraciones, que me

digan cómo se pronuncian, pero no que nos quedemos estancados en una sola, que damos
 88

así diez (10) veces seguidas la misma pronunciación, la misma pronunciación y ya uno se

lo aprende y ya uno, no sé, como que aburre a veces.

• S: bueno, para mí en inglés, en las clases de inglés me siento bien porque es un

lugar donde se puede discutir, o sea discutir una forma entre amigos que “no así se

pronuncia esto, así se pronuncia lo otro”, o cuando estamos en grupo, se interactúa más y

se va conociendo con las demás personas.

• E: ¿suelen y/o les gusta participar en las clases de inglés? ¿Porqué?

• L: sí, porque obviamente es una nota participativa y le damos ventaja con la

pronunciación.

• A: sí, a veces no porque me da miedo.

• AL: a mí sí, aunque a veces me da un poco de temor.

• S: a mí sí me gusta, pero, así como dicen los otros, uno tiene miedo de

equivocarse frente a las personas y se rían así de uno como lo hacen con Leandro.

• E: pero todos estamos de acuerdo en que estamos para aprender y que la

participación es clave para eso. (Todos acientan). ¿Qué es lo que más disfrutan en la clase

de inglés? Y ¿por qué?

• L: la escritura. Con ella me identifico más porque en la lectura, bueno en la lectura

también porque es parecido al escrito. Lo que no me gusta de eso es la escucha, porque la

gente que me habla en inglés, no puedo entender muy bien eso porque es algo así

complicado porque no puedo entender bien lo que dicen.

• E: ¿y te gustaría poder entender lo que dicen?

• L: exacto.
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• A: la escritura, o sea se me hace mucho más fácil. Las palabras son más fáciles -

me fluyen.

• AL: a mí me gusta es el escrito. A veces cuando yo escribo, no sé, me gusta

traducir las palabras para entender lo que dicen. Entonces, me gusta traducir.

• S: a mí lo que me gusta más es la lectura. Porque puedo ver, o sea yo mismo me

noto que cuando estoy leyendo, uno mismo leyendo aprende más. Porque si uno sabe que

uno va leyendo y se equivoca, puede volver a corregir y a pesar que si se van a reír de

uno no es nada malo porque uno en el aula está aprendiendo.

• E: bien, entonces ¿les gustan las actividades donde tienen que hablar en inglés?

• L: exactamente. Como el karaoke, los poemas y algunos diálogos que nos asignan.

Porque ahí puedo poner a prueba mi pronunciación en inglés.

• A: no me gusta tanto, porque se me hace muy complicado cómo pronunciar las

palabras.

• E: ¿es por la pronunciación o por la pena?

• A: ambas.

• AL: a mí sí me gusta porque me creo gringo. No sí, no sé, me gusta hablar en

inglés. Porque no sé, ahí mientras voy hablando voy aprendiendo palabras que no sabía

pronunciar.

• S: bueno, eh… sí me gusta cuando hacen actividades porque es una forma más

divertida de aprender el inglés, no, así como cuando te ponen dele, dele, mientras tanto a

uno le ponen una forma, por ejemplo, los diálogos, como dice mi amigo Lechuga que uno

aprende más palabras a pronunciar a pesar de que uno no las conoce. Siempre en la vida

hay que aprenderse eso.

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• E: ¿quisieran mejorar su capacidad en inglés? ¿Porqué?

• L: quiero hacerlo, porque bueno aprendo un poco más rápido en la pronunciación

y en algunas cosas en las que me pueden corregir.

• A: sí, mucho. Porque esas palabras a veces no, no me fluyen tanto, así como en la

parte escrita.

• AL: a mí sí me gustaría aprender inglés porque en algún futuro cercano o lejano

ya aquí en este país no se va a poder encontrar casi nada y uno va a tener más

oportunidades en otro país.

• S: a mí sí me gustaría mejorarla porque me serviría más en mi situación educativa,

para mejorar la nota. A pesar de que a veces me sale un poco alta, baja la nota, la idea es

que uno aprenda. O sea, sí me gustaría mejorarla demasiado, porque a veces me critican

las personas “tú que te crees esto y lo otro”, y también…

• E: ¿de qué manera les gustaría que nosotras hagamos las actividades?

• L: bueno, así dinámicas, algo así más seguido como karaoke, ¿verdad? ese tipo de

actividades.

