In role plays activities, students are assigned roles and put into situations that they may eventually encounter outside the classroom. As role plays imitate life, the range of language functions that may be used expands considerably. Also, the role relationships among the students as they play their parts call for them to practice and develop their speaking skills and sociolinguistic competence. They have to use language that is appropriate to the situation and to the characters.
Drama refers more to informal drama as it is used in the language classroom and not on stage. The participants in the drama activities are thus learners and not actors. Drama provides an opportunity for a person to express himself through verbal expressions and gestures using his imagination and memory. Drama undoubtedly improves oral communication. As a form of communication methodology, drama provides the opportunities for the students to use language meaningfully and appropriately.
In discussion activities the students may have an aim to arrive to a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find solutions in their discussion groups. Before the discussion, the teacher sets the purpose of the discussion activity, so students do not spend their time chatting with each other about irrelevant things. This activity fosters speaking skills, critical thinking and quick decision making. The students also learn how to express and justify themselves in polite ways while disagreeing with the others.
Jigsaw activities are more elaborate information gap activities that can be done with several partners. In a jigsaw activity, each partner has one or a few pieces of the "puzzle", and the partners must cooperate to fit all the pieces into a whole picture. The puzzle piece may take one of several forms. It may be one panel from a comic strip or one photo from a set that tells a story. It may be one sentence from a written narrative. It may be a tape recording of a conversation, in which case no two partners hear exactly the same conversation.
