The overall aim of role playing assignments is for students to get involved in a much more direct and practical way than is the case with classic face-to-face teaching. Splitting the word into its two components we can also get a good impression about the functioning of this technique. It provides the students with personas or characters which they can use to portray a role in a fictitious setting akin to theater. It offers the chance to play these characters in a relaxed and risk-free environment, to test one’s own skill and knowledge without any risks involved and additionally - as with any game we play - to have fun in the process. In a role play participants will either portray someone else or they will play themselves in a specific situation. Many critics have recommended that training by doing is the best way of learning for most students and topics. Reading or listening to someone lecturing is inferior to getting involved, to experiment and to take an active part in the scenario, and this is what role playing is all about.

There are three distinctive stages in a role play session:

(1) the briefing,

(2) the play and

(3) the debriefing.

In the briefing phase, the facilitator sets the stage. He describes the scenario and the roles available. The briefing phase is also the “warm-up” phase for all participants; it is a time used to introduce everyone involved, to explain the specifics of the role playing technique and to clearly state the aim of the exercise.

The facilitator will explain the scenario; the degree of detail necessary strongly depends on the topic. In the intercultural context it is advisable to keep the scenario rather open and to allow for free interpretation wherever possible, as cultural differences will