An Action Research Into Group Work In EFL Classroom: Viewed From Meaning Negotiation

Communicative competence is one of the most important objects of foreign language learning. The foremost factor of communicative competence is exchanging meanings to each other. In China, classrooms are the foremost and even the only places where foreign language takes place. Thus, it is the teachers should realize that English, as a skill that would be used in one's whole life, needs to practice in order to master it. Accordingly, teachers should pay more attention to improve their students'communicative ability and give them many chances to communicate with each other. Due to its irreplaceable advantages, group work is being widely used in EFL class, and adopted by many English teachers, such as carry out exchanging meaning effectively, improves the quantity of student talk, motivates learners, and so on. However, there exit some problems in applying group work, and it seems that group work does not work well as been expected. Therefore, this thesis is intended to carry out an action research on the group work's effectiveness in EFL class from the view of meaning negotiation through questionnaire, interview and classroom observation. It aims to providing English teachers with deeper understanding on the group work designing and thus improving the effectiveness of group work.The subjects of this action research are students in senior high grade two of Cheng Guan middle school. In this action research, instruments such as questionnaires, classroom observation, and interviews were involved. Data and relevant information were collected according to these instruments. The result of this action research focused on the different performance of the students involved in this research and the progress they had achieved in their communicative competence.The study shows that the key factor that affects the effectiveness of group work in EFL class is whether there exits meaning negotiation in the conversation among group members. It also plans some actions on how to increase meaning negotiation from the aspect of students, teachers and teaching materials. Teachers play a decisive role in the whole process.According the findings of this research, it is the teacher who should keep in mind that meaning negotiation is the key factor affecting the effectiveness of group work, in order to make full use of group work in EFL classroom. They should get along well with his/her students, encourage them cooperate actively, choose proper tasks or topics that require meaning negotiation and thus generate real communication, provide relevant knowledge and vocabulary, and offer your help timely, thus improve students'communicative competence.