awej 5 no.4 full issue 2014

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AWEJ Volume.5 Number.4, 2014Pp. 469-483Group Work in ESL: A Teacher’s Perception and ApplicationAshjan AllhedanKing Abdulaziz UniversityJeddah, Saudi ArabiaAbstractWith the advent of the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach, scholars haverecognized the importance of classroom group work as a means of providing an authenticinteractive setting suitable for language negotiation. Although some teachers embrace usinggroup work in their classrooms, there are other teachers who are reluctant to use it. In thisresearch, an interview was conducted with a teacher to obtain her beliefs on teaching a secondlanguage and on using group work before observing her practices in classroom. The aim is tostudy the relationship between her beliefs and practices in order to examine reasons of possiblediscrepancies between these two, as this helps in pointing out areas of professional improvementthat the teacher needs. A qualitative analysis of the data reveals that the teacher’s generallearning beliefs are more consistent with her practices than with her group work beliefs. Possiblereasons of discrepancies are discussed with recommendations for further research.Keywords: Communicative Language Teaching; group work; teachers’ beliefs; teachers’practices.Arab World English JournalISSN: 2229-9327www.awej.org469
AWEJ Volume.5 Number.4, 2014Group Work in ESL: A Teacher’s Perception and ApplicationAllhedanIntroduction Mike OrrAlthough the methods of language teaching have been rapidly changing since the secondhalf of the twentieth century, they primarily fall into two broad categories: the syntheticapproach and the analytic approach. It was not until the late 1970s and the early 1980s that theCommunicative Language Teaching Approach (CLT) got into use. This method calls for a shiftin focus to linguistic fluency, without neglecting linguistic accuracy, by exploring thepedagogical aspects of the language via learners’ interaction (Brown: 2007). Within this field,the need has arisen to use group work with learners to accomplish the communicative tasks ofCLT. With the emergence of CLT, a considerable number of studies have come out examiningthe extent of the efficiency of classroom group work and the reservations about its practicality inthe way that such studies have questioned how practical this approach is in promoting languagelearning.Because teachers are the implementers of methodologies, their methodological beliefsand practices have become a parallel line of research inquiry. According to Phipps and Borg(2009), teachers’ beliefs can be divided into core and peripheral. These beliefs can be influencedby several factors such their learning experience as students or their professional experience asteachers, which may result in a teaching practice that conflicts with teachers’ beliefs (Phipps &Borg: 2009; Hill: 2010).Literature ReviewGroup work and language learningAdvocates of group work as a technique in second language learning capitalize on itssignificant role in individuals’ second language (L2) acquisition. In their research, Long andPorter (1985) have found that in contrast with whole-class discussions, group work (1) providesan opportunity for individuals to practice a richer language in both the quantity and variety oflanguage functions; (2) it helps the students who work in groups to achieve the same level ofgrammatical accuracy as when they speak with their teachers; and (3) it leads the students tonegotiate meaning by spontaneously correcting their group members’ lexical errors more thancorrecting their pronunciation or syntactic errors.The aforementioned propositions are supported by empirical research findings. Ghaithand Yaghi (1998) found that the interaction of group work benefits students with low aptitude inacquiring L2 by receiving multiple and redundant input from their group mates, whereas theirhigh-aptitude counterparts may have an opportunity to practice their output and develop theirunderstanding during their explanations to others. In her study of the difference between groupand pair work, Dobao (2012) statistically demonstrates the superiority of the language accuracyof a task completed by groups over another task completed by pairs. Other studies also show thatstudents who work in groups to perform tasks receive higher scores on tests than students whowork on the same tasks individually, and students in groups outperform individual workers interms of their increase in comprehension and recall of task details (Gladwin IV & Stepp-Greany:2008 & Kim: 2008). The effect of group work on oral language production is an important topicamong researchers as well. For example, Dabao (2012) concluded that the quality of L2 oralproduction is emphasized by students involved in small groups, unlike students who work inpairs who tend to pay less attention to language-related problems. On the psychological level, ithas been shown that students who work together in a group for a considerable amount of timedevelop a rapport with each other (Ewald: 2004).Arab World English JournalISSN: 2229-9327www.awej.org470
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