ABSTRACT
Using role-play in the classroom is an effective way to create a positive learning atmosphere that provides ample opportunities for meaning-focused input and output, language-focused learning and fluency development. In the literature, role-play is defined as the act of having students assume a 'role' and 'play' the part that is associated with a given role, similar to 'playing house' by young children. In doing this, language teachers give their students opportunities to actually 'be' the kinds of characters that they wish to imitate while at the same time "unselfconsciously creating their own reality" through which they get to experiment with language and interact with peers as a kind of "dress rehearsal for real life". Pedagogy is often replete with many components that consist of conversational language, such as vocabulary, grammar, idiomatic expressions and pat phrases, as well as collaborative activities that have a 'conversational feel', but, unfortunately, lack authenticity, spontaneity, and other characteristics of natural conversational discourse.