• A: como con diálogos, karaoke, porque uno aprende más y lo puede practicar más.

• AL: que me hablaran en inglés para así poder entender más. Diálogo en inglés.

• S: Me gustaría, como dice mi amigo Leandro, con el karaoke o que nos mandaran

a sacar unas copias donde podamos sacar varias oraciones y después traducirlas y salir al

frente de nuestros compañeros y leerlas.

• E: ¿quisieran realizar juegos de roles/ dramas para mejorar su producción oral en

inglés? ¿Porqué?
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• L: sí, porque hace divertida la clase y porque cuando la hace divertida, nosotros

nos podremos alegrar un poco más en aprender el inglés.

• A: sí, o sea ahí con los juegos de roles sería bueno interpretar a los diferentes

personajes. Sería mucho más divertida la clase, como dice mi compañero Leandro.

• AL: me parece muy buena idea, pero a mí específicamente no me gusta porque no

sé cómo actuar. Me salgo del personaje.

• S: sí me gustaría porque la clase sería como más concentrada, que ya uno cuando

está jugando por ejemplo el ajedrez, ya uno está mentalizado en ganar. Y si practicáramos

esa actividad, sí me gustaría participar en ella.

• E: ¿quisieran recibir asesoría por nuestra parte para preparar estos roles plays y

presentarlos ante la clase?

• L: sí, porque obviamente cuando vamos a estar preparándolo siempre tiene que

haber alguien que nos pueda corregir.

• A: sí, porque, así como dijo el compañero, ustedes nos van a estar asesorando en

que nos equivocamos, que nos salió bien.

• AL: sí me gustaría, porque normalmente uno en la vida siempre tiene que tener

una ayuda donde se equivoca, donde lo hace bien.

• S: eh, yo tengo el mismo pensamiento de mi amigo Lechuga, que sí me gustaría

porque necesitamos una persona que nos ayude en nuestro, para aprender más inglés y

manejar más las palabras.

• E: bien, y la última pregunta es ¿creen que esta estrategia de manejar juegos de

roles/ dramas podrá mejorar su producción en inglés?

• L: sí, porque obviamente va a ser seguido, seguida la actuación de nosotros.

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• ¿Crees que solo te ayuda en el colegio o en la vida cotidiana también?

• L: no, no, en la vida cotidiana también, porque cuando estemos escuchando

música, cuando estemos leyendo una oración, entonces vamos a identificar las palabras

que no y que sí conocemos.

• A: sí, en la vida cotidiana de pronto como en unos trabajos, así, tenemos, tenemos

que, o sea aquí en Colombia, o sea el trabajo que a mí me gustaría hacer no… No sé, o

sea, como que aquí no lo practican mucho. Entonces en países extranjeros sí me tocaría

aprender el inglés.

• AL: sí, porque en la producción oral o los diálogos uno va a aprender cómo se

dice cada palabra en inglés y tanto en la vida cotidiana me puede ayudar con la vida

laboral.

• S: sí, sí me ayudaría y demasiado porque no solo aquí en el colegio porque voy a

sacar notas altas, pero, o sea sobresalir en el inglés, en la vida cotidiana también me

ayudaría porque en cualquier momento una persona puede llegar y ofrecernos algo que

ayudar en inglés y uno ya va a tener más conocimiento en eso.

• E: ¿hay algo que quieran agregar u opinar?

• Todos: no, no, nada.

• E: listo, muchas gracias.

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Appendix II. Evidences of the pedagogic proposal (CHAPTER II)

Field notes & transcriptions

1st. section: 1st. encounter

We went to meet the whole class. In order to do it well, professor took into account to do it

audiovisual classroom. We arrived on time and waited until the professor opened the door.

Everybody entered. We began to install everything to be able to show them our visit purpose. It

took us like 7-10 minutes since there was a little problem. One of the students helped us out.

After that, we started the class. We presented the topics, how they would develop it. We showed

immediately an acceptance and agreement. They liked the idea. They asked us some doubts such

as the script, the dressing options, and so on. We answered them all. As they were the ones who

were going to write and create the script for the presentation, the teachers helped us by sharing a

Drive file. They would write their parts right there. In this moment, the ICTs were a practical and

useful tool.

During the preparation

As we were also in the online document, we could see how quickly and good they worked.

