people in a group, or the knowledge of the rules of a game etc.to use games. Games are often used as short warm-up activities or when there is some time left at the end of a lesson. Yet, as Lee observes, a game should not be regarded as a marginal activity filling in odd moments when the teacher and class have nothing better to do raquo ;. Games ought to be at the heart of teaching foreign languages. Rixon suggests that games be used at all stages of the lesson, provided that they are suitable and carefully chosen. At different stages of the lesson, the teacher s aims connected with a game may vary:
. Presentation. Provide a good model making its meaning clear;
. Controlled practice. Elicit good imitation of new language and appropriate responses;
. Communicative practice. Give students a chance to use the language. also lend themselves well to revision exercises helping learners recall material in a pleasant, entertaining way. All authors referred to in this article agree that even if games resulted only in noise and entertained students, they are still worth paying attention to and implementing in the classroom since they motivate learners, promote communicative competence, and generate fluency.
. 2.6 Role plays as a method of teachingsuggest different steps and various successions in applying role play in teaching. Based on the empirical evidence, we suggest our step-by-step guide to making a successful role play.1 - A Situation for a Role Playbegin with, choose a situation for a role play, keeping in mind students needs and interests (Livingstone, 1983). Teachers should select role plays that will give the students an opportunity to practice what they have learned. At the same time, we need a role play that interests the students. One way to make sure your role play is interesting is to let the students choose the situation themselves. They might either suggest themes that intrigue them or select a topic from a list of given situations. To find a situation for a role play, write down situations you encounter in your own life, or read a book or watch a movie, because their scenes can provide many different role play situations. You might make up an effective role play based on cultural differences.2 - Role Play Designchoosing a context for a role play, the next step is to come up with ideas on how this situation may develop. Students level of language proficiency should be taken into consideration (Livingstone, 1983). If you feel that your role play requires more profound linguistic competence than the students possess, it would probably be better to simplify it or to leave it until appropriate. On low intermediate and more advanced levels, role plays with problems or conflicts in them work very well because they motivate the characters to talk [8]. To build in these problems let the standard script go wrong. This will generate tension and make the role play more interesting. For example, in a role play situation at the market the participants have conflicting role information. One or two students have their lists of things to buy while another two or three students are salespeople who don t have anything the first group needs, but can offer slightly or absolutely different things.3 - Linguistic Preparationyou have selected a suitable role play, predict the language needed for it. At the beginning level, the language needed is almost completely predictable. The higher the level of students the more difficult it is to prefigure accurately what language students will need, but some prediction is possible anyway [9]. It is recommended to introduce any new vocabulary before the role play [10] .the beginning level, you might want to elicit the development of the role play scenario from your students and then enrich it. For example, the situation of the role play is returning an item of clothing back to the store. The teacher asks questions, such as, In this situation what will you say to the salesperson? Laquo ;, What will the salesperson say? Laquo; and writes what the students dictate on the right side of the board. When this is done, on the left side of the board the instructor writes down useful expressions, asking the students, Can the customer say it in another way? Laquo ;, What else can the salesperson say? Laquo; This way of introducing new vocabulary makes the students more confident acting out a role play.4 - Factual Preparationstep implies providing the students with concrete information and clear role descriptions so that they could play their roles with confidence. For example, in the situation at a railway station, the person giving the information should have relevant information: the times and destination of the trains, prices of tickets, etc. In a more advanced class and in a more elaborate situation include on a cue card a fict...
