??One or two of them will do the work. Others will sit back and relax. Or they will seize this opportunity to gossip, play and disturb all the other classes around. No, I don?t want to get in trouble with the management...?

Our fears of losing control over our students make us stick to our teacher-centred strategies, such as explanation or direct teaching. However, the paradigm shift in education is that we are moving away from these traditional teaching strategies to more child-centred ones. Well-planned and organised group work can indeed improve the effectiveness of our teaching. Once the rules for students? participation and behaviour are established and they are trained to work in groups, our fears and reluctance are bound to disappear.

First, let?s get it clear : what do we (teachers) mean by group work?

It is a pedagogical strategy, based on a child-centred approach, enabling students to work either cooperatively or collaboratively in class. It is not simply a seating arrangement! In cooperative learning groups, students are assigned separate sub-tasks which are brought together in a joint group outcome, whereas in collaborative groups, they are given the same tasks and share in a joint group outcome.

Karen, secondary teacher of English Language and Literature, explains the effectiveness of the group work strategy in her creative writing class: ?It was in view of teaching my Form IV students the imaginative essay and I wanted them to come up with a short story. Therefore instead of the usual explanation on how to plan an essay into introduction, body and conclusion, then talking for a whole period about the plot I devised group work.

First, I gave them a very short story, The monkey?s paw, to study and asked them to discuss its plan and plot within their groups; following which each group made up their own story. It was indeed successful! I noticed that students were motivated as they were eager to present their work to their classmates. Some even came up with beautiful drawings and role plays to illustrate their short story.?

One of her students, Elodie (15 yrs old) confirms: ?I like writing essays and short stories but I always believed that such an activity could only be personal. I was surprised by Mrs. Karen?s idea of writing our stories in groups but soon I realized that group discussions enabled me to get more ideas and, by combining all our ideas together, our story became more interesting. For the group presentation of our short story we decided to act it and we even made appropriate noises since ours was a frightening one. It was original and real fun!?

My own experience in teaching has convinced me of the relevance of group work in the teaching-learning process. I often make use of cooperative groupings when teaching character analysis in Literature in English. Students are requested to proceed through group discussions, the use of graphic organisers and each group member contributes two or three aspects of the character being studied. Students often come up with a whole list of character traits supported by the appropriate evidence. Eventually, I ask them to prepare a role play to provide the class with better insight into the character. And it?s remarkable how students strive to get into the shoes of the character. Indeed a very effective strategy in training our students to answer the emphatic question.

Nadine, a Mathematics teacher, does not hesitate to use group work in her subject area. She also believes in its effectiveness. ?I had to teach a tough chapter on Circles to my Form IV students and one of the rules I wanted them to grasp and remember was that angles subtended by the same chord are equal. Avoiding the usual teacher talk I made my students work in groups. I provided them with worksheets on which each group had to draw the circles, chords and subtended angles. Thus by measuring the different angles subtended by the same chord they were able to see that all angles are equal; hence deduce an important rule in that chapter.? She emphasizes that, though this method is time-consuming, it is rewarding as students learn by enjoying themselves.

Her student Sylvanie (16 years old) states: ?I?m not good at Maths but when Mrs. Nadine made us work in groups I discovered that it?s not that difficult to understand. Of course my friends helped me during the group work. I liked it as it wasn?t boring at all and I didn?t have to learn things by heart. What?s interesting is that I can still remember the rules!?

Group work provides students with the opportunity to work collaboratively or cooperatively by interacting in a task-related way. The freedom to help and learn from one another relieves them from their usual fears and inhibitions, and builds up their self-confidence. It also enables the development of social and affective skills in our learners.

So why not give it a try?

Shardha SANDAPEN