Group Work

Summary

Group work is very useful for some purposes, such as getting students to talk, but some teachers tend to avoid it because of concerns that it may result in an uncontrolled process with little learning going on. In order for group work to go smoothly and work as it should, it needs to be carefully designed and planned.

• 31 Have a good reason to use group work

• 32 Make collaborating worthwhile

• 33 Do group work in the middle of the lesson

• 34 Use pair work a lot

• 35 Instruct before making groups

• 36 Organize groups quickly

• 37 Arrange endings in advance

31 Have a good reason to use group work

It's good to have students collaborate in order to learn but only if this does in fact lead to useful learning. Group work is not necessarily a good thing in itself.

The importance of using group work has, in my opinion, been rather over-rated in the professional literature. Here are some things to think about before you decide whether or not to divide the class into small groups for specific tasks:

• • In some lessons I’ve observed, group work involves only ‘busy work’ or ‘sharing of ignorance’, with little learning. You need to make sure there is some substantial language learning or practice going on.

• • Sometimes group activities can be difficult to control in classes where students are easily distracted and tend to go off-task.

• • Some tasks are inappropriate for group work and are better done individually (see Tip 32).

• • Students vary a lot in the way they like to learn. Although some enjoy working in groups, others prefer to do things on their own, or in teacher-led full-class activity, and dislike collaborative work.

• • Classes may have different previous experiences of group work. If they’ve done a lot of it in the past, or regularly use it in other subjects, then it's easier for you to use it in your own lessons. But if they haven’t, you may encounter reluctance or even opposition.

So by all means use group work occasionally, but you don't have to feel guilty if you don't do it very often! Use it when you’re sure, and can make clear to the students, that working in groups will achieve aims that you couldn't achieve so effectively through individual or full-class activity.