TESL 0160: Unit 2 Reflection

TESL 0160 Unit 2 Reflection: ESL Students and Group Work - Classroom Language

                                                                                                 (Source: Pixabay) 

While reading chapter 13 from Brown and Lee (2015), one point stood out to me that I had never considered before; "Do students have the language to be able to complete a group work activity?" They refer to this language as "classroom language", which refers to the vocabulary and grammatical structures necessary to carry out a group task (2015). Until now I hadn’t considered this when planning my group-based activities, and yet it is essential to planning effective group-work. Otherwise, the students may feel overwhelmed and not accomplish what you hoped they would. 
  
Brown and Lee offer several tips for ensuring students have sufficient language to complete various group-work activities. For example, students could be taught various expressions on how to state agreement or disagreement and then break up into groups to use this language to discuss their opinions on a series of questions. I’m glad I read this chapter because I will now be able to better plan group-work that is appropriate for the language abilities of my students.

References:

Brown, D. & Lee, H. (2015). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to
          Language Pedagogy (4th ed). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.

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