THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING ROLE-PLAY

TO HELP YEAR 5 PUPILS IMPROVING VOCABULARY

By:
Mohd Fikri Haziq Bin Hamzah, Haji Nazeri bin Mohamad Amin, M.Ed TESL
English Language Department, Institut Pendidikan Guru Kampus Dato Razali Ismail
fikrihaziq1992@gmail.com, nazeri@ipgmkdri.edu.my
ABSTRACT
This action research was conducted to improve the pupils of Sekolah Kebangsaan Bukit Payong to
improve vocabulary. There were three pupils had been selected to become the research participants
which is consist of two boys and one girl. To achieve the objectives, the researcher came up with an
intervention of role-play. This game was used to help the pupils acquire vocabulary and improve the
meaning of word. Three types of data sources were gathered throughout the intervention session 1 and
session 2 namely quiz, interview and observation checklist. All the data were analyse descriptively.
The findings indicated that pupils have shown promising improvement since pupils had been able to
recognize the meaning words listed in the story.
Keywords: Role-play, Vocabulary

REFLECTION OF PAST TEACHING EXPERIENCE

As a Semester 7 student of the Institut Pendidikan Guru Kampus Dato Razali Ismail
(IPGKDRI) who is pursuing the Bachelor Degree of Teaching in Teaching English as a Second
Language (B. Tchg in TESL), I had to undergo a three month practical training in a primary school.
Besides doing my practicum, I also needed to conduct an action research which had required me to
investigate an aspect of pupils learning process. In the relation to this I have to identify the area of the
English language subject that pupils were recognized to be really weak in the matter of English
language skills`. In this particular practicum session I was assigned to teach a Year 5 class. When
teaching the five skills to this class, I found out that most of the pupils were having difficulties in
understanding meaning of words. When I taught them to read for example they had to be told the
meaning in their mother tongue so they would understand the words in the passage. I had to tell them
the meaning of words even the simplest word for example Age but some of them even asked me
what is the meaning of age. The plausible reason that I could possibly think of was the lack of
vocabulary or understanding the meaning of words which largely occurred among the pupils.
In the latest practicum session in Sk Bukit Payong, I was assigned by the school
administration to teach the English language subject Year five Cendekiawan which is the third class
from fifth of the class. Most of the time, I had to use direct translation to allow the pupils to
understand the words that they encountered in the texts that I have shown in front. They have
problems when I used English in the classroom and when I assigned them with homework most of
them didnt understand the instruction. This indicates that they have problems with vocabulary and
something had to be done because it is important for the pupils to master vocabulary before they could
master the four language skills.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The first cycle of the intervention was done on 9th of July 2014. During the first cycle of the
intervention, the teacher had gathered the students in a ICT laboratory. The duration for this
intervention was almost 2 hour. The researcher decided to collect three types of data during the
session. The types of data chosen were Quiz, Observation and Interview

Based on the results of the first cycle, the researcher proceeded to the second cycle of the intervention.
It was based on the poor result shown by the research participants during the first intervention. The
second intervention was done on Tuesday, 22nd of July 2014. The duration for this session was about
3 hours. The venue for this second intervention is still the same because the school doesnt have any
suitable room to conduct the intervention.
Pre-test and Post-test
One of the data collected by the researcher is quiz or Pre-test and post-test. For this
instrument there are 3 different types of inventory consist of objective questions, subjective question
and sentence constructing items. This instrument is the main instrument in collecting the data type.
There are fifteen items all together. The participants needed to answer the entire various question. The
first part of the test is to test the ability of the pupils to recognize the meaning of the vocabulary, the
second part of the test is to test the participants ability to differentiate the meaning of the word in a
sentences and the last part of the test is to test the ability of pupils to understand the meaning of the
word and construct a sentence correctly. The marking session was done by the researcher immediately
after the session. The evaluation are emphasized the participants the ability to answer simple to hard
question regarding vocabulary. The word chosen for the test came from the role-play. There are some
changes to the question on the sentence constructing question since the initial pre-test are too hard and
confusing for the participants.

Before

After

Graph 1

Interview
The second data collection for this research is interview. Based on Hitchcock and Huges (1989) lists
of nine types of interview, I have chosen structured interview, survey interview and unstructured
interview to be use as my data collection. The research interview is defines as a two person
conversation initiated by the interviwer for the specific purposes of obtaining reserach relevant
information and focused by him on content specified by research objectives of systematic description,
prediction or explanation ( Cannel & Kahn 1968, quoted in Cohen & Manion, 1994 p.271) in Practical
Guide To Action Reserach.The questions taht i purpose in the interview session is to test the pupils
reaction about the intervention and his attitudes towards the use rrole play as learning tools. Teir

reaction towards the question will be determined the succesfullness of the intervention towards them.
The interview were recorded and anal thus reinfoce the evidence and it will help me to anylze the
effectiveness of my intervention. The interview was done right after the intervention.The interview
was carried twice for the whole cycle pre and post interview. The pre-interview are to measure the
pupils interest in English Language and the post interview is to measure get feedback and positive
progress of the intervention.

Observation
The third data collected was observation, observation of data are one of the first data
collected by the researcher to see the pupils facial expression or behavior towards learning the
language or improvement in English language . The instrument used to collect this type of data was by
using checklist. The checklist was designed to check students motivation, effort ,emotion and behavior
of the candidates In every session, observation of the pupils were recorded and analyze for certain
criteria stated in the checklist which is expression and behavioral types of data. In the checklist, there
were 2 columns consist of question and another column to write the observation. There are ten
questions all along ranging from expression to candidates motivation to answer the researcher
question. The checklist is done to all candidates for two cycles after intervention session

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

There are two objectives of this research are:

To find out the effectiveness of role-play in helping the pupils to vocabulary.

