| With the reform of the College Entrance Examination,the English speaking test is gradually introduced into it,which will be a great challenge for students with the average English speaking ability.At the same time,the English Curriculum Standards for Senior High School(2017)proposes to create conditions to organize English speaking examinations.In addition,the current situation of oral teaching neglects the communicative use of language,so how to find an effective way to improve students’ English speaking ability is a hot topic in current high school English teaching.This study will investigate the influence of role play activities on high school students’ English speaking ability through an quasi-experimental method,and the oral tests mainly focusing on the following three questions: 1)How does role play exert its influence on the scores of senior high school students’ oral tests? 2)How does the activity increase the lexical accuracy and complexity of students’ oral English? 3)Which type of role play is the most efficient in improving students’ English speaking ability?In this study,a three-month role play activity is implemented for 80 grade one students in a high school in Jiangsu Province through the quasi-experimental method and the use of the oral tests.In the pre-experimental phase,the researcher administers a pre-test to the 80 students and divides them into four groups of comparable English speaking ability based on the results of the pre-test,with three experimental groups(group A,B and C)implementing different types of role play activities and one control group D which does not implement role play activity.During the three-month experiment,the researcher has implemented twelve role play activities once a week and distributes different materials to different groups according to the group that implemented different types of role play activities,and organizes students to perform them.At the end of the experiment,the researcher administers a post-test on the participants and transcribes the results of both the pre and post-tests for further analysis.The results of the study show that the role play activities have improved the scores of students’ English speaking tests to some extent and improve the lexical accuracy and lexical complexity in the students’ speaking ability to some extent.By conducting three different types of role play activities,it is found that the unscripted role play activity has a bigger influence on students’ English speaking ability.The experimental period of this study is short and the sample size is small,so the experimental results can only be used as a reference.This study suggests that in high school English teaching,teachers should pay more attention to the development of students’ English speaking ability,create real-life situations,and implement high-quality role play activities. |
