Parts and stages of a lesson

PLANNING FOR GROUP WORK

When planning a lesson you should look at what the students and the teacher will be doing at different stages of the lesson. This is important so that you prepare a variety of FOCUS. That means the students are not facing the teacher, listening to the teacher all the time. We have discussed this in many different sections of the course and it is fundamental to good lesson preparation and planning.

PAIRWORK

By using pairwork, students are encouraged with little, if any, teacher intervention to collaborate with other learners for the completion of a given task. It is important that learners can cope with the practice tasks set [which must be linked to the language focus and presentation for the lesson]. The materials must be of a suitable level and the content must be motivating. Don’t take ages setting up pairwork for the students to say: ‘Is it a tomato? No it isn’t, it is a pear.’ and so on. Give them something interesting to do. It is also important to think about who to pair up. Work ‘mixed ability’ into your pairwork with ‘if time’ activities and ‘cut off points’ as discussed above. Pairwork can be done easily and quickly without moving the furniture about if you have set your classroom up in a communicative way - remember you can even do it if the furniture is immovable!

GROUP WORK

Group work lends itself to a range of activities. Learners have the opportunity to communicate with others, in the target language, and group work can encourage strong and weak learners to participate in discussions, debates and problem-solving activities. Flexible groupings can be extremely motivating for students. They start off in a set group, then split and re-form. For example, 3 groups of A, B and C are each given a part of a story to prepare orally [A - introduction, B - the plot, C - the ending] They then make 3 new groups, with A, B, and C students to put together a completed narrative. This encourages every student to participate, to learn from others in the group, to listen and to encourage, leading to confidence, improved fluency and support for reading and writing tasks. Group projects are motivating, especially if there is a presentation plenary at the end or if work is to be displayed on the wall.

Group work needs a clear task that will not be over in two minutes when you have spent five minutes setting up and moving the furniture! And remember, as we discussed in Unit 4 Module 1, not all groups have to do the same thing.

SELF-CHECK 4:2 6

Here are some disadvantages in using pair work or group work activities in the ESOL classroom. Fill in the column with suggestions of how to cope. Try to use these key words in your answers.

KEY WORDS: group roles, clear tasks, circulate, feedback, extension