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Students Interaction in Small Groups in the Classroom Environment

Alessandra B. Bassanello Assistant Potuguese Professor UEL

FLED II

7 December 2011

Initial Reflection The idea of having this particular topic being reviewed came when it was noticed by my department colleagues and myself that a new class was showing it to be a little bit challenging to group them when it came to small groups of three or four, or even pair work. The teacher of the Portuguese Department use the students Portfolio from the Students Learning Center on a regular basis in order to tailor and help the students when it comes to planning our classes and activities. When it comes to individual activities the students performances are at the expected level for the week of instruction, however, whenever they are paired with someone that they either dont get along or have a different personality other than themselves, it seems that their learning is on hold mode , it seems that the retaining of the material presented in the classroom doesnt have any use or doesnt make any sense at first. It is a reality that some students tend to benefit more from group work, and other not, but when it comes to classes with 8 students, such as this one, we the teachers think its very important to have more and more students interacting with each other in order to learn in the immersion environment that DLI targets to its Language Learning process. That doesnt seem to be this particular class idea of learning, so with this Action Research I intend to search for a better solution in pairing them or grouping so they can take full advantage of this process since our course lasts only twenty-six weeks.

3 Problem Statement The problem observed in this particular class was the interaction of the students with each other. When they are asked to work alone they seem to produce more and they seem to have less doubt about the task they need to perform. When they are grouped it shows some confusion, they take some time to warm up to each other making the practice a slow process. Many of them even when asked to work in pairs seem lost and start to prepare themselves before initializing the activity with the partner, even though the activity prior to the pair work had been a preparation for this following step. Research Question How the students different Learning Styles affect small groups/pair work? Collecting Data / Action 1- Students questionnaire, for all 8 students. 2- The teachers of the department will be asked to answer a questionnaire about how they group the students in that class. 3- Interview a group of students about how they prefer to be grouped. 4- Observation of other teachers classes with my suggested grouping of students, according to their Learning Styles in their Portfolios and previous Language Learning Experience. Observations The class was observed in two different occasions. The first time was in November 28 th for a video lesson. The students were at first working individually and taking notes of the video. After this particular activity the teacher divided the class in three different groups, two pairs and a trio. The pairs had different learning styles; the only thing in common

4 they shared was the fact that pair 1 had both students as Global learners and pair 2 had everything exactly the opposite. The trio was made of 2 Spanish native speakers with very similar Learning Styles, and while the third person in the group was not a Spanish speaker, he had previous knowledge of Language Learning here at DLI. The common trade was that all three were Visual Learners. It was observed that pair one only started the conversation with each other whenever they were sure about what the activity and the task were about. They prepared themselves individually and then when they felt prepared they shared information with each other. Pair 2 started to talk and negotiate the meaning and information from the video as soon as the teacher divided them and explained the activity and task at hand. The trio seemed to work well together, but the student without the Spanish language experience seemed to be lost at first and then after a while started participating in the conversation and negotiating the meaning of words. Because the teacher had them grouped that certain way, Pair 1 finished the task after all of the others. The trio and Pair 2 finished about the same time and waited a few minutes for the first pair to complete their task. In the second observation in December 2nd, it was a Grammar class explanation. The class was a split session so only half of the students of that class were observed. The students were grouped at first with very similar Learning Styles students. Group 1 was composed of a pair in which they were both Global and Visual learners. Group 2 had students with almost identical Learning Styles, with the exception of one being an Active learner while the other a Reflective learner. At first the students seem to be working very well individually, the teacher asks them to individually write their own sentences, and while Group 2 seems to have the task instructions clear, Group 1 asks the teacher some clarification questions. When practicing

5 with their sentences, Group 1 was following their script precisely while Group 2 seemed to work better improvising their answers and having fun in the process. The teacher changes the activity and pair students in a different way. Pair 1 now has the exact same Learning Style, they are both Active, Intuitive, Visual, Global learners. while Pair 2 has very similar LS with exception of one being Sensitive while the other Intuitive. While teacher explains the activity, Pair 2 seems to be on the right track from the start while Pair 1 seems confused and asks the teacher for more clarification. After a while they seem to understand and start working on the activity. After ten minutes, they are asked to work once again individually, and whenever they were confused, they asked a colleague for help or clarification, without the teacher interference in pairing or grouping them. They talked to the ones next to them.

