BEHIND THE SCENES

Have you ever taken part in an English role-play? If your answer is yes, I’m sure you will agree with me that acting is an art. I mean it’s not easy to act naturally, to speak fluently, and to use nonverbal cues reasonably. Yesterday we took the mid-term speaking exam. Each group made a role-play using the functions we had learnt. Our group’s performance was about the conversation among 5 family members to reach the final decision where to go for a vacation.

Therefore, we used some expressions such as:
* Giving an opinion:
- We think Paris is better.
- According to this article, there’s a strong chance that the weather in Paris will be nice.
- In my opinion, Japan is suitable for all of us.
- I’d say that Japan is our final destination.

* Asking for an opinion:
- Paris is so beautiful, isn’t it?
- How do you feel about it?
- What do you think, Honey?

* Expressing agreement:
- I always agree with you.
- That’s exactly what I think.
- That’s for sure.
- I agree with our children.
- I couldn’t agree with them more.

* Expressing disagreement:
- I’m afraid we can’t.
- I don’t think it’s a good idea.
- No way.

* Talking about past events:
It takes me back the happy time when your father and I climbed Phanxipang Mountain together…

* Talking about plans and schedules:
- We’re going to have a week off in May.
- Your parents are planning to have a vacation and I’d like to go with them.
- We are planning to visit Paris.

* Talking about what might happen:
- We will surely have a romantic honeymoon.
- …, there’s a strong chance that the weather in Paris will be nice.
- I’m sure we will have a great time together.

* Making invitations:
- Why don’t we go there?

* Giving compliments:
- An, you’re so cute, kind and generous.

Because we were the first group to perform, I felt a little nervous. As a result, when I was acting, sometimes the words seemed to fly away and it took me some pauses to make up another ones. That’s one of my problems. The lack of confidence can also lead to low voice and unnatural actions so it’s important that I try harder to be more confident. Although during the performance our group members made some mistakes of pronunciation, grammar…, I satisfied with our work because I knew that everyone had put much effort into it. This was also an opportunity to learn from other groups.

1/ Flying Kites: They really impressed me by creative situation and funny actions. To me, all was great, except a few trivial mistakes like “í lộn” or “one roses” (but they self corrected)…

2/ Happy family: Their role-play gave the debate on pollution. Many functions were used and everyone’s pronunciation was good. I just wondered why Ms. Huyền sometimes looked at the ceiling while talking with her friends.

3/ Viva VN: What a pity that I couldn’t concentrate on their performance because I agreed to record video for Mr. Như Anh’s group. Though I didn’t understand the whole story, I could say that almost all of them had good pronunciation.

4/ 3 snakes and 1 cat: I was surprised by the story ending. It’s so coincidental. It was such an interesting story; however, sometimes low voice made it hard to follow the storyline.

5/ All for one: Their story was at the height when the robbery happened. We just couldn’t stand laughing. Nevertheless, I think that the narration in the beginning was not really necessary and when telling the story, Mr. Vinh kept staring at the floor.

6/ Born to shine with “Rumor” gave us a funny and meaningful story. Again, the low voice made it difficult to understand the story completely.

Those are my own opinions. In addition, according to Mr. Bình, here are some mistakes we made:

* Use of functions: Some groups used many functions, but some didn’t. There were some cases where we used wrong functions.
* Pronunciation: TERRIBLE. Some students lacked the final sounds and made spelling mistakes.
* Grammatical mistakes: For example: Let I tell you.
* Other mistakes: Low voice and problems with eye contact.

As far as I’m concerned, every group had its own strong and weak points but the most important thing is that everyone tried his/ her best.

:::Yến Như:::
[edited by Thuy Vy]