Games and role plays are an excellent way to help your learners refine their communication skills. They can, however, be boring and pointless unless you manage to involve the whole class both in the play and in the debriefing. Here are a few things we should keep in mind while using them.

Make sure that everyone can hear what the role players are saying. This is a big challenge if you have a large class. Probably you should consider splitting the class into two and having the same role play simultaneously in both the groups. The drawback then is that you won’t be able to monitor well what is going on in different groups. Also, a role play may end very soon in one group while it goes on in the other one. A relatively quiet group could also be distracted by a boisterous group meeting in the same classroom.

A person’s performance during a role play is rarely as good as it is in real life. One reason is that they are being watched critically by the teacher and the fellow participants. Another reason is that in real life one has or can get a fairly clear idea of how real people will respond; their performance is determined to a large extent by what they are and have done so far. They have a history. But in spite of the role descriptions and the background information made available to everyone, one can’t predict the way another role player will perform. The assumptions one makes about the other role players could be wide of the mark. That may bring down the quality of one’s own inputs. This factor discourages many learners from coming forward to take roles.

Reassure the participants who take the roles that the objective is not to test their ability but to create a shared experience in class. The question you will ask them is not how good or bad the role players are, but what would be the implications if that is the way an exchange actually took place.

Getting a small group to help a player decide how to perform a given role reduces the risk a great deal. It has the additional advantage of involving the whole class in what goes on.

Some learners readily volunteer to take roles; some others are reluctant. Forcing anyone to take a role is counterproductive. Letting the same few come forward to take the roles again and again is unfair to the rest. So you might like to nudge the reluctant ones a little.

A technique I have found very useful is to randomize the role-players also. If you use playing cards, for example, for group formation, you can say in advance that those who get the Hearts card in each group will play the role assigned to the group. Or the one with the smallest number or highest number on his playing card will take the role.

When a role is played out in class, never be overcritical about the inadequacies. Find something you can congratulate the players on. Direct any criticism to the strategies adopted rather than to the performance of any individuals. Put into the same role play situation, you may not do a faultless job either in spite of your superior ability and greater awareness of the issues.

Some role plays can take place simultaneously in all the groups. Then there can be a plenary where they share their experience with the rest of the class. Another possibility is to get the groups to prepare for the role play and to send in a representative to take the role assigned to the group. All the groups can then watch the role play involving their representatives and review it to see how effective it was. They will then see how well they anticipated the others’ moves.

A game or role play on its own may not bring about much learning. After each such activity there should be a discussion involving the whole class. That has to be handled competently and sensitively for games and role plays to be useful. You should be able to identify what was good about the activity and what didn’t go well. You should be able to go beyond what has happened and indicate other possibilities, or other strategies that would have worked better. This is where you add value. This is where your knowledge about communication strategies (as opposed to ability to communicate well) is needed.

In order to do the debriefing well you need to analyze each game or activity in advance. Ask yourself what your objective is in using it in class and what learnings you can engineer through them. However interesting an activity, don’t use it if you can’t relate it to your objectives.