10 Role Play Activities for Language Lessons

Our MFL Consultant and former head of languages, Sohelie shares how to incorporate role play in language lessons to prepare students for the Speaking Exam.

The revival of the Speaking Exam transformed language lessons after years of Controlled Assessment.

The speaking exam can be anxiety-inducing for students as it’s unpredictable and they’re on the spot. It’s also difficult for teachers, who must prep a whole class with individual needs.

I found the key to helping students prepare for the speaking exam is by incorporating role-play activities in lessons years before the exam to build their confidence and become familiar with the exam structure.

Here are some role-play activities for your KS3+ classroom:

Role play activities

On the surface, role-play can seem like a tick-box activity that we need to get our students through as quickly as possible to spend more time on the “more important” stuff.

However, role-playing games let students put their language skills into real use in real-world situations and allow them to do all the things we want our students to do in one go including:

• Manipulate language
• Conjugate verbs
• Recall vocabulary
• Display creativity
• Improve fluency overall

Beyond MFL though, role play provides practice for soft skills needed in all subjects like speaking, listening and responding, communicating with appropriate registers and building confidence.

Give these role-play activities a go:

Master Chef

1. Find a familiar cooking programme for example Masterchef, The Great British Bake Off or a cooking segment on a show
2. Assign roles to groups like judge, presenter, chef, sous-chef etc.
3. Play a clip of the programme to show what to act out
4. Provide skeleton phrases or a word bank that structures their sentences
5. Turn this into a project so they can buy the ingredients one day, make the recipe for homework, perform it in class, and then review it either as a whole class task or individually

Suitable for: KS3-5

Main benefits:

• Encourages independence in this project-based style task
• Promotes teamwork as each individual has their assigned role
• Engages students in the popular culture of the target language country by referring to TV shows
• Increases cultural capital by using traditional and authentic recipes

Blind man’s bluff

This twist on a classic game requires minimal preparation and lots of benefits!

1. Create an obstacle course around the classroom or simply a route around the desks
2. Assign one person to be blindfolded and another to direct them around the classroom using “turn left, turn right…” etc vocabulary
3. Add difficulty with obstacles that they need to pass based on answering questions for example, “To cross the bridge, tell me the verb in its infinitive form”

Suitable for: KS3-4

Main benefits:

• Encourages practice of the imperative tense and prepositions
• Promotes teamwork as each individual has their assigned role
• Very easy to do in class time with minimal preparation in advance
• Gets students out of their seats

Teach a Topic

Get students to take on the role of the teacher to teach a topic to the class. All you need is a board pen!

You can allocate further roles to reduce the pressure of one person performing, for example, one person teaches the starter, one does the main bulk and another does the plenary.

Suitable for: KS3-5

Main benefits:

• Great revision technique for students role-playing the teacher
• Immediately engages students as they are now in charge
• Encourages public speaking in a less intimidating setting
• It takes the pressure off teachers!

The Apprentice

Using reality shows in lessons is always an easy win as it encourages discussions about future aspirations and the world of work.

Suitable for: KS4-5

Main benefits:

• Using exam-specific vocabulary about careers and future jobs
• Allows students to practice answering common interview questions they’ll use in the future

The Weather Man

Students can take on the role of a weather presenter with this fun role-play activity that can be used as a lesson starter.

1. Show students news or weather websites so they can decide on their reporting style!
2. Ask students to present a weather report in the target language destination to the class

Suitable for: KS3-5

Main benefits:

• Builds public speaking and presenting skills
• Allows students to use weather vocabulary, which can be used in extended pieces of writing
• An opportunity to connect with the geographical landscape of the target language country by pointing to key places on a map

 Speed Dating

This is a great role-play activity where students can build their language skills through repetition and real-life situations.

1. Assign students either an A or a B and ask them to sit with someone of the opposite letter
2. Give them a set time to speak to their partner about their details, hobbies, family etc. encouraging them to focus on vocabulary that can be used in extended pieces of writing
3. Ring a bell and ask all the As to swap seats, leaving Bs in their seats
4. Now partners have swapped, repeat the activity

Suitable for: KS3-5

Main benefits:

• Gets students out of their chairs
• The time limit keeps energy high
• Repeating their details boosts students’ memory
• Changing partners means students hear their peer’s different abilities. This can change their roles, sometimes they are supporting their peers, and sometimes they are being supported

Class Election

• Personality traits
• Likes
• Dislikes
• Giving opinions
• Justifications
• Comparing contrasting views

1. Show students examples of current politicians in your target language country and their speeches
2. Once students prepare speeches about themselves (or each other) showing off their qualities, ask them to record this as part of an election campaign
3. Show the videos in class and ask the students to choose a winner

Suitable for: KS3-5
Main benefits:

