Group Work in ESL: A Teacher’s Perception and Application

Abstract:

With the advent of the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach, scholars have recognized the importance of classroom group work as a means of providing an authentic interactive setting suitable for language negotiation. Although some teachers embrace using group work in their classrooms, there are other teachers who are reluctant to use it. In this research, an interview was conducted with a teacher to obtain her beliefs on teaching a second language and on using group work before observing her practices in classroom. The aim is to study the relationship between her beliefs and practices in order to examine reasons of possible discrepancies between these two, as this helps in pointing out areas of professional improvement that the teacher needs. A qualitative analysis of the data reveals that the teacher’s general learning beliefs are more consistent with her practices than with her group work beliefs. Possible reasons of discrepancies are discussed with recommendations for further research.