Improving the English Speaking Ability of Sixth Grade Thai Students Using the Role-play Technique

Speaking is one of the fundamental abilities that students should develop. In fact, the students are struggling in speaking English due to several factors such as fear of making grammatical errors, lack of confidence or limited vocabulary knowledge which led to low motivation to practice their speaking skills. The aims of this study were to investigate how the role-play technique improves the students’ speaking abilities and to explore students’ opinions towards the use of role-play techniques. This study employed pre-experimental research with a target group using a pre-test, post-test, and a questionnaire. The participants in the study were selected by employing a purposive random sampling method, which consisted of 24 sixth grade students from Ban Namon school, Kalasin province during the first semester of the academic year 2022. The findings of the study were analyzed using SPSS to calculate the t-test score, mean and standard deviation. The research results revealed a great improvement from the pre-test to post-test from 9.38 to 14.79. It showed that role-plays can help students gain more confidence as well as being able to speak more fluently in public. It was found that they were motivated by the fun atmosphere in the classroom. Moreover, role-plays can be an alternative technique for teaching speaking because students gain a direct experience of using the expressions they have learned in different situations.