practice. They also help learners to get used to working cooperatively and
helping each other. The following tips should help you to use pair and group
work thoughtfully and appropriately, and therefore effectively.
1 Introduce the idea carefully. Your learners may not be familiar with pair
and group work. In this case it’s important to discuss your reasons for using
it (perhaps in L1), and to start using it little by little. After a pair or group
activity ask your learners how they felt, and also give your own thoughts on
how the activity contributed to the class’s aims.
2 Structure the work appropriately. A class who are used to group and pair
work, will be comfortable with a simple request to ‘do this in pairs’. For a
less experienced class, you yourself may need to organize the pairs, indicate
who is to take which role, and give separate instructions for each stage of the
activity. If you are doing pairwork in a class with an odd number of learners,
you will need to make a group of three; consider modifying the task slightly
for this group so that they can all participate.
3 Make sure group members can have eye contact. This will probably mean
changing the seating arrangements so that members of the group are facing
each other rather than facing the teacher. Even with fixed furniture, you can
achieve eye contact by asking alternate rows of learners to turn round to face
those sitting behind.
4 Think about the task. What do you think learners will gain by doing a
particular task in pairs or groups? Don’t assume that just because a
coursebook suggests this way of working, that it is necessarily the best one.
Some ‘group’ tasks can be made more effective in terms of information
exchange and language use by adding an individual stage first, or by slightly
differentiating what each group member is asked to do.
5 Consider group size. Different sizes may be best for different tasks. Larger
groups give scope for more variety of roles and interaction patterns. Yet if
all members are to have the chance to contribute productively, it can also be
important to define roles clearly in advance.
6 Make sure learners know what to do. State the goal of the activity clearly
and give staged instructions, where appropriate. If these are complicated,
you could also write them on the board. Then ask a learner to explain the
instructions in their own words, or—for a short activity—ask a pair to
demonstrate for the class.
7 Monitor group work discreetly. Certainly don’t interrupt groups: the
whole idea is for the learners to operate as well as they can without you.
Move around the class, quietly listening in; contribute to particular groups if
they ask you to, or if you can see that they are stuck. Save your main
feedback to give to the whole class after the group activity is finished.
8 Stop the activity at the right moment. This should be when most of the
groups have completed or almost completed the task set, and before they
start to get bored. For some tasks, it may be appropriate to set a time limit;500 TIPS FOR TESOL 15