To find out whether role-play can motivate the pupils in learning English.

INTERVENTION

The intervention in this research is a role-play using freeze frame technique by the use of a
story entitled The Woodcutter and the Djinn. Its a role-play with costume session performed by the
pupils. When a certain word the participants needs to freeze when the teachers tells so. Then teacher
will define the part of the word to the pupils and unfreeze them to continue the play. This intervention
is to improve the understanding of word meaning and the use of them. The use of props helped pupils
to understand the use of word better. Visual materials bring the teaching to mind in the future, they
enhance the childrens credibility; they also make teaching clear, young learners have more interest in
learning new words when they involved (Konomi, 2011)
This is the script was adapted from the original and simplified to match the pupils
proficiency. This was to ensure that the role-play can be done smoothly due to the pupils proficiency
level. The Script is prepared in normal A4 paper. The font use for the script is Comic Sans MS so to
ease the pupils reading as suitable font for the script. In the script some on the word are bolded and
coloured. The words are forest, voice, pay, rich, bottle, handkerchief, metal, silver, storm, smaller,
bigger, tiny, wood, town, school and storm. Figure 1 here are dialog from the script.
The Woodcutter and The Djiin
NARRATOR: A long time ago there was a woodcutter who had only one son. One
day he said.
FATHER: I have decided to use all my savings to send you to school
BOY: Thank you father. I will study hard and you will be proud of me.
NARRATOR: One day their house is destroyed by a storm, The boy find out
about it and return home
FATHER: I don`t know what are we going to do. With the money I got from
cutting the woods it is not enough. We are not rich family.
Figure 1

Props are used in this role-play to show meaning of the word in the script. In the other hand
the props and mask used in this role-play is made out of polystyrene and bought from the store. The
size of the props is appropriate to the pupils and were made by polystyrene and coloured. Not all
props are handmade and created from polystyrene example the background of the play are using LCD
and a picture of a forest to shows that the characters are in the forest. Based on the feedback the pupils
seems bored and not interested with the activity hence from the first cycle additional props and
material used were changed and additional props are necessary to ensure that the role play is fun to be
done by the pupils hence additional costumes and props are used. Below figure 2 here are picture of
the props

\\

FINDINGS

Figure 2
The research was carried out by using role-play as the method to increase pupils vocabulary and word
meaning. Thus this section discussed the research findings based on the data analysis. Based on the
analysis of research participants results in pre-test and post-test I found that there is improvement
shown by the participants even though not all of them shows drastic improvement. But one of them
did manage to make a medial score with 6 score. 2 of the research participant manage to get median
improvement. One of them scores 1 mark, and 3 mark scores
However after the intervention session, a research participant showed a significant increase
of the results in post-test. The research participants are Ahmad he scores 11 out of 15 which for me is
pretty high. Although the percentage of improvement is about 33 % and for the rest is about 13%
improvement from pre-test to post test. For me it was a big improvement for them as they were low
archivers. This shows that the uses of role-play have increase the pupils vocabulary and prove that
role-play activity can help pupils gain vocabulary knowledge.

The observation result shows the changes of the research participants attitude, interest and
motivation towards English lesson. The negative attitudes such as talkingand playing around during
the lesson, disturb others, and daydreaming weredistinguished after the intervention session. The
research participants were attracted by the role-playing activity which consist of acting, props and
costumes. Role-play is a valuable teaching tool that could attract pupils to learn. If they practice it in
the school their classmates might attract also and follow them to use role-play to play with their friend
and learn to gain vocabulary together. This can help them to gain more vocabulary as they use it
together in the classroom.
From the interview carried out during the research, I found that all research participants are
more interested in learning English. They were motivated to learn by the enjoyable activity in learning
that role-play. They understand the word that been transfer through the acting session. The participants
also mention that the activity is fun and when I asked them what they learn. They said the learn
something which is metal. They seem very excited and wanted to do it again. Through role-play
their knowledge of vocabulary can be transferred and automatically improved their vocabulary.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

For the purpose of improving this research, any researcher who would pursue my research I
would suggest a few suggestion that may improve the research outcomes. First of all the benefit of
using role-play is researcher can exploit the role-play to teach other learning skills such as speaking
skills or reading skills. Any story can be implemented as the core of the role-play. Researcher can use
role to teach more skills such as patterns of simple sentences or other grammar rules. The necessary
changes that I would suggest are to find a better word or story as replacement to enhance the pupils
vocabulary. The use interactive gadgets and sound would improve role-play to enhance the pupils
vocabulary. I would suggest that researcher to use other types of role-play elements or drama
technique other than freeze frame example cross-cutting or conscience Alley technique.
Other than that, this research can be applied in the Bahasa Melayu and Mathematics classes.
To complete a sentence in Bahasa Melayu would also require rules just like in English. Therefore, the
pupils could be exposed in using this intervention in other lesson too. However, some necessary
improvisations, such as the script or word use could be lowered for low proficiency participants. The
script can be enhanced to higher levels of pupils like year 6 by making some adjustments that suit
with the curriculum specification outlined by the Ministry of Education.
This intervention can also be improved by real stage and bigger audience to improve not just
the participants but the audience as well. By using higher level of word in the script English literature
could be spread among Malaysian pupils very fast. The harder the vocabulary more advance the pupils
vocabulary knowledge hence they could use more bombastic word in English thus improve their
capabilities in using English language as their second language.

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