CC BY
55Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF 2022=4.63) Passport: http://sjifactor.com/passport.php?id=22230
THE IMPORTANCE OF ROLE PLAY IN TEACHING PROCESS
Dilnoza Alisher qizi Tursunova
Teacher of Karshi State Univirsety
Shahnoza Erkin qizi To'rayeva
Teacher of school №25
ABSTRACT
This article is devoted to the influence and place of role play activities in teaching. Role play has come to have increasing relevance in education over the last decade. There are multiple studies on the significance of role plays in aiding children's learning. Role plays can increase student interest in the subject matter being addressed in the classroom. It can also improve student engagement levels. Students transform from being passive recipients to active actors in the classroom
Keywords: empathy, experience, stakeholders, scenario, drama unit, "speaking parts", characters.
How can you make a mundane history lesson come alive in a classroom? What is the best way to teach kids a play? How can we teach traffic rules to students in an interactive and fun manner? The answer to these questions might lie in asking kids to take up roles and to step into the story. This simple act is called role play.
Role play has come to have increasing relevance in education over the last decade. There are multiple studies on the significance of role plays in aiding children's learning. Role plays can increase student interest in the subject matter being addressed in the classroom. It can also improve student engagement levels. Students transform from being passive recipients to active actors in the classroom.
Role play also has the ability to develop empathy in students. It helps them understand different perspectives and enables them to view things from another's view point. A very good example of this is the effect that role play had in reducing racial prejudice in the United States.1 In a class on pre-civil war US history, it was found that students who played the roles of enslaved African Americans developed greater empathy towards slaves. The process allowed them to experience the conditions that slaves were put through and helped them learn more about the topic than they would have in a typical lecture setting .
1 McGregor, J. (1993). Effectiveness of role-playing and anti-racist teaching in reducing student prejudice. Journal of Educational Research, 86(4), 215-226.
2 Steindorf, S. (2001). A student researched website simulates escape from slavery. Christian Science Monitor. 94,(13), 12.
232
UZBEKISTAN | www.caajsr.uz
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF 2022=4.63) Passport: http://sjifactor.com/passport.php?id=22230
As a teacher/facilitator, modelling good behaviour and rewarding such behaviour is often much more effective than punishing negative acts. For example, a role play on bullying in school will help students experience the role of the bully, the victim, the bystander etc. This will help students experience the feelings of the different stakeholders. It will also make it to clear to them as to what is expected of them in such scenarios. Such exercises have been found to be extremely useful in weeding out negative practices in school.
Role play and game-based learning have played an important role in recent years in converting classrooms from rote learning spaces to more active, engaged spaces. This has also shifted classrooms from being teacher led to teacher moderated, where the teacher becomes an enabler of learning and not the driver of it. At its advanced levels, students will take ownership of their learning, picking up skills that will enable them to become lifelong learners.
Memorable classroom experiences are valuable for several reasons. If something from your school days sticks with you for years to come, it's likely reflective of an engaging, unique learning experience. As teachers, we want students to not only gain the knowledge they need but also to have fun and be comfortable in the process.
Speaking from personal experience, I was not a fan of presentations as a student. Presentations equaled unnerving anticipation, sweaty palms, shaky hands, and a red face. At one point, I went so far as to willingly take a lower grade in a class rather than do the required presentation. We don't want this happening with students, and I carried those memories with me into my own teaching. I did not want any of my awesome students feeling absolute terror at the prospect of a presentation. But what can you do? Public speaking is important. Presentation skills are also important. Instilling confidence in students is really important. So is it possible to get kids to hone those skills, reach the needed comfort level, and maybe even strengthen conceptual learning ... without shaky hands and blushing that can be seen from outer space? Luckily, the answer is yes. Whew! There are definitely ways to make this sort of practice much less intimidating, and one of those ways is through role-playing.
One of my all-time favorite teachers converted some of our English language arts time to a drama unit. He had an actor friend, and together, they would facilitate drama exercises in the class. Those times produced some of my best school memories. While pretending to be someone else and having a specific role to play, I found a major sense of confidence. I was not afraid to speak in front of the class in those times. Quite the opposite, actually — I looked forward to it! I was even involved in drama as an extracurricular in later school years.
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF 2022=4.63) Passport: http://sjifactor.com/passport.php?id=22230
That might seem like a big leap — to go from a public-speaking phobia to embracing the stage, but it makes sense if you think about it. Role-playing allows you to wear a mask. There is less pressure because you aren't just "you" — you have a specific persona and goal to focus on. This can eventually make public speaking a breeze and make it easier to give presentations.
A form of role-playing that I experienced as a student, and carried with me and even used as a teacher, is that of assuming a character's role when reading a novel as a group. I loved this as a kid — again, because it's basically a no-pressure situation where you can still be involved in what's happening in the class. I had a fabulously e ccentric teacher in high school who would assign the dialogue ("speaking parts") of whatever novel the class was reading. It would get everyone involved and interested in the story. I tried this out with my own middle-school students, and the results were wonderful! On the board, I would list the characters who had dialogue in the chapter that we were about to read. I would serve as narrator and as students volunteered for the speaking parts I'd write their names next to the character they would be playing. All of the students, even the quietest ones, would volunteer for the speaking parts. They could do it from their desks, no one was looking at them, and it was a great way to accomplish several classroom goals at once: improving speaking skills, increasing student engagement, and raising the comfort level for all students. In fact, it was the shyest student in my class who busted out the truly impressive accents in his speaking roles. It was amazing to see him, of all students, flourish — that's the beauty of role-playing in the classroom.
