awej 5 no.4 full issue 2014

AWEJ Volume.5 Number.4, 2014Group Work in ESL: A Teacher’s Perception and ApplicationAllhedanobservation Mike Orr extended to two classes but yielded the same results. This finding may be due to theobservation of the same group of students performing similar activities. In addition, due to theteacher’s tight schedule, the interview was divided into two sessions, before and after the secondclass was observed. For more findings, it would be better to conduct the interview prior to theobservation, leaving enough time for the teacher to act naturally in the class without having tobehave according to her comments in the previous interview. Therefore, it is highlyrecommended for future studies to extend the period of research for two main reasons: (1) tohave ample space between the time of the interview and the time of observation, which wouldallow more natural practices on the part of the teacher; and (2) to get more valid and variedresults concerning the relationship between the belief and the practices through multipleobservations. More findings would be available if more observations of different student groupsand skill classes were conducted. Likewise, more areas of improvement could be obtained andgrouped into themes when such research shades light on the tensions discovered from studyingteachers of different skills and expertise.About the Author:Ashjan Allhedan holds an MA in TESOL and a BA in English with a Teaching Diploma. Herwork experience includes teaching English as a second language as well as a foreign language toyoung adults. Her research interests are related to teacher advocacy, multimodal teaching, andcognitive second language teaching.ReferencesBejarano, Y. et al. (1997). The skilled use of interaction strategies: Creating a framework forimproved small-group communicative interaction in the language classroom. System.25(2), 203-214.Blatchford, P. et al. (2003). Toward a social pedagogy of classroom group work. InternationalJournal of Educational Research. 39 (1-2), 153-172.Borg, S. (2003). Teacher cognition in language teaching: A review of research on what languageteachers think, know, believe, and do. Language Teaching. 36, 81-109.Brooks, F., & Donato, R. (1994). Vygotskyan approaches to understanding foreign languagelearner discourse during communicative tasks. Hispania. 77(2), 262-274.Brown, H. D. (2007). Teaching by principles: An interactive approch to language pedagogy.White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.Bruton, A., & Samuda, V. (1980). Learner and teacher roles in the treatment of oral error ingroup work. RELC Journal. 11(2), 49-63.Chang, L. Y.-H. (2010). Group processes and EFL learners’ motivation: A study of groupdynamics in EFL classrooms. TESOL Quartely. 44 (1), 129-154.Dobao, A. F. (2012). Collaborative writing tasks in the L2 classroom: Comparing group, pair,and individual work. Journal of Second Language Writing. 21(1), 40-58.Dornyei, Z., & Maldiriz, A. (1997). Group dynamics and foreign language teaching. System.25(1), 65-81.Ellis, R. (2005). Principles of instructed language learning. System. 33, 209-224.Ewald, J. D. (2004). A Classroom forum on small group work: L2 learners see, and changethemselves. Language Awareness. 13(3), 163-179.Arab World English JournalISSN: 2229-9327www.awej.org481