Teachers Questionnaire The teachers in the department were asked individually. The questions asked are as follow: 1) What do you think about PY 112s performance in small/pair work activities 2) Do you pair the students by ability or by Learning Style 3) Do students have any personal preferences when it comes to working in small group activities? The observation of the classes and the teachers questionnaire reflectionshows the same results. The students seem to work well in small group/pair work activities sometimes but when it comes to working with the class as a whole all the teachers agree that they perform very well. The majority of the teachers do not think about pairing them by ability or Learning Style, but usually try to pair them with different people so they can be exposed to a variety of pairing and partners, in reality what

6 usually happens is that they end up pairing them either by linguistic ability or similar Learning Style. Three of the teachers noticed that the students tend to prefer to work with a certain partner rather than other students, but that might be just because of their personalitities rather than linguistic ability or Learning Style.

Students Questionnaire The students were asked three simple questions related to grouping, with yes/no answers to each one of them. Even though the options given were only two, one of the students answered it depends for two of the questions, maybe because the questions were not clear enough for him/her. The following were the questions from the Questionnaire and the students answers follow. 1) The overall classroom environment is conducive to learning. 2) I like group/pair work 3) I learn, practice and retain more when in the classroom with a colleague rather than by myself. Classroom answers to the Questionnaire questions as shown in the graph is that overall everyone agrees that their classroom environment is conducive to their learning experience, but when it comes to working in pairs, a few of them thinks its not productive to study in pairs but only practice speaking. These same students also believe that when it comes to retain and learn they are better off doing it by themselves.

8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Yes No It Depends

Students Group Interview The classroom has eight students, and three of them volunteered to answer the questions in a group informal conversation type of interview. The results of it are as follows: The Group Interview was conducted in December 7th, 2011. 1) What do you think works better when you are working as a small group? Focus, work with certain controlled topics, quick questions Like when the activity is supervised by a teacher

2) Who do you think you work better with? No preference Teacher should do the correction not a peer when in a small or large group

8 3) Is pair work practice productive? - Yes after a written activity practice (after a grammar point explanation for instance) When the class is split they receive more of the teachers attention The book activities sometimes dont make sense, hard to keep the conversation flow

Reflections & Plans After analyzing all the data collected throughout this research, the conclusion to it is not totally clear. Students tend to prefer certain people to work with that sometimes are not the ones that help them retain and learn the information, when it comes to learning a foreign language. In my observations there were two students that in my opinion had more difficulties getting in a small group activity rather than working individually, but in reality that was more of a personality preference rather than a Learning Style or ability. None of these students had previous knowledge of foreign language learning, so that might be the subject for another research as well. When both were compared the students observations and the teachers observations, the results were about the same. The students and the teachers feel that they enjoy working in pairs, and that they have their own preferences when it comes to grouping with other students or teacher grouping as a to expose the students to a variety of Learning Styles and Language abilities. The class has three students who are Spanish speakers and theres also three students who already studied at least another foreign language and that might be why they work better together than the other two students struggle more to work in small groups or with a partner.

9 The Portuguese team plan of action for now is to have them in split sessions of four students as much as possible so they can have the experience of working in smaller groups and practice more. The students seem to enjoy that as per their group interview, and according to the Team it fulfills the students needs of individual and controlled attention, error correction, etc, so as much as possible the students will the working in small groups or pairs. It seems to be what the students need at the moment and also what they think to be helpful for their own learning process.

Students Questionnaire 1) The overall classroom environment is conducive to learning. yes 2) no

I like group/pair work. yes no

3) I learn, practice and retain more when in the classroom with a colleague rather than by myself. yes no

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Teachers Questionnaire 1) What do you think about PY 112s performance in small/pair work activities?

2) Do you pair them by ability or by Learning Style?

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3) Do students have any personal preference when it comes to working in small group activities?

Group Interview 12/7/2011 3 out of 8 students volunteered for the interview, the questions were: 4) What do you think works better when you are working as a small group? - Focus, work with certain controlled topics, quick questions - Like when the activity is supervised by a teacher

5) Who do you think you work better with? - No preference

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- Teacher should do the correction not a peer when in a small or large group

6) Is pair work practice productive? - Yes after a written activity practice (after a grammar point explanation for instance) - When the class is split they receive more of the teachers attention - The book activities sometimes dont make sense, hard to keep the conversation flow

References: Overview of Learning Styles http://www.learning-styles-online.com/overview/ Leading and Learning - Group Work and Learning Styles http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2007/06/group-work-and-learning-styles.html Multiple Intelligences and Learning Styles

13 Emily Giles, Sarah Pitre, Sara Womack http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php? title=Multiple_Intelligences_and_Learning_Styles