3 things role-playing activities can do for your classroom 1. Develop new skills and concepts
Beyond actual speaking skills, role-playing can develop conflict resolution skills, heighten reading comprehension, and strengthen communication abilities. Role-playing also works in science and math as well, so don't feel limited to only using it in English language arts.
For example, in science, students may role-play to demonstrate a scientific process, such as macromolecules in the food digestion cycle, an environmental process such as the steps in a weather event, the life-cycle of a plant or animal, or electrons in an electric circuit.
In math, role-playing can demonstrate problem-solving, allowing for students to approach concepts in unique ways. Students can act out a problem, breaking away from the pen-and-paper approach. One use would be for younger elementary-level students beginning to learn problem-solving and arithmetic: You could have three students acting as flowers in a garden and another student comes along and 'picks' one of the
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF 2022=4.63) Passport: http://sjifactor.com/passport.php?id=22230
flowers to put in their basket — how many flowers remain in the garden? Visual learners, in particular, would benefit greatly from this.
Role-playing provides an enriching shift in perspective regardless of the class subject. Students can approach concepts from the character's point of view in a novel, or that of a food molecule making its way through the digestive tract. These activities create a memorable learning experience that students won't forget anytime soon.
2. Appeal to different learning styles and incorporate active learning Role-playing taps into various learning styles, such as auditory, linguistic and kinesthetic. It also allows students to demonstrate their knowledge in a way that's different from what they're used to, such as a test or even a typical presentation. Role-playing is also an active learning activity, which makes it a great tool for reinforcing key learning skills that will work for a range of learners in your class. Active learning is naturally going to be engaging for most students, so that's a clear added benefit.
3. Inject fun and creativity
Creativity and role-playing go hand in hand. Not only are students actively engaged during role-play activities — and learning skills beyond the subject matter explored during the activity — but they are also likely to have a great time and put their creative talents to good use.
Role-playing provides more room for interpretation. Whether it's choosing a particular way to act out a character's role or acting out exactly how an electron would "behave" in their minds, students get to flex their creativity and out-of-the-box thinking by putting an individual flair on what they're doing.
As students become increasingly comfortable with the process, their own unique takes on subjects, concepts, and literature will develop even more elaborately.
Role-playing is a golden opportunity!
These are just a few solid reasons to embrace role-playing in your classroom, and your students will be glad that you did. Take it from a former "I would rather have a root canal than do a presentation" student — finding non-threatening ways to help kids discover their voice will benefit them for the rest of their lives. And with the extra perks of appealing to different learning styles and solidifying concepts in a memorable way, role-playing is one of those rare, dependable strategies that should always remain in your bag of teaching tricks.
Role play activities need to be well designed to cater to the needs of all students. Students who come under-prepared or are low on confidence have been shown to benefit lesser from these activities. Hence the teacher/facilitator needs to plan support for all students for such an activity to be successful.
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF 2022=4.63) Passport: http://sjifactor.com/passport.php?id=22230
At the end of a role play session, it is important to sit down with all students to facilitate a reflection exercise. This will provide an opportunity to capture the learnings of all students and will provide everyone with an opportunity to express how each one felt in their particular role. This will help close out the activity in a manner that synthesises the learnings from the exercise while leaving students thinking deeply about their experience.
REFERENCES
1. McGregor, J. (1993). Effectiveness of role-playing and anti-racist teaching in reducing student prejudice. Journal of Educational Research, 86(4), 215-226.
2. Steindorf, S. (2001). A student researched website simulates escape from slavery. Christian Science Monitor. 94,(13), 12.
3. Dilnoza Tursunova& Nilufar Jumaeva "THE TRANSLATION OF METAPHOR AND METONYMY FROM ENGLISH INTO UZBEK IN THE WORKS OF E. HEMINGWAY" «МОЛОДОЙ УЧЕНЫЙ: ВЫЗОВЫ И ПЕРСПЕКТИВЫ» Сборник статей по материалам XI международной научно-практической конференции № 9 (11) Май 2019 г.
4. Dilnoza Tursunova "Classification of synonyms" Xorijiy tillarni o'qitishda zamonaviy yondashuvlar va innovatsion texnologiyalar, 2020, May
5. Dilnoza Alisherovna Tursunova ,Sabohat Mannonova Shermatovna ,Hilola Umirova Baxritdinovna "GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SYNONYMS AND ANALYZE THEIR MEANING", "Экономика и социум" №5(84) 2021 www.iupr.ru
6. Dilnoza Tursunova, "THE MEANING AND USAGE OF FAMILY RELATED QUOTES IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE", CURRENT RESEARCH JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGICAL SCIENCES (ISSN -2767-3758) VOLUME 03 ISSUE 05 Pages: 1620
7. Tursunova, M. (2021). LEARNING ENGLISH WITH PODCASTS. Матерiали конференцш МЦНД.
8. Tursunova, M.(07.06.2022 8:00). THE PROBLEM OF TEACHING ANALYTICAL READING AND EXERCISES OF NON-PHILOLOGICAL DIRECTIONS.
