Resumen

CUITINO OJEDA, Jocelyn; DIAZ LARENAS, Claudio  y  OTAROLA, José Luis. Promoting fluency and accuracy in English through role play. Cuad. Investig. Educ. [online]. 2019, vol.10, n.1, pp.43-62. ISSN 1510-2432.  https://doi.org/10.18861/cied.2019.10.1.2880.

Nowadays, the English language is a tool of paramount importance for communication. In the Chilean educational system, the opportunities to develop oral skills are scarce due to the reduced amount of time allocated to English as a subject. Oral production is a challenge since it requires idiomatic knowledge, and most importantly, it requires overcoming fear and embarrassment when speaking. This action research provides an account of the results gathered by implementing a pedagogical proposal based on the drama technique of role play. The objective was to promote fluency and accuracy in 34 fourth-grade students from a subsidized school. Both criteria were measured by an analytic rubric for oral performance both at the beginning and at the end of the implementation of the role play practice. The Wilcoxon test was used in order to verify whether or not the improvement in the scores was statistically significant. Furthermore, a semi-structured interview with questionnaire on perceptions about the pedagogical proposal was answered by the students who participated in the project. The results showed that, by the end of the implementation, students' scores in fluency and accuracy had increased significantly. Also, students' confidence when speaking, their liking of English subject and the self-perception of their oral competence had improved after such implementation.

Palabras clave : English as a foreign language; oral English; accuracy; language fluency; role playing.

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