Having gifted students assume an identity other than their own through role-play can help them develop confidence in themselves by acting in a way they might not otherwis
Role-playing is a way of telling a story in which students play a central character. The story has a basic skeletal outline at the beginning, but it is up to students and their peers to decide where the story's plot line goes from there. Students can develop a story where each person portrays a character in a plot that is unfolding in front of them. In role-playing, they adopt a person's individuality other than their own, which means that they are free to be as expressive as they wish without revealing any of their own personal feelings.
Along with improvisation, role-playing has become extremely popular in the past few years in GATE classes. Role-playing is regarded as a critical developmental activity in formal training programs for almost every professional occupation. Students can play out various scenarios that could occur in "the real world," and then step back and analyze what worked and what did not work in the safety of their own learning environment. Role-playing has also become enormously popular in computer and Internet games as many people enjoy acting out ideas without actually putting themselves in harm's way. This is an important skill for gifted students to develop as they progress as a public speaker since many of the speeches they will encounter in this text and in real-life involve role-playing in one form or another.
Not surprisingly, most people prefer role-playing games that involve a narrative that has some kind of danger attached to it. Role-playing an action-packed trip to the grocery store in the family minivan just doesn't compare to trading bullets with a desperate villain deep in the mysterious tropical forest.
Resource:
Parker, Douglas A. Basic Public Speaking, 2nd Edition - The Roadmap to Confident Communications! (ISBN: 0-7388-5619-3). 2001. Xlibris, Random House Ventures.