They showed us their dedication and commitment. It was not so necessary to correct every single

word and grammar used. It was notable they translated some words and expressions literally, but

these were not out the idea. However, it showed us the little lack of vocabulary that some of

them had. They days went by, and the day of their first presentation came out.

2nd. section: 1st. Role Play presentation

One day before their presentation, they addressed to us telling that they were not prepared to

present it. They thought that they were not prepared. They thought they would do it badly. They
 94

proposed to do it on the next section, but we explained that firstly there were no much time to

postpone the activity. Secondly, they would not have any grades. Thus, it was not necessary to be

under pressure. Next day, we talked with personally and told them the same as we wrote the day

before. Then, they got calm, and were ready to come to the stage. We proceeded to introduce the

class. We gave them the instructions one more time. And, the students began their activity. As

proof of their presentation called “Who is right”, we recorded the class. The following is the

transcribed recording:

“Who is right?”, June 10th, 2019

TIME TURN

09:35 Natalia: Good morning, class.

C: Good morning, teacher.

Natalia: As you know, we will be here some classes in order

to implement our project with you. This project
consists in the performing of several role-plays and
dramas for you to improve your oral production and
not being so shy when speaking English. Right?

C: Yes!

Danelys: So, we have a homework for today. You needed to

design the script for our first role-play. Did you guys
do it?

C: Yeeeeeeees!

Danelys: What is the name of this role-play?

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C: “Who is right?”

Natalia: Well, let’s begin!

Do the countdown with me:

Natalia:
Danelys: 3, 2, 1 action!
C:

09:41 Presenter Hello everyone, this is once again “CASE

(S1): CLOSED”, your favorite TV show every single day
in the morning!

Judge Hi y’all, I am the Judge Mr. Chirinos, so today we

(S2): have a new case to close. Let’s plaintiffs come in!
What is your reason why for making this judicial
action?

Sibling 1 We both have made this judicial action because our

(S3): two brothers don’t want to sell our father’s house
which he inherited from us before he passed away, but
my sister and I do want to. Our issue came up because
we both need that money for making a business, but
our bothers don’t have a formal job because they’re
too lazy and dumb, so that’s why they don’t want to
sell our father’s house.

Sibling 2 Exactly, they live in our parents’ house and it’s

(S4): sunk into debts and mortgaged. I can’t understand why
they don’t want to sell it, because that money could be
beneficial on them too.

Judge Do you have some evidences about this issue?

(S2):
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Sibling 1 Yes, of course! –She holds an envelope and gives it

(S3): to the judge- These are all of the unpaid receipts of the
house.

Sibling 2 There are banks’ mortgages too, because they

(S4): applied for loans and we don’t know their reasons to
do that.

Judge Oh, yes. Let’s bring the defendants! Due to your

(S2): constant refusal to sell your parents’ house, your
sisters have decided to bring you guys on court. What
is your point of view about this?

Sibling 3 Well, Mr. Judge. We really don’t want to sell that

(S5): house because it’s the only one memory from my
father to us after he passed away due to a terminal
heart attack.

Sibling 1 That’s all lies! They are just thinking about

(S3): themselves.

Sibling 4 That’s not true, Mr. Judge! We wouldn’t ever do

(S6): that. We are good sons. Some other reason why for not
wanting to sell this house is we don’t have another
house to stay in.

Sibling 2 Those men are slanders, Mr. Judge! You guys just
(S4): want to make illicit business in it!

Sibling 3 -He cries- Mr. Judge, we wouldn’t do that in our

(S5): parents’ house ever! –put his mad face up- BUT
THOSE GIRLS WHO ARE MY SISTERS want to
steal that money and let my brother and I to live on the
street and make their "business" which is going to be a
failure and it's going to ruin their lives.
 97

Sibling 4 Mr. Judge, I would never let them to sell my

(S6): deceased father's house! We still love him.

Judge Do you have some evidences for proving your

(S2): accusations?

Sibling 4 We don't have any evidence.

(S6):

Judge Ladies, can you tell me what it's going to be your

(S2): business about?

Sibling 2 We're going to sell clothes, but they're going to be

(S4): coming from outside.

Sibling 3 Are you serious!? Do you want to sell this house

(S5): just for making a boutique!? Ugh!

Sibling 1 You're the least indicated to talk about it, man!

(S3): Kaled and you are getting drugs illegally and that's
why you guys don't want to sell it!

Judge Wow! Is this real?

