No.

12
1. Modes of classroom organization available to the teacher: whole-class teaching, individual work, pair
or group work.

whole-class teaching teacher acts as a controller,

individual work students do something on their own,
pair or group work you want student to speak, you put emphasize on communication.
2. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of whole-class teaching. Give examples of activities for which
whole-class teaching might be more effective than the other grouping arrangements.
WHOLE-CLASS GROUPING

Advantages
feeling as a group feeling or belonging to one group,
teacher has more control, there is less noise,
teacher explains sth to whole group, not individually,
teacher leads the whole-class discussion,
its easier for students to share their emotions,
listening the teacher help students learn sth from him
(professional speaker).

Disadvantages
everyone is forced to do the same thing at the same
time and at the same pace,
it doesnt teach students responsibility,
students dont have chance to discover sth on their
own,
individual students dont have too many chances to
speak,
some students may be afraid of speaking and hide,
wait for other people to say sth (being afraid of public
failure),
in smaller group it is easier to share material.

3. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of individual work. Be able to describe the characteristics of
well-organized individual works as well as to give examples of activities for which this mode of
classroom organization might be a good choice.
INDIVIDUAL WORK
-

Advantages
responsibility is bigger, it teaches autonomy,
it is less stressful,
it allows teacher to respond to individuals student,
it allows students to answer questions individually,
teacher can give students worksheets with different
tasks and allow individuals to make their own
decisions about which task to do.

Disadvantages
it doesnt create belonging to the group,
it doesnt encourage cooperation, each others
motivation,
it is time consuming.

!!!Individual work should be a final stage of something bigger some bigger activity.

4. What are the pedagogical and psycholinguistic benefits of having students work in dyads (pairs) or
small groups?
&
5. What kinds of problems can arise as a consequence of the utilization of pair and group work? What are
the possible sources of some of these problems as well as potential solutions?
PAIRS OR SMALL GROUPS
-

Benefits
Problems
it increases the amount of speaking,
- students may make mistakes and others may learn
more similar conversation to outside the classroom,
them (no teacher correction), they dont have good
there is a lot of negotiation of meaning, more than in
model of the language,
normal classroom activities,
- better students dominate,
it allows students to work independently, it develops - students are going to use their mother tongue
their autonomy and responsibility,
language, its impossible to eliminate it,
group work is less threatening than e.g. essay in front - some students simply may not be used to group work,
of the whole class,
- some students may not like each other,
teacher can care about particular students his\her
- some teachers may not have control, he may loose it,
talking, give specific questions,
- group influences a particular student,
it develops cooperation,
- there will be some noise, but for some teacher it may
students can compare notes on what they have
be acceptable,
listened to or seen,
- students in pair may often talk about something else.
quick and easy to organize.
it develops competition between groups (it can be + or - )
6. The factors that influence the effectiveness of student-student interaction in pairs and small groups
a) task type (required vs. optional information exchange tasks, open vs. closed tasks, amount of
planning, task familiarity, etc.),
b) group size,
c) group composition (participants proficiency level, gender, language background and familiarity
with each other).

a) task type kind of activity student has to do in pair or group.

required vs. optional information exchange tasks:

- required information exchange task each student has a piece of information that is necessary for a successful
solution of the task and everybody has to speak to be task successfully completed. E.g. Each of 2 students
have a picture with 15 differences. Task for them is find those differences without looking at each others
picture. This helps us to solve some problems connected with group work, e.g. dominating.
- optional information exchange task students have the same information (no information/matter gap) and not
everybody has to speak for the task to be completed. E.g. discussion.
Teacher has to use both but there have to be a balance.

open vs. closed tasks:

- open task it has indefinite number of solutions, many possible solutions to the task. E.g. Differences, but
students dont know how many.
- closed task it has 1 or definite number if solutions and student knows it. E.g. Looking for differences and
teacher will say that there are 15 of them.

amount of planning:
- planned task planning takes place. You prepare something in advance. It is about introducing grammar and
vocabulary some special phrases, structures that students have to know; setting a reasonable time limit
students should know how much time they have to accomplish the task; thinking about clear instructions.
- unplanned task its opposite to planned task, planning doesnt take place.

task familiarity students should know what they are supposed to do, but when teacher uses the same task for
too long they will know it too good, will be bored and wont work.

b) group size the smaller group the better (pair the best). There is more speaking, greater responsibility on student
to speak and there is no chance to hide.
c) group composition who we have in the group:
- proficiency level when in the group there are student at different level it can help, there is a chance of
negotiation of meaning, weaker students will be exposed to a good model of the language they can benefit,
but they may also be a dominated. When in the group there are students at the same level, its more likely that
everybody will be speaking, most will try to say something, but there wont be good model of the language.
- gender its better to have mixed gender groups. Its because of different men and women mentality. Women
listen more, answer and cooperate, men talk more and prefer competition.
- language background different mother tongues (with different nations).
- familiarity with each other:
o if students know each other they are less afraid to ask for help more helpful, less likely to make
mistakes, they are not shy or afraid. On the other hand they may talk about personal life, they know
each other so well that some activities may be pointless e.g. say something about your family.
o if students dont know each other they have more things to talk about, more likely to use English,
less likely to talk about something else. On the other hand, they may be afraid to make mistakes.
o if students hate each other they dont want to talk at all.
Stuff which hand out didnt include:

wheel scenario grouping students by chance.

implementation its about conducting group or pair work. Teacher has to give good instructions, walk around,
observe and students. He has to monitor what is going on.
form feedback information about the language, what kind of mistakes did students make.
content feedback talk about the message, about e.g. arguments, if they are coherent/cohesive

To limit the amount of Polish used by students we can teach them how to negotiate the meaning, e.g. repeat some
phrases, showing them how to explain something without knowing the appropriate words (communication strategy).