How Role-Play Activities can Boost Child Development

What exactly role-play is? It is the application of knowledge and skills gained by a child by observing a given character or a given situation. In simple terms, it is the enactment of a different personality or behavior. Indian Schools in Sharjah specifically host such activities for three objectives- one is attitude development, second is knowledge acquisition and third is skills acquisition. All these contribute to a child’s holistic development and make them more sensible.

Based on these motives, Indian schools in Sharjah assign role-play tasks to children to assess how they sense the world around them. Like, a 6th class student is given the role of his/her school teacher to perform in front of the assembly. And there are many more examples of role-play activities that children can actually enjoy and learn from, simultaneously. If interested, the list is given at the bottom of the page.

Why Role-play is Said Important By Best Indian Schools in Sharjah?

Indian Schools in Sharjah emphasize on the development of a child through role-playing. They listed 5 outcomes that a child can obtain from role play-

1. Communication skills: Clearly, role play bolsters the communication and language skills of students. Children understand how to keep their point and how to convince others. Such children do very well in the sales and marketing professions that demand a good set of conversational skills.

2. Exploration & Experimentation: The two things are only possible when the children’s mind is open and active. To activate their brain, you need to push our brains to work. Thus, role play opens up the inactive part of the brain, helping the child to explore diverse nature of people and surroundings.

3. Social skills: Children learn to socialize with people in multiple form i.e. gestures, speech, actions, facial expressions, etc. Indian School in Sharjah often highlighted the issue of uneven conversation among students under 18. By uneven, we mean impolite replies, inappropriate body patter, interrupting too early, answering irrelevantly, and many more. Role-play helps such children in excelling their social skills by breaking all their limitations.

4. Empathy: Children learn to empathize with others; taking part in a role-play activity would usually mean that you are taking on the role of a character which will teach the children about empathy and understanding of different perspectives.

5. Self Recognition: One can clearly find answers to questions like - who they are? Why they are here? What potentials do they possess? How to rise and find a solution?.Role-play activities positively impact the behavior of a child as they become much more aware of themselves.

6. Learning Ability: By making students take on the role of another person, they practice empathy and perspective learning. This builds cognitive skills that include learning, remembering, judging, and problem resolution. Eventually, using role-play as a training tool helps students in multiplying engagement and knowledge retention in the brain.

7. Break Hesitation: Role-playing places a student in a challenging environment where they have to play an unfamiliar role. This forces them to push themselves out of their comfort zone. In a way, they break their hesitation about speaking and acting in front of the classroom. Before starting role-play activities, our Indian schools make sure that students have proper background knowledge.

8. Imaginative & Creative Skills: Certainly, role play has an indirect relation with imagination. When a child thinks and trains their brain during role-playing, it boosts their imagination capabilities. Children may become great storytellers, designers, and creators. Imagination assists a child in understanding other perspectives over a problematic situation, without being opinion centric.

Examples of Role-play Activities

Aspam Indian School in Sharjah has prepared a comprehensive list of role-playing activities that are helpful in the child’s development. Some role play ideas to practice at home are of Teacher, Mother, police, Detective, traveler, prime ministers, doctor, dancer, gardeners, fairy tale character, etc.