Grouping StudentsImportant Facts about the Chapter

Advantages of Whole-class teaching It reinforces a sense of belonging among the group members. Also, it is easier for students to share feelings such as happiness or amusement. It is suitable when the teacher is acting as a controller.

It is especially good for giving explanations and instructions. It is ideal for presenting materials such as pictures, videos, and audio.

It is a good way for us to get a general understanding of student progress.

Whole-class teaching

Disadvantages It favors the group rather the individual. Individual students do not have much opportunity

to participate. Many students feel afraid to participate in front of

the class. Communication between individuals is more

difficult. It is not the best way to organize communicative

language teaching

Circle and horseshoe->especially appropriate for smaller groups. There is a far greater feeling of equality. The classroom becomes more intimate place and the potential for students to share feelings.

Separate tables -> the group work are easier to arrange. It is especially useful in mixed-ability classes, where different groups of students can benefit from concentrating on different tasks.

Seating whole-group classes

Orderly rows->Teacher has a clear view of the students, lecturing is easier for the students, it helps maintain eye contact with the students and vice versa, it is very good when explaining a grammar point, watching a video, presentation. All the students are focus in the same task at the same time.

Advantages of individualized learning It allows teacher to respond to individual

student differences in terms of pace of learning, learning styles and preferences.

It is like to be less stressful for students rather to be in a big group.

It can develop learner autonomy and promote skills such as self-reliance.

Students on their own

Disadvantages of individualized learning It does not help the student to have a sense

of belonging. It takes much more time the elaboration of

practices or assignments.

Advantages of pairwork It increases the amount of speaking time all

the students get in the class. It allows the students to interact

independently without the intervention of the teacher.

It allows the teacher to focus with one or two groups while the other students continue.

Pairwork

Disadvanatges of pairwork It is frequently very noisy. Students in pairs can easily get distracted. It is not always popular with students.

Advantages of groupwork It increases the opportunities for students to talk. There is greater chance to have different

opinions and solutions to one problem. It encourages broader skills of cooperation and

negotiation. Some students choose their level of participation

more redly than in other group arrangements.

Groupwork

Disadvantages of groupwork It is like to be noisy. Not all students enjoy because they prefer to

have the teacher´s attention rather than their peers.

Individual may fall in to roles that are fossilized.

It takes a long time to organize groups rather than other group arrangements.

The task-> when we have an activity that requires students to think, a buzz group is the best option because they will have the chance to talk freely. If the task requires oral interaction, it will be better to put our students in groups. On the other hand, if we give them a listening exercise or a recording, it would be better to group the students in pairs.

Ringing the changes

Variety in a sequence-> the group assembling must be close to the amount of activities of the lesson and how passive or active are.

The mood-> changing the grouping in class can change the student’s mood. Do not fear to Change the grouping format in order to improve the situation.

Friendship->Try to put friends with friends. Also, try to give them the opportunity to choose their peers. Sociograms can be useful for this, but they are time-consuming. A sociogram is a diagram made by the students in which they write through arrows and circles who they want to work with.

Creating pairs and groups

Streaming->Students should be streamed according to their abilities. This gives the opportunity to personalize the students help according to their groups. On the other hand, grouping students with different abilities can help the weaker students to have a better performance. One big problem about grouping students of the same level is that they can feel demoralized or apart of the class.

Chance->group students by chance. It is the fastest way to group students, but it stresses the cooperative nature of working together. One good way to group student is grouping them with the people near to them. Another good way to group students is by the alphabetic order in which A students will group together and B students will group together too.

The task->According to the kind of task, we may group students together.

Changing groups-> The groups may change while the activity continue. This will make a more dynamic perform of the activity, and students will have a better feedback from their peers.

Before->Follow an –instruct-initiate sequence to get students enthusiastic about what they are going to do. The instructions will involve demonstration, and the students must know beforehand how much time they have for the developing of the task. The most important thing about the instructions is that the students must understand them clearly.

Procedures for pairwork and groupwork

During->Keep checking the students’ performance during the activity (monitoring) Teachers must stay with a group for a long time an intervene if he/she sees is necessary. When students are working in pairs, you have a very good opportunity to work with an individual student.

After-> Organize feedback when the groups are finished. Give the students the opportunity to talk about their mistakes and procedures during the activity. If the students made a piece of work, we may provide them the time to present their work in front of the class.

Finishing first-> Teachers may have a series of task-related extensions for early finishers groups that finished early.

Awkward groups->We need to change the pairs or groups if the mix is not working well. Teachers must try to balance the groups in relation of the student´s behavior.

Trouble shooting