Job applicants find role-play assists preparations for job interviews. Job counselors ask questions similar to those the applicant will hear during an actual interview. The job counselor points out which questions the applicant handled well and which ones need more work. He might suggest other ways for the applicant to communicate his experience or value to the company, power words to use and mannerisms that turn an interview off. Similar role-play activities may work between a client and an attorney or for a student learning to interview people for an assignment.
Teachers use role-play to give students insight into how people think and react. For example, a teacher assigns students to role-play characters in a story so students get inside the character and learn how each character thinks and feels. Students communicate their insights and offer information the class can use. A student may also role-play the part of an adversary or real individual to get perspective from more than one side of a situation. For example, the student may play the part of a grieving child. The individual may communicate her feelings and gain support from family members.
Individuals can engage in role-play to problem solve. For example, a student who is being bullied can role-play ways to deal with the bully. In a classroom setting, other students offer strategies the student didn’t use or different ways to use the same strategy. In a business setting, a coworker may spend time playing each person in a business relationship to find a win-win situation for all parties involved. Playing each role gives the team members perspective that may improve the final outcome of a negotiation.
Students learning a new language role-play to gain fluency and practice with individuals who speak that language. For example, one student role-plays a tourist at the market and another student plays the market owner. The practice reinforces spoken language skills, directs attention to body language and context clues to decode unfamiliar words and requires the student to listen and translate quickly during a conversation.