Hello. I teach a class of fourteen-year-olds and recently I have been introducing more speaking into our classes. Pair work activities usually work quite well, but a few weeks ago I started to try group work, where the learners work together in groups of three or four. Again, most learners seem to like it and try to talk English. But there are some problematic students in the group. If we do group work, one student in particular dominates the group and talks a lot, and loudly, in (L1) but doesn't say much in English unless I go to his group and stand there listening. He says he's not very interested, but I know he could perform much better. Maybe I should just give up this group work - it just doesn't work. Can you tell me some solutions for the problem? I would be very thankful.
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This question is from Agnieszka Sochacka, Poland
Comments
rebecca1
I have decided for myself that there are always going to be students who want to dominate. And there will always be students who want to be left alone. It is you who has to decide if you want to leave them alone or not.I understand that you want to help everyone, even those who do not want to get that help.
So, be prepared to offer a number of ideas that students will speak about. And you can assign topics to students. Tell those who have already spoken to think on another topic and then offer those who are reluctant to speak your ideas for a short comment.
If that does not help much, make them translate your thoughts that you gave in their mother tongue. If they agree with your ideas, good for them. If not, as a rule they will come out with some ideas of their own. Play that old game, repeat that for the next five minutes you will not be able to understand a word in Polish.
For those who do not wish to speak much reserve some time to make them sum up what they have said. This will show what mistakes they still make. Hope this might help.
Astrid Skoeldebring, Sweden
Hello, Agniezka,
Don't give up on group work! Your loud-speaking, non-interested dominating student is using a classical way of covering up lack of knowledge. What you need to do is take him aside and have a personal chat with him, with the aim of reaching a friendly agreement with him about his own development in the English language.
"Not interested" means he's lagging behind and most likely needs extra explanation on the side. While the others are doing their group work, put an "Easy Language" book plus a dictionary in his hands and let him sit by himself and read. Ask him to write down new words and look them up.
Soon enough he'll want to join the speaking-group, and then he can tell his group about the book he read, for instance.
Group work is terrific, and you have seen how the others enjoy it.
Shy kids who'd never dare to speak in front of a whole class get a chance to blossom. However, you'll need to explain that it's now up to each group to create its own dynamics and be active. Tell them that this is when they get a chance to "be in charge" and move the group's activity further. There's always at least one student in a group who shows initiative. This student can be coaxed into taking a "leading role" and pushing the conversation further so that everyone in the group has their say. He/she will enjoy this role, I can assure you! It will take a while to make group-work function smoothly, but it's the right way to go! Good luck!
Lily, China
I think maybe you can try to assign each student in a group a particular task and make sure each group member has a role to play in completing the group task.
Niu Xiaochun, China
I have had similar problems before. These kinds of students are usually better in English and are influential among students. The reason they don't like participating in the group work is that they find that the group members are inferior to him/her in English or they find the topic is not interesting or because they don't see the importance of the acitivity. What I have done is find the topic catering to him/her and select him/her as the group leader. And it is required that he/she be the reporter and compete with other group reporters. By so doing, he is stimulated to show off in a positive way or present their group final product to his peers in other groups. Try it. It will work.
Syed Masood Ali, Pakistan
Well, I have observed one thing because I have been through this trial for a long time. It happens with every teacher that there are always such tricky students but there is a trick which can make them understand and become interested. First of all arouse desire in learning the English language, make groups of not more than four students, it would be better if there are girls or boys too, you can work out who is speaking flawlessly and then give them a topic as per their interest and establish a competition between them, soon you will observe the optimistic result for you. The topic would be any sports game, books, educational system, daily routine etc., but it must be their favourite.
Profound regards.