• Engages students with politics and political figures in the target language country
• An opportunity to use high-frequency vocabulary that can be applied to all topics
• Allows students to be creative
• Can bring shy students, who may feel uncomfortable speaking about themselves, out of their shell
• A great way to practise public speaking

Tour guide of authentic locations

1. Get students to each represent an important place of interest in the target language country, for example, Alhambra in Granada or a Francophone country/town like Morocco.
2. Ask students to research the place. Give them key things to find out, like population, capital city, important exports etc. as well as give them the freedom to find other facts
3. Using GoogleEarth, students can virtually take a tour and guide their peers around their city, town, or place

Suitable for: KS4-5

Main benefits:

• Encourages independence as students take charge of their research
• Engages students in the culture of a country
• Broadens students’ horizons as they learn new facts

Shopping channel

This role-play activity is excellent for helping younger students learn how to describe nouns engagingly and interactively.

1. Ask students to bring an item from home
2. One by one, ask the students to ‘sell’ their item to the classroom in the style of a shopping channel
3. Extend the activity by filming each presentation and asking students to provide constructive feedbackOptional: Bring your shopping channel to life by assigning roles like presenters, camera person and director

Suitable for: KS3-4

Main benefits:

• Builds confidence describing nouns and adjectives
• Incorporates positive opinions and reasons

Vlog Voiceovers

This role play activity engages students by speaking their language.

Use the get ready with me (GRWM) TikTok trend to encourage students to use descriptive language:

Suitable for: KS4-5

Main benefits:

• Uses a platform students are familiar with
• Gives the task some context that students can relate to
• Can be used for almost any task as the students can use a voiceover to narrate
• Allows students to be creative

Benefits of role play for language learning 

Role-plays are all about building confidence. The key is building in regular opportunities to practise public speaking during lessons.

These role-play activities don’t need to be in the exact format of an exam-style role play, either. It’s less about the specific exam but more about the skills that role-plays encourage; creativity, public speaking, presenting, and team work.

These are all useful in real-life situations, not just languages.

Here are some of the ways role-play will benefit your students:

Builds a sense of achievement

When so much of the focus on language learning on the ability to communicate, role play shows students that they can converse in a different language.

Prepares your students for real-life scenarios

Role play gives learning context. Students begin to understand why they need to conjugate a verb, why to put the adjective after the noun etc.

For MFL, it’s often the first time students understand the reality and context of a “polite” form of a verb, which is a very alien concept in Modern English.

Help students overcome their fear of public speaking

This is a life skill outside of the classroom.

Practising public speaking through role-play activities allows students to perform in a safe space, which benefits shy students.

Public speaking within role play gives students new opportunities to express themselves while learning new vocabulary.

Encourages creativity

Allows critical thinking

Role reversal allows students to offer constructive feedback, which also makes them reflect on their performance.

Tips for incorporating real life situations in the classroom 

Here’s how to make sure you’re getting the most out of your role play activities:

Structure lessons in advance- Not so much that the activity falls apart if one thing doesn’t go to plan (because we all know that something always comes up last minute like a room change), but enough that your activity will still work with reasonable adjustments such as number changes or a room swap.

 Play to students’ strengths- By deciding on pairs or groups beforehand and seating them accordingly.

Think about what you want to achieve from the activity, for example, should similar abilities together so less confident students don’t feel overwhelmed? Or do you want an extrovert paired with an introvert to help bring them out of their shell?

Make role play activities relatable- by thinking about:

What students are watching on TV

What is happening in current affairs?

Is there anything relevant in their local area?

Can you link it to something they are learning in a different subject, making it cross-curricular?

Allow feedback – Because prevention is better than cure!

Don’t wait until students have been practising the same mistake for an hour before correcting it.

When you notice a common mistake, bring the whole class back to focus, address the misconception, and then ask students to go back and practise the right way.

Make sure feedback is constructive- With role-play exercises, there’s nothing worse than vague statements like  “it was good.”

Provide feedback templates with examples and work through those model answers beforehand so they know what to expect.

A checklist is a great help as students can tick what they hear their partner say and this then provides easy, yet specific feedback that they can articulate themselves.

For example, “My partner said 2 positive opinions, 1 negative opinion, 1 reason and 4 connectives. It could be even better if – they included the past and future tense too.”

Alternate the energy in the classroom- Regularly switch between teacher-centred and group work within role play exercises.

This will change the dynamic of the classroom pacey by continuously re-directing the focus.

If you expect students to practice freestyle with no support for prolonged periods, it won’t work. You can add timers to your slides to help you (and them) keep track.

Role playing games are more than just a tick-box exercise for the Speaking Exam.

It’s about practising skills that show the context and use of languages that simulate real-life situations in a safe and structured way.

When planned effectively, role playing changes the dynamic of the classroom, allowing students to use their creative flair, practise soft skills that are useful in any subject area, and manipulate language independently– our end goal.