Role playing

What are some different ways you can use role-playing in your class?

Strangely, although I have a degree in Drama, it's one teaching method I've explored very little.   The reason is that most role-plays for EFL students are scripted.  For example, there's not much you can do in a scene between a customer and a waiter (although I did post earlier on how to turn that into a game).

Today I'm teaching a 2 hour lesson on my favorite play ever: "A Raisin in the Sun" by Lorraine Hansberry.   Obviously it's impossible to do it justice in a two-hour lesson, but one way around that is simply to provide the scenes and have the students role play them. 

First, we'll watch the first scene of movie to get a sense of the characters.  Then the students will divide up into groups to act out different scenes based only on a short summary such as "Walter tries to convince Mama to give him the money".  The rest is up to the students.

It will be interesting for the different groups to compare what they did, and for those who are curious, they can go and get the play or the movie and compare what they did with that.