Grouping students

Teaching a class as a whole, getting students to work on their own or having them perform
tasks in pairs or groups all have their own advantages and disadvantages, each is more or less
appropriate for different activities.
1.Whole-class teaching.
Advantages of whole-class grouping:
-it reinforces a sense of belonging among the group members. If everyone is involved in the same
activity, then we are all in it together, and such experiences give us points of common reference to
talk about and use as reasons to bond with each other. It is much easier for students to share as
emotion such as happiness or amusement in a whole-class setting.
-it is suitable for activities where the teacher is acting as a controller. It is especially good for giving
explanations and instructions, where smaller groups would mean having to do these things more
than once. It is ideal for presenting material whether in pictures, texts or on audio or video tape. It is
also more cost-efficient both in terms of material production or organization than other grouping
can be.
-it allows teachers to gauge (оцінити) the mood of the class in general, it is a good way for us to get
a general understanding of student progress.
-it is the preferred class style in many educational settings where students and teachers feel secure
when whole class is working in lockstep and under the direct authority of the teacher.
Disadvantages of whole-class grouping:
-it favours the group rather than the individual. Everyone is forced to do the same thing at the same
time and at the same pace.
-individual students do not have much of a chance to say anything on their own.
-many students are disinclined to participate in front of the whole class since to do so brings with it
the risk of public failure.
-it may not encourage students to take responsibility for their own learning. Whole-class learning
favors the transmission of knowledge from teacher to student rather than having students discover
things or research things for themselves.
-it is not the best way to organize communicative language learning or specifically task-based
sequences. Communication between individuals is more difficult in a group of 20 or 30 than it is in
groups of 3 or 4. In smaller groups it is easier to share material, speak quietly and less formally and
make good eye contact.

2.Seating whole-group class

There are many different ways of seating classes when they are working as a whole group.
One of the most common is to have students seated in orderly rows. There are considerable
advantages to orderly rows. The teacher has a clear view of all the students and the students can see
the teacher. Lecturing is easier with such a seating arrangement since it enables the teacher to
maintain eye contact with the people he or she is talking to.
Orderly rows allow the teacher to work with the whole class. Some activities are especially
suited to this kind of organization, such as explaining a grammar point or watching a video or a
power point presentation or using the board or an overhead projector. It is also useful when students
are involved in certain kinds of language practice. If all the students are focused on a task at the
same time, the whole class gets the same message. It is often easier to create a good whole-class
dynamic when students are sitting in one group in orderly rows.
Two other common seating arrangements are circle and horseshoe. These are especially
appropriate for smaller groups. In a horseshoe the teacher will probably be at the open end of the
arrangement since that may be where the board, overhead projector or computer are situated. In a
circle, the teacher’s position – where the board is situated – is less dominating.
Classes which are arranged in a circle male quite a strong statement about what the teacher
and the students believe in. With all the people in the room sitting in a circle, there is a far greater
feeling of equality than when the teacher stays out at the front. This may not be quite so true of the
horseshoe shape where the teacher is often located in a commanding position, but even here the
rigidity that comes with orderly rows for example is lessened.
With horseshoe and circle seating the classroom is a more intimate place and the potential
for the students to share feelings and information through talking, eye contact or expressive body
movements (eyebrow-raising shoulder-shrugging) is far greater than when they are sitting in rows,
one behind the other.
In some classrooms students sit in groups at separate tables whether they are working as a
whole class, in groups or in pairs. In such classrooms you might see the teacher walking around
checking the students’ work and helping out if they are having difficulties – prompting the students
at this table or explaining something to the students at that table in the corner.
A huge advantage of separate tables is that groupwork is easy to arrange. Indeed, such an
arrangement means that groupwork is likely to be far more common than with other kinds of
seating. Separate table seating is especially useful in mixed-ability classes where different groups of
students can benefit from concentrating on different tasks designed for different ability levels.
Separate tables are more difficult to teach to in whole-group activities depending on the size of the
room and the group. It is also important to bear in mind that students may not want to be stuck with
the same three or four students for ever. Nevertheless, when students are working together such a
seating is ideal.
There are other ways of seating students, for example, grouping such as “enemy corners”:
where two groups get into opposite corners of the room; opposing teams; face-to-face or back-to-
back where students sit in rows to make pairs.
The point of all these different sitting (and standing) arrangements is that we should choose
the best one for the students and especially the task. It is worth pointing out that where possible,
varying the seating arrangements will make our lessons more dynamic and enjoyable.

