A Classroom—based Research Project

王希

【Abstract】This study focuses on the use of group work in the ESL classroom through the observation of four classes in the language centre of a British university. It is believed that most ESL classroom activities ask for the use of group work. Compared with lockstep teaching， pair or group work show more benefits in a language class. While some researchers argue that group work has a useful but somewhat restricted role in classroom second language acquisition The present study aims to illustrated both the positive impact and the shortage of group work through the analyses and discussion of the data collected.

【Key words】Group work； ESL classroom； Lockstep teaching； Second language acquisition

Introduction

According to the British council， over 1 billion people are currently learning English the world wide. This phenomenon leads to a growing number of studies which are focusing on the Second language learning classroom. As we all know， most classroom activities such as role play， discussions， deepen critical awareness all ask for the use of pair or group work. （Cowie， H.， & Rudduck， j. 1988）. Compared with lockstep teaching， pair or group work will benefit the learner on the following aspects： for the quantity of practice， Students get more chances to speak out and express their opinions and the functions of their talk varies a lot during the group work. As for the Correction， the frequency of correction is higher in group work， and there is merely any wrong correcting by their group members. Students also gain more opportunities to negotiate with each other within their groups. For the negotiation part， the learner will engage in more negotiation of meanings with learners at different second language proficiency levels and different first language during the group work. Ohta （1995） also identified that group work in ESL classroom provides the learners more opportunities to use the L2 for a range of functions. In spite of general acknowledgement that the use of group work helps promoting linguistic competence in ESL classroom， some researchers stated that “group work has a useful but somewhat restricted role in classroom second language acquisition”（Pica， T.， & Doughty， C. 1985）. They argues that group format does not have an impact on increasing the negotiation among the participants as long as it provides little motivation for the learners to access each others opinions. While this class-based research shows the use of group work in the ESL classroom through the observation of four classes. It is believed that both the positive impact and the shortage of this teacher-favored teaching strategy would be well illustrated through the analyses and discussion of the data collected.endprint

Methods

This study base on the personal observation of four ESL classes； all the data used in the following part were collected from a universitys English Language Teaching Centre （ELTC） which provides English Language courses for oversea students. The levels of these four classes are different， two of them are low intermediate level while the others are upper intermediate level. Each class includes 11 students came from different counties all over the world. According to the class profiles which were provided by the teacher of each class， learners in the four classes share the same weakness that is the limited range of vocabulary and lacking of grammatical accuracy. However， it is obvious that learners in the two upper intermediate classes were more confident speakers in compare with the learners in lower intermediate classes. As for the class work， the four classes were on different subjects while most of them included grammar， listening and speaking tasks based on the content of the textbook. The duration of each class was 90 minutes， audio recorder was not available during the observation. There were also some short talks with the teachers after each class which means to find out the answers of questions I encountered during the observation.

Findings

In observation of the use of pair or group work in these four ESL classes， the most distinct finding was the increase of learners practice opportunities through group works. The figure below shows the percentage of teacher talk， group work and independent work in those four classes separately.

From the chart 1 we can see that， the number of group work has no relation with the learners academic level. Both figure1.1 and 1.3 are the descriptions of the upper intermediate classes， but they show very different percentage of group work in 90 minutes class. However the number of group work closely relates to the topic of the class. According to the observation， topic of those two classes are very different， one is review of learned grammar in order to help students preparing for the exam on the next day， the other one is about an interesting topic “brain health”. It seems that an interesting topic with purposeful tasks would encourage more group works.In the figure 1.2，1.3，1.4， the percentage of group work were over 40%， that is to say， students got at least 35 minutes to talk and communicate per class. It is an obvious increase of practice opportunities compared with lockstep manner. As the observational study of classrooms shown by Flanders （1970）， in one lockstep class， teacher talk accounts for a half even two third of the whole class time. In a 90-minute lesson， students totally have no more than 45 minutes； however， the 45-minute also includes approximately 10-minute administrative matters and 10-minute writing and reading tasks. Therefore， in a class with 11 learners， each of them only gets about 2 minutes to practice. The percentage of group work in figure 1.1 was relatively low than the other three figures. It is because that not every type of lessons asks for the use of so many group works. Group work plays a restricted role in grammar and topic review lessons.endprint

In this study， another key factor is the three “task types” in group work identified by Hackman （1968）. They are： production tasks， discussion tasks and problem solving tasks. Production tasks ask for the production of some sentences， ideas even images while discussion task means the group members evaluate some issues through discussion， there is always a group consensus after negotiation. Problem solving tasks are the kind of tasks which require the members to solve several specific problems in order to help them make the course clear. The bar chart below is the illustration of the use of three task types in classroom group works.

Chart 2 reveals the use of different task types in these four ESL classrooms. Upper intermediate class A included four group works， two of them were production tasks， there were also one discussion task and one problem solving task. Upper intermediate class B was in the same situation. Lower intermediate A consist of 5 classroom group works， there were two production tasks， two discussion tasks and one problem solving task. Lower intermediate class B did not have problem solving task， but it had two production task and one discussion task. It is obvious that there are more production tasks in upper intermediate classes than in lower intermediate classes. It is believed that production tasks and discussion tasks tend to present high literacy quality while “problem solving products tended to be low in quality of presentation” （Hackman， J. R & Vidmar， N 1970 P. 46）. Therefore classes of lower level provide more problem solving tasks for learners.

Conclusion

These findings indicate that the use of group work in ESL classroom improves learning outcomes. Learners in a class which is divided into four groups will gain four times as many opportunities to practice as in a lockstep class. Thereupon more and more teachers adapted this helpful teaching strategy in their teachings However it does not mean that setting up a group work is an easy thing. Teachers should know the course content and target very well so that they can decide how many time are allocated to group work. Level of students also should be very clear to the teachers since different group tasks work differently on learners with different academic levels. When students are discussing， it is teachers responsibility to make sure that the group works are carried out successfully by answering their questions or giving them useful feedbacks. In chinas ESL classroom， there would be more difficulties owing the large number of class members. But if teachers could achieve those points narrated above， group work would be an appropriate methodogical tool for Chinese learners.

References：

[1]Cowie，H.，& Rudduck，J.（1988）.Cooperative group work：An overview.London：British Petroleum.

[2]Cohen，E.G.1994：Restructuring the classroom：conditions for productive small groups.Review of Educational Research 64（1）：1–35.

[3]Flanders，Ned.1970.Analyzing teaching behavior.Reading， Massachusetts：Addison-Wesley.

[4]Hackman，J.R.1968 "Effect of task characteristics on group products." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 4：162-187.

[5]Hackman，J.R & Vidmar，N 1970 Sociometry，Vol.33，No.1（Mar.，1970），pp.37-54.

[6]Ohta，A.S.1995：Theoretical issues in examining learner–learner interactions.Issues in Applied Linguistics 6（2）：94–121.

[7]Pica，T.and Doughty，C.1985：Input and interaction in the communicative classroom：a comparison of teacher-fronted and group activity.Input in Second Language Acquisition.Rowley，MA：Newbury House，115–132.endprint