How can I make my classroom more collaborative?

How can I make my classroom more collaborative?

To perform a group task effectively in English, learners need to do much more than simply use the right grammar and vocabulary - even if that is our aim as teachers. Asking learners to assign roles within their groups (such as timekeeper, note-taker, spokesperson) is one way to facilitate effective groupwork. But learning to work effectively in groups is more than this. It is part of oracy education: learning to communicate effectively in different situations, and this involves speaking, listening and understanding group dynamics.

How collaborative work helps English language learners

Group work has been proven to have a positive impact on learner attainment. For language learners, the benefits include:

• More input - because more language is directed at them by their peers
• More opportunities for speaking
• Context - they hear language used for a specific purpose
• Better listening and speaking skills
• More confidence and fluency 

Learning how to work in groups

Asking learners to 'work in groups' doesn’t always work, does it? If group work falls flat in your class, think about possible reasons why:

• They don’t understand what they’re supposed to do
• They’re reluctant, unable or afraid to use the target language they need to complete the task
• They don’t like the activity or aren’t interested in the topic
• Social relations within the group aren’t conducive to group work
• They have not been taught how to work effectively in groups - especially true for younger learners

Make sure you’re setting up group work effectively by giving clear goals, staged instructions, examples and demonstrations.

You also need to train learners to work in groups by:

• Creating shared ground rules - set this as a group task: ‘Rules for working together’
• Asking them to identify success criteria for group tasks - ‘What do you have to do? How do you know when you have done it?’ Create a class list on the board.
• Help learners to self-monitor group work - from time to time, assign one learner to act as an observer. Their job is to take notes of who contributes, when and how, and report back to the group after the task.
• Helping learners to reflect on group work - Ask them to reflect on their own success criteria.  'What did you do well as a group? How can you do better next time?’
• Praise effective group work and highlight progress in this area. ‘You all contributed. Well done.’ ‘You’re listening to each other better. Keep going!’ Highlight that working together effectively is part of effective communication, and a key life skill. 

Language for collaboration

We’ve established that collaborative work is not just about practising grammar and vocabulary. However, we do need to ensure learners have the language they need to work together in groups. This means teaching functional phrases and sentence starters appropriate to their language level. Here are some examples:

• Suggesting: Let’s… We could… Why don’t we..?
• Agreeing/disagreeing: I agree. Me too. I’m not sure about that. 
• Involving others: What do you think, x?
• Asking for clarification: I didn’t understand. Can you say that again? What do you mean?

Introduce the phrases a few at a time, and in context. Give examples. Make sure learners understand and can say the phrases. Give them some controlled practice before asking them to use them in group discussions. 

For example, before setting a group task of planning a school event, you can get learners to practise making and responding to suggestions in pairs:

A: We could have a live band. [makes a suggestion]

B: Good idea! Let’s have dancers. [responds, makes another suggestion]

A: I’m not sure about that. Why don’t we… [responds, makes another suggestion]

Collaborative activities

Making your classroom collaborative doesn’t just mean including a big group speaking or writing activity. You can also integrate collaboration into everyday lessons without the need for much planning.

Ask yourself:

• Would learners benefit from doing this task collaboratively?
• Can my learners do this in pairs or groups instead of as a class or individually?
• Can I turn this into a simple collaborative game?

Here’s a list of common classroom activities with suggestions of how to make them more collaborative:

1. Review learning from the previous lesson - Learners work in pairs to remember five words from the last lesson, or write words to describe a picture, or retell a story they heard or read last time. Or (an old favourite!) learners play ‘backs to the board’ to describe words to their team without saying the word itself.
2. Check homework - Display answers for learners to correct in pairs. Or learners discuss what was hard/easy/where they had different ideas before reporting to the whole class.
3. Set grammar or vocabulary practice exercises - Divide the activity so that different learners do different parts of the exercises (see jigsaw tasks in the next section).
4. Set a listening or reading task - Learners check their answers in pairs before whole class feedback (see Think>Pair>Share in the next section).
5. Check answers to an activity - Give answers to one student in a group to share with the others.
6. Review learning from the current lesson - Learners work in pairs or groups to answer quiz questions, write review questions for another group or write important learning points from the lesson.

Two classic strategies

1. Think pair share

Replace whole-class questioning with this technique to avoid domination by strong students and promote collaborative work.

Think: 

'I’m going to ask you a question. Don’t shout your answer. Think about your answer for 30 seconds.'

Giving thinking time prepares learners to speak. Ask them to make notes, if appropriate to the task.

Pair:    

'Work in pairs. Share your ideas. Give reasons for your answer. You have 1 minute.'

Here’s the collaborative part. Plus learners are more likely to talk if they have had time to think.

Share: 

'Let’s share. X, what do you and Y think?'

Now you can nominate different groups. There is less likely to be silence in response to your question because learners have already discussed it between themselves. As learners become familiar with this strategy, they can do it very quickly.

2. Jigsaw

Try this with listening, reading, video, grammar or vocabulary exercises. 

1. Divide the content (A and B).

For example, divide a text into two. Or divide the reading or language practice questions into two. Or ask the As to watch a video and Bs to only listen to it.

2. Divide students into group A and Group B. Students work with their group to do the tasks.

Give extra support to the groups that need it.

3. Regroup (mix up the As and Bs). Students share information. 

This involves lots of real communicative work. You can create more complex jigsaw tasks with 3 or 4 parts. 

Classroom design 

A final consideration is classroom design. Traditionally, classrooms were designed to make sure learners can see and hear the teacher. Recent studies have shown that classroom design can be manipulated to promote learner collaboration and engagement. 

You might not have a lot of control over the layout of your classroom, but you could make some small changes. Ask yourself these questions:

• Does it promote collaboration?
• Can the furniture be moved to allow for different types of group work within one class?
• Can learners face each other in group work and pair work?
• Can they see and hear each other when they work in groups?

Conclusion

Collaborative work is beneficial for language learners and can be easily integrated into everyday classes. Learners need training, support and functional language to work effectively in groups as part of oracy education. Classroom layout can promote collaboration.

However, not all learning has to happen in groups. Learners benefit from individual quiet work too. Plan a variety of interactions, and critically scan your lesson plan to make sure it has variety.

Further reading

https://www.structural-learning.com/post/the-importance-of-oracy-in-language-development

https://oracycambridge.org/group-work-never-say-goodbye/

It’s good to talk: Oracy lesson plan https://www.britishcouncil.org/school-resources/find/classroom/its-good-talk 

https://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2019/06/17/putting-children-together-groups-doesnt-always-work/ 

https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/collaborative-learning-tips/ 

https://hechingerreport.org/schools-are-rethinking-classroom-design-to-encourage-collaboration-creativity/ 

 

Claire Ross has worked in many countries with Ministries of Education and international organisations to help new and experienced teachers to teach English effectively. A freelance training consultant since 2013, Claire works for institutions like Cambridge University Press and Assessment and the British Council. This includes large-scale teacher education projects, creating online learning courses for learners, teachers and trainers, and writing classroom teaching material at primary and secondary level. Her interests include online teaching and learning and pluralistic approaches to languages and cultures, particularly in refugee/immigrant contexts.