3. Students on their own.

At the opposite end of spectrum from the whole-class grouping is the idea of students on
their own, working in a pattern of individual learning. This can range from students doing exercises
on their own in class, to situations in which teachers are able to spend time working with individual
students, or when students take charge of their own learning in self-access centers or other out-of-
class environments. Such individualized learning is a vital step in the development of a learner
autonomy.
If we wish students to work on their own in class, we can, for example, allow them to read
privately and then answer questions individually; we can ask them to complete worksheets or
writing tasks for themselves. We can give them worksheets with several different tasks and allow
individuals to make their own decisions about which tasks to do. We can hand out different
worksheets to different individuals, depending upon their tastes and abilities. We can allow students
to research on their own or even choose what they want to read or listen to – especially were this
concerns extensive reading.
Advantages of individualized learning:
- it allows teachers to respond to individual student differences in terms of pace of learning,
learning styles and preferences;
- it is likely to be less stressful for students than performing in a whole-class setting or talking
in pairs or groups;
- it can develop learner autonomy and promote skills of self-reliance and investigation over
teacher-dependence;
- it can be a way of restoring peace and tranquility to a noisy and chaotic classroom.
Disadvantages of individualized learning:
- it does not help a class develop a sense of belonging. It does not encourage cooperation in
which students may be able to help and motivate each other;
- when combined with giving individual students different tasks, it means a great deal more
thought and materials preparation than hole-class teaching involves. When we work with
individual students as a tutor or resource it takes much more time than interacting with the
whole class.
 4. Pairwork
In pairwork students can practice language together, study a text, research language or take part
in information-gap activities. They can write dialogues, predict the content of reading texts or
compare notes on what they have listened to or seen.
Advantages of pairwork:
- it dramatically increases the amount of speaking time any one student gets in the class;
- it allows students to work and interact independently without the necessary guidance of the
teacher thus promoting learner independence;
- it allows teachers time to work with one or two pairs while the other students continue
working;
- it recognizes the old maxim that ‘two heads are better than one’, and in promoting
cooperation, helps the classroom to become a more relaxed and friendly place. If we get
students to make decisions in pairs (such as deciding on the correct answers to question
about a reading text), we allow them to share responsibility rather than having to bear the
whole weight themselves;
- it is relatively quick and easy to organize.
Disadvantages of pairwork:
- pairwork is frequently very noisy and some teachers and students still dislike it. Teachers in
particular worry that they will lose control of their class;
- students in pairs can often veer away from the point of an exercise talking about something
else completely, often in their first language. The chances of misbehaviour are greater with
pairwork than in a whole-class setting;
- it is not always popular with students, many of whom feel they would rather relate to the
teacher as individuals than interact with another learner who may just be as linguistically
weak as they are;
- the actual choice of paired partner can be problematic, especially if students frequently find
themselves working with someone they are not keen on.

5. Groupwork
We can put students in large groups since this will allow them to do a range of tasks for which
pairwork is not sufficient or appropriate. Thus students can write a group story or role-play a
situation which involves five people. They can prepare a presentation or discuss an issue and come
to a group decision. They can watch, write or perform a video sequence. We can give individual
students in a group different lines from a poem which a group has to reassemble.
In general it is possible to say that small groups of around five students provoke greater
involvement and participation than larger groups. They are small enough for real interpersonal
interaction, yet not so small that members are over-reliant upon each individual. Because five is an
odd number it means that a majority view can usually prevail. However, there are occasions when
larger groups are necessary. The activity may demand it or we may want to divide the class into
teams for some game or preparation phase.
Advantages of groupwork:
-like pairwork, it grammatically increases the number of talking opportunities for individual
students;
-unlike pairwork, because there are more than two people in the group, personal relationships
are usually less problematic; there is also a greater chance of different opinions and varied
contributions than in pairwork;
-it encourages broader skills of cooperation and negotiation than pairwork, and yet is more
private than work in front of the whole class;
-it promotes learner autonomy by allowing students to make their own decisions in the group
without being told what to do by the teacher
-although we do not wish any individuals in groups to be completely passive nevertheless, some
students can choose their level of participation more readily than in a whole-class or pairwork
situation.
Disadvantages of groupwork:
- it is likely to be noisy, though not necessarily as loud as pairwork can be. Some teachers feel
that they lose control, and the whole-class feeling which has been painstakingly built up
may dissipate when the class is split into smaller entities;
- not all students enjoy it since they would prefer to be the focus of the teacher’s attention
rather than working with their peers. Sometimes students find themselves in uncongenial
groups and wish they could be somewhere else;
- individuals may fall into group roles that become fossilized so that some are passive
whereas others may dominate;
- groups can take longer to organize than pairs; beginning and ending groupwork activities,
especially where people move around the class, can take time and be chaotic.