This article addresses the question of how a systematic survey of grammar teaching in a foreign-language classroom, as regards especially the teaching of German as a foreign language, can be linked to concrete language practice in the communicative field. In connection with the topic, this paper aims to explore the potential of role playing as a means of consolidating grammar. Due to its versatility, role play can take on different meanings and be used in different areas. Here, it is seen in terms of an interaction based on an increasingly improvised dialogue. Our aim is to highlight the didactic potential of role playing as a mode of interaction among students and, at the same time, of familiarizing with the grammatical structures of German. The first part presents two didactic approaches from over the past centuries, which used dialogue as a central tool in foreign language teaching. We will see how both Georg von Nürnberg’s and Berlitz’s approaches invited students to reproduce the dialogues they had learned. For these reasons, the two approaches are cited here as precursors of educational role playing as we understand it today. The second part of the article will deal with its various fields of application, namely Psychology, Pedagogy and Ludology. The main focus of exploration pivots on the use of role play in the field of foreign language teaching.…
