Developing communicative competence of esp learners with the role-playing activities

Abstract

This article is based on giving basic information and investigating the advantage of role-playing activities on the communicative skill of pre-intermediate ESP learners. For this case, the outstanding scientists and researchers examined the students’ speaking ability in two groups: the experimental group and the control group. Twenty-four male and female ESP learners at pre-intermediate level were selected after taking a pre-test. Then, they were divided into two groups in a random manner. In the experimental group, role-playing tasks were utilized for teaching conversation, but the control group was shown to the conventional method of teaching speaking. After some basic meetings and discussions of treatment, a post-test was conducted in order to check the students’ speaking capability. According to the factual data, two independent and paired sample t-tests were used to analyze the data, collected using three testing instruments: Longman Placement Test (2004); the semi-structured interviews; and SPSS software version 20. Based on the inferential statistics, the participants in the experimental group illustrated an importantly better performance in the post-test. It was finished that the treatment provided for the experimental group had a positive effect on the learners’ speaking ability. Additionally, the participants’ attitudes to role-playing tasks and their roles in language learning were positive. It is expected that ESP teachers and text book writers, syllabus designers, and material producers will get advantage from the findings of this article.