(S2):

Sibling 2 Yes, it is, we've brought a witness with us.

(S4):

Judge Let their witness pass!

(S2):
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Witness Good morning, I’m Juliana Manga and I am the

1 plaintiffs' witness.
(S7):

Judge Good morning, Mrs. Juliana, thanks for being here

(S2): –he takes some papers– Have you seen Kaled and
Anibal doing this thing that the plaintiffs have said to
me?

Witness Yes, Mr. Judge.

1
(S7):

Judge Are you going to testify or show some evidence?

(S2):

Witness I am their neighbor and more than that, I'm their

1 childhood friend. I've decided to testify against them
(S7): because I was the one who told Dina and Dariana what
was happening on that house. I realized many strange
people visited them so many times. Then, I saw
drugged people come in to the house. By the way... –
takes something out of her pocket– I went to their
house for paying some and they gave this -shows drug
and her phone-

Judge Is that drug?

(S2):

Witness Yes sir, you can prove it, and I have some videos
1 too.
(S7):

Judge –He gives it to Police– If this is real, you're going

(S2): to be in jail because of micro-traffic.
 99

Sibling 3 That is such a baseless accusation! They just want

(S5): to involve to us on this for taking us out of the house!
They DO have an illegal business, WE'VE
BROUGHT A WITNESS

Judge Where's the defendants' witness?

(S2):

Witness Good Morning, Mr. Judge, I'm going to show some

2 evidence about Dina and Dariana's illegal business. -
(S8): Gives a folder to Judge- Look, I have their merchs'
bills and you can see those clothes are carried by a
clandestine craft.

Sibling 3 Who are you? I really don't know who you are.
(S5):

Sibling 4 You are a completely unknown to me.

(S6):

Judge OKAY, LET'S BE QUIET, TAKE SOME

(S2): ORDER!

Judge According to the narco test applied on the evidence,

(S2): it is positive for drug. In addition, the documents and
bills given to me by the defendants’ witness proved
that they ‘photoshopped’ it on computer. So, the
defendants will be forced to accept to sell their
deceased father's house and will not be able to claim
any money because they are going to prison for sale of
narcotics. I SAID, CASE CLOSED!
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Sibling 2 You both destroyed what my daddy built through

(S4): all those years!

Sibling 1 You both are the black sheep of our family!

(S3):

10:30 Presenter Bye, thanks for watching and don't forget to

(S1): subscribe to our channel and thumbs up!

After the 1st presentation

We congratulated them due to their good and well-played work. It encouraged them. They

were happy as they could be able to maintain a dialogue and present a scene. The rest of the

people also talked about the topic. Even though our main and central group were these four

young learners, the idea was that everyone could be part of the activity and get better. We asked

them questions related to the topic. Some of them did not want to participate because of shyness,

others because could not get the idea of the presentation, and some others were not sure about

how to express their ideas. In that moment, we helped them out. Thus, they become part of the

activity.

2nd. assessment

At the end of the activity, we showed them the next activity. This activity is called “Who am

I?”. We explained to them the purpose of this activity, and answer the questions related to it.

After they understood it, we gave them their roles to play. The rest of the class left, and we stay

with them to assign their tasks. Their roles were four celebrities: an actress, a singer, a writer, an
 101

athlete, and an influencer. They chose the exact person they wanted to represent. For that

activity, they should investigate at home about the celebrity’s life.

3rd. section: 2nd. Role Play presentation

We started the class. The four celebrities came to the middle of the classroom. Each one of

them had their real name and the celebrity they were performing on a folded cart right on their

stomach. We divided the whole twenty-eight-students population into two groups. We reminded

the whole class that they should participate in order the activity to be active. We told them that

they would receive a delicious price as the participate and get a point during the activity. The

following is the transcribed activity:

“Who am I”? June 12th, 2019

TIME TURN

09:23 Natalia: Good morning, class! For today, we are gonna do something
different. This is not a role-play at all. This is a game. Do you like
it?

C: Yeeeeeeeees!

Danelys: For that reason, five of your partners have decided to represent
some celebrities but they cannot talk any word. They just answer
your yes/no questions and you have to try to guess who the character
is they represent. Do you get it?

C: Yes!

Natalia: Do you have any question?

C: No!
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Natalia: Ohhhh, I forgot it… I have some prizes for the students that ask
correct questions and we are going to divide the classroom into two
teams. If you guys ask a question which answer is “yes”, you
continue asking. If the answer is “no”, you lose your turn.

