Experiences

Teaching grammar with cooperative learning in English lessons

Dita Lapiņa

Latvia

High Secondary School

Other

Teaching in class

Direct

I teach English not Science. The main difficulty I face is involving all students in the lesson. Some students are more interested or more capable of performing well, but others who lack language skills or social skills may feel left out or they are uninterested. When I have to teach grammar I encounter another important issue – mixed ability.

One of the solutions to the mentioned problem is using cooperative learning as a method in the learning process. What is cooperative learning? The first thing that comes in mind is group work, but cooperative learning is not just working in groups. Cooperative learning is a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. Each member of a team is responsible not only for learning what is taught but also for helping teammates learn, thus creating an atmosphere of achievement. This method has several approaches.

In practice I use two approaches:
1) the students are divided into teams according to their English proficiency – in one group there are different levels. Then each group receives a grammar topic and exercises. The team examines the topic together and then they do exercises. After that each student does similar exercises individually. Then they check the answers, examine the weak areas and prepare for the test. Each student’s mark consists of the average result from his individual test score and team’s average score, thus each member’s mark depends on others too. Students become accountable to their team. After that students fill self-evaluation and peer-evaluation forms.

2) the students are divided into teams according to their English proficiency – in one group there are different levels. Then each group receives one part of a grammar topic and exercises. The team examines the topic together and then they do exercises. After that 1 person from each team goes to a different team and presents the topic as a teacher and checks the exercise. At least 3 students from each team have this experience. Then they take a test in their team to see what they remember. If they see some problems in certain areas they can go and ask for assistance from the team who explained the particular part. Later testing is done as in the first example above. After that students fill self-evaluation and peer-evaluation forms.

At first it is difficult, but later students get used to this experience and their attention to the task increases as well as understanding. The best results are achieved when a student teaches something to others. Cooperative learning can be used to learn or practice almost anything.