EFFECTIVENESS OF USING ROLE-PLAYING GAMES TO IMPROVE THE SPEAKING SKILLS OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

The relevance of this study is determined by the need to improve the methods of developing speaking skills of students of higher educational institutions (HEIs), especially those studying Romance and Germanic languages (in particular, English and French). Role-playing games are gaining increasing importance as an interactive tool that allows students to practice language in real communicative situations. The aim of the study is to determine the effectiveness of using role-playing games to improve students’ speaking skills. The research methods included observing students while performing role-playing games, testing, and comparing the results before and after applying the author’s methodology during extracurricular activities. The obtained results showed that students in both groups demonstrated a significant improvement in confidence in communication, expanded vocabulary, and increased accuracy in the use of grammatical structures. The conclusions of the study confirm that role-playing games are an effective tool for developing speaking skills, but the methodology requires some adaptation depending on the specifics of the language. The academic novelty is the comparative analysis of the impact of role-playing games on students studying languages from different language groups. Research prospects include further development of methods for adapting role-playing games for other languages and contexts.