Danelys: So, this side of the classroom is team 1, and the other half of the
classroom is gonna be team 2. The first team that complete 3 points,
will be the winner. Okay? Remember you can win the prizes that
Natalia brought for you!

Natalia: So, each team give me a number from 1 to 5. The team who guess
the number, will start the game.

T1: Three?

Natalia: No…

T2: Two?

Danelys: No…

T1: Five?

Natalia: No…

T2: Four?

Danelys: Yeah!

09:38 T2: Are you from Colombia?

S1: No.

T1: Are you a woman?

S3: Yes.
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T1: Do you have long hair?

S3: No.

T2: Do you have green eyes?

S1: Yes.

T2: Do you have short hair?

S1: Yes.

T2: Are you an actress?

S1: Yes.

T2: Are you brunette?

S1: No.

T1: Are you blond?

S3: Yes.

T1: Do you have white skin?

S3: Yes!

T1: Are you from the United Kingdom?

S3: Yes!

T1: Are you a singer?

S3: No.
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T2: Are you from the United States?

S1: Yes.

T2: Did you act in Avengers?

S1: Yes.

T2: Are you Scarlett Johansson?

S1: Yes!

10:02 Danelys: Well done Team 2! You earn one point!

Take your prize. There are some gummy bears for you!
Let’s continue!

T2: Are you an athlete?

S3: No.

T1: Are you a writer?

S3: Yes!

T1: Do you write books for children?

S3: Yes.

T1: Are there movies based on your books?

S3: Yes!

T1: Are you J.K. Rowling?

S3: Yes!
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10:13 Natalia Good job, Team 1! You also have a point. This is a tie! Take your
gummy bears and let’s see who the winner will be!

T1: Are you a man?

S2: Yes.

T1: Are you from Colombia?

S2: Yes.

T1: Are you an actor?

S2: No.

T2: Are you a young person?

S2: Yes.

T2: Do you have short hair?

S2: Yes.

T2: Do you have brown eyes?

S2: Yes.

T2: Do you have white skin?

S2: No.

T1: Are you an influencer?

S2: Yes.

T1: Are you from Monteria?

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S2: Yes!

T1: Are you Charlymarie?

S2: Yes!!!

10:19 Danelys: You rock, Team 1! Take your gummies and let’s see what is
gonna happen… Natalia: do you think team 1 will win the battle?

Natalia: I don’t know, Danelys… let’s see…

Please, continue Team 1.

T1: Are you from Colombia?

S5: Yes.

T1: Are you brunette?

S5: Yes.

T1: Are you a singer?

S5: No.

T2: Are you an actress?

S5: No

T1: Are you an athlete?

S5: Yes!

T1: Are you Catherine Ibargüen?

S5: Yep!
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T1: WE ARE THE WINNERS!!!!

10:25 Natalia: Yes! You won the game. Congratulations. Take your prize. Our
last celebrity was Beyoncé but you already have 3 points. You are
the winners! Give them an applause, please!

Danelys: Well, did you like this game?

Thanks for your participation. We will see you on Thursday for
the final activity.

After the 2nd. presentation

At the end of the activity we were impressed and happy due to their continued participation.

This time most of the students, besides the four learners, became part of the activity. They kept

asking questions to their classmates related to the topic, about the celebrities they were playing.

In the use of the new language, some of them speak very fluently. But, some of them did not.

When they say something wrong, they corrected themselves. Few times they asked us for help.

3rd. assessment

Five minutes before the end of the class, we assigned them the last activity. It was under the

topic of a party. It called “At the Party!” (see workshop #5). As always, we explained to them the

purpose of this activity, and answer the questions related to it. They got excited about the topic,

and we could appreciate their interest at offering themselves as volunteers to be part of the

activity. They already knew that they had to prepare their scripts beforehand. The whole group

was divided into small groups that would bring activities to play At the Party.
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Last section: 3rd. Role Play presentation

This day we arrived thirty minutes before the class schedule in order to prepare and arrange

the classroom as planned. The idea was to have a good environment related to the topic. We

stayed alone with students, as the teacher told us last section that he would not be able to attend

the class. He had to be with another class. But, he let us the audiovisual classroom, lent us his pc

and offered us some music for the activity. We greeted them and began the last section. They

started their presentation. They interacted with the others. They played the games, which the

other brought to class. Unfortunately, some of them did not want to pay attention. Therefore,

they were distracted. Thus, we had to speak with them once while reminding them the purpose of

the section. They took into account our words and continued with the activity. At the end, they

ate some snacks and drink some soda. We proceeded to thank them all and dismiss our proposal

sections. They thanked us back. Hopefully, we could see that they liked all the activities.

