Using Videotaped Role Plays

I attended a workshop entitled "Enhancing Business Etiquette with Videotaped Role-Plays" by Lisa Leopold of the Monterey Institute for Int'l Studies, who is an Assistant Professor and Program head. Although this particular workshop focused on business etiquette, it could be applied to almost any ESL teaching point.

The focus was to teach various speech functions, for example an employee making a request for vacation time to his/her boss and a supervisor giving negative feedback to an employee. Making requests and giving feedback are necessary for students, so the 'business situation' could easily be transferred to an academic situation. Ms. Leopold created general situations ("You are a boss and you do not want to give your employee time off because of company policy." "You are an employee and you made these travel plans before being hired and you need 2 weeks off.") and videotaped coworkers acting them out. The first videotaped role play shows a BAD example of how to do it. The second role play shows a better example of how to do it. [NOTE: At MIIS, no textbooks are used. All of the teachers must create/generate their own teaching materials. If time is an issue, I think role plays could be found in movies and online resources.]

The way she teaches the class is to introduce the element she's focusing on (making requests) and then show the BAD role play. She then elicits comments from the students, "Did this go well? What didn't work in this situation?" The class will discuss and she'll put key words on the board, etc. Then she puts the students in pairs and has them recreate the role play so that it is effective. A few brave pairs will do it in front of the class and there'll be discussion. Then she'll show the GOOD role play and they'll discuss.

What applications do I see here... this could be used for socio-cultural situations (for example using 'would' to soften statements); it could be used to teach grammar (verb tenses when telling a story... etc); to teach idioms; and even to practice listening comprehension of fast, relaxed speech.

Lisa Leopold posted 3 of her videos online, which she is going to send a link to. When I get that, I'll forward that along. I also have a handout that has the situations all laid out. I can make a copy of that and put that in my accordian file in the 2nd St. classroom building.

Danielle P. (DJP)