A Study On Group Work Techniques Used In EFL Classroom

In China, various approaches to English Language Teaching have been explored ever since the early 1980s. With the increasing demand for communicative competence in English, organizing small group activities has become increasingly popular in EFL classrooms. But there still exist many problems that have made it difficult to organize small group activities effectively. The problems are big classes, teachers'lack of control of their class, too much noise or silence, dull activities, little enthusiasm, and the like. It is evident that most of them are related to teachers'improper techniques used in group work. In view of this, the author tries to analyze the reasons that cause the problems under the guidance of the following theories– communicative language teaching, cooperative learning strategy, negotiation of meaning, and studies on group work.The author first put forward the research questions as follows: 1) What is students'attitude towards group work? 2) What group activities are popular with learners and can help develop students'output? 3) In what ways can teachers encourage students to participate in group work? 4) In what ways do teachers deal with students'mistakes in group work? and 5) What kind of group, the same-ability or mixed-ability, can be more effective and efficient in improving students'communicative competence? In order to answer these questions, the author used three methods– questionnaire, interview, and classroom observation– to help carry out the research. The subjects of the questionnaire are 400 sophomores from China University of Geosciences (Beijing), among whom 306 valid questionnaires have been collected. Meanwhile the author selected 20 teachers in this university randomly to observe their classroom activities. The non-participant observation was conducted in both intensive reading class and oral class. And the author has recorded 40 classes of the classroom activities while...