The Use of Roleplay to Overcome Cultural Fatigue

A major concern of ESL teachers is the social and cultural adjustment of their students to life in the U.S. Clarke (1976) suggests that students who act withdrawn, anxious, confused, or angry have problems related to culture shock. Teachers who see students struggling with these problems often ask “What can we do to help them?” If we ascribe to Brown's theory (1980) that learning a second culture is part of learning a second language, then we must ask “How can we teach them the subtleties of culture?” In order to answer these questions, we first examine the terms culture, culture shock, cultural fatigue, and trans-cultural dialogue for insights as to how teachers can evaluate the students' needs in the learning situation. We suggest that if teachers offer students a safe, secure learning environment for testing their observations about English and U.S. culture, then they will acquire both the language and the cultural subtleties necessary for appropriate social behavior. Second, we examine the use of role play as the key to teaching these subtleties. Role play promotes the process of trans-cultural dialogue while providing students with the opportunity to practice new language and social forms in realistic situations. Using a realistic situation as an example, we outline an eight step procedure for the implementation of role play,