A study on the effectiveness of using role-play activities to enhance students' Chinese persuasive writing ability = Tou guo jiao se ban yan jiao xue fa ti sheng xue sheng xie zuo you shuo wen neng li

Abstract

Persuasive Writing can be commonly found in students’ oral language. However the curriculum of the Chinese Language subject in the mainstream schools are not providing sufficient trainings that students are not able to deliver an effective persuade with sense of reason and compassion. Moreover, the use of role play, one of the drama conventions, as a means of teaching and learning is recognized as an effective method. By role playing different characters, students are able to percept others feelings and needs through dynamic interactions. Role playing, therefore, is widely acknowledged as an effective and joyful teaching method. This study is an Action Research which aims at investigating the effectiveness of role play to enhance student’s Chinese persuasive writing ability, and 33 S.1 students from a band 2 local school participated in this research. The research examines the outcome by comparing students’ performance in the pre-test and post-test. Totally 2 role plays would carry out after the pre-test and before the post-test, and 2 role plays would carry out as the preparation for amending the pre-test and writing the post-test. The research also includes a questionnaire for all of the students and interview with individual students. The research findings support the use of role play can indeed enhance students’ Chinese persuasive writing ability. The results of the persuasive writing reveal that most of the students show significant improvement. They enjoy and affirm the use of role play-driven lesson can raise their confidence in persuasive writing. As we can see, the research findings are very satisfactory.

游說是學生常用的日常生活中常用的說話技巧，但在主流課程中卻未見有充份的指導和培訓，使學生在撰寫游說文時未能情理兼備，施行有效的游說。而戲劇習式之一的角色扮演教學法被認為是有多大效能的學習模式，學生能代入不同人物角色進行感知，亦能在角色扮演期間與同學進行互動，是集效能與樂趣於一身的教學模式。 本研究是一項行動研究，旨在探討角色扮演對提升游說文能力的成效，共有33名第二組別的中一學生參與是次研究，並通過兩次前測後測寫作的成績驗收成效。學生於進行前測後及進行後測前會參與兩次角色扮演學習活動及兩次依據前測及後測題目進行的寫作準備角色扮演，並在後測後進行問卷調查及個別學生訪談。 本研究結果顯示，角色扮演教學法確能有效提高學生寫作游說文的能力。不同組別的學生皆有顯著的進步，並表示喜歡融入了角色扮演教學法的寫作課堂，認為能提升了他們寫作游說文的信心，結果令人滿意。