The Effect of Role-Play Activity on Iraqi EFL Student's Speaking Ability

Abstract

The present study examines the effect of role-play as a classroom activity on Iraqi EFL students' speaking ability. The present study tried to determine the effect of using role-play activity in speaking classrooms might and improve speaking ability in Iraqi EFL students at the intermediate level. The participants are 60 intermediate language students in Baghdad, Al-Rusafa second randomly selected. Then, they were divided into experimental and control groups. Twenty questions was administered to both groups as a pre-test of speaking and the participants were asked to answer them orally. The experimental group was taught speaking in lieu of the targeted role-play activity while the control group was taught speaking with respect the existing methods. After 15 sessions of the teaching, the post-test of speaking was administered in which the participants in both groups were asked to answer the post-test questions. The results indicated that the means of the two groups were significantly different which means that using role play activity has an effect on the speaking ability.