Role-playing as an affective method for developig primary school students’ foreign language dialogic competence

Abstract

The relevance of the study is due to the fact that, according to the NUS concept, foreign language learning is considered one of the priority areas of educational policy in Ukraine. Mastering a foreign language means being ready to solve social language situations and being competent in reallife foreign language communication. Therefore, mastering foreign language dialogic speech is a key goal of teaching foreign languages to primary school students. In accordance with the age peculiarities of primary school students, game, especially role-playing game, is an effective method of developing foreign language dialogic competence.
The purpose of this paper was to consider the methodology of using role-playing games for the development of foreign language dialogic competence of primary school students. The authors set the following tasks: to consider the methodology of developing primary school students’ foreign language dialogic competence; to disclose the peculiarities of using role-playing games in teaching a foreign language to primary school students; to present an illustrative example of a role-playing game effective for using with primary school students.
The study used theoretical research methods, namely, the method of critical analysis of scientific literature was used to analyze scientific literature on the problem under study and to define the main methodological categories of the research; the method of studying and generalising the positive experience of using role-playing games to develop primary school students’ foreign language dialogue competence was also used.
The authors characterised the essence of foreign language dialogical competence and considered the peculiarities of teaching foreign language dialogical speech to primary schoolchildren. It was found out that primary school children have virtually no intrinsic need to learn a foreign language. Therefore, it is important to create conditions in the classroom under which students would have a motive and a natural desire to say something, to convey their feelings.
The study determined that a role-playing game is a well-organised and controlled situation close to the real one, in which students perform various imaginary roles to solve a real problem in a safe classroom environment, using a foreign language. An example of a role-playing game on the topic «Family Tree» was presented.
The article concluded that the use of role-playing games is an effective method of primary school students’ foreign language dialogue competence development, provided that it is carefully prepared and the recommendations for its implementation are followed at all stages: before, during and after the game. The study of the problem of training future primary school teachers to teach a foreign language using role-playing games may be a promising area for future research.