Moreover, they always presented them with a strong motivation even though they expressed a

lack of confidence at the beginning.

“At the party!” June 12th, 2019

TIME TURN

10:19 Natalia: Good morning, class!

C: Good morning, teacher!

Natalia: As you know, we are here for our last performance.

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C: Ohhhhhh! (They are sad)

Danelys: Yeah! Today is the last session of our role-plays’ project! For that
reason, we decided to perform a party. Are you ready?

C: Yeeeeeeeees!

Natalia: So, let’s begin! Do the countdown with me…

Everybody: 3, 2, 1… Action!

10:22 Antony: Good fellas, thank you for coming to this party. My name is Antony
Vanegas, I am your host in this party, anything can come to me
Therefore, enjoy the party.

DJ, music please!

DJ: Are you ready for the best party of your lives?

C: Yeeeeeeeees!

Music sounds in the classroom and the lights are turned off. The
students are dancing and some of them eating some snacks.

10:25 Daniela: (She knocks the door) Hello. My name is Daniela, Antony has invited
me to the party. Do you know where he is?

Andrea: Hi. I’m Andrea. I don’t know who you are, but if Antony knows you,
welcome to my party!

Daniela: Is this your party?

Andrea: Indeed. I’m leaving the country because my dad has a new job in the
United States. So, the whole family will live there.
 110

Daniela: Oh, congratulations!

I mean, I’m so sorry, I suppose it’s so sad going to another country you
don’t know and leave all your friends and your school here in
Colombia.

Andrea: Yes, it’s a little bit sad. But, I’m so excited to know the United States!
Ah, here you are (she hugs Antony). Here is your friend Daniela, she
says that you have invited her to my party.

Antony: Yes. Daniela is new in my English course and she doesn’t know
anyone in the classroom. So, I decided to invite her to this party, so that
she can have some fun.

Andrea: No problem. She is so cute!

Antony: Daniela! Are you having a good time?

Daniela: Yes! This party is so fabulous!

Andrea: Well, I hope you enjoy the rest of the party, Danny. I’m going to talk to
the newcomers.

Daniela: Thank you so much! You are such a great host!

Andrea: Well, in fact, I’m not the host. That’s Antony’s role (she laughs)

Antony: (He laughs too) Yes. I organized this party myself because Andrea is
my very close friend and I’m going to miss her very much!

Andrea: Oh, enough! You will make me cry!

Antony: No, no, no… Nobody will cry here! This is a party! Daniela, let’s
dance!
 111

Daniela: Of course! Your DJ is really good!

10:35 Antony: (To the public) Let’s continue with this great party! It’s time to show
your singing abilities in this session called KA-RA-OKE!!

C: (They clap) Karaoke!!!

Antony: Well, our first participant is our host Andrea!!!

Give her an applause.

The public gives Andrea an applause

Antony: The next participant is Jose. He is a very great singer, don’t you Jose?

Jose: Not really. You’re such a chatty! (He laughs)

Antony: (He laughs too) Following Jose, we have our new friend Daniela!

Daniela: No, no, no. I don’t sing at all!

Antony: C’mon Danny. It’s just a game!

Daniela: Ahhhh! Ok!

They do some round of karaoke

10:50 Antony: Well, guys, this is the final of our party because we have here the cake
and some soda! Do you want some?

C: Yeeeeeeeees!!!

They eat and the music still sounds.

 112

10:56 Andrea: Listen to me, everybody! I’m so sad because I have to go. But, every
one of you will live in my heart because you are my friends. Thanks for
this beautiful party and for everything!

10:57: Natalia: Well, guys, congratulations for this great performance. As Daniela, we
have to go, too. However, we thank to you because of your
collaboration and participation in our project.

Danelys: As my partner says, we are very grateful to you for letting us

implement the practical phase of our project with you. Thank you very
much, guys.

Photos
Classroom
 113

1st. encounter
114
 115

1st presentation
116
 117

2nd presentation
118
 119

Final presentation: 3rd.

120
121
 122

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