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Transcript of C4-Revised Project Final
Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
Research Report:
Teacher Beliefs about Group Work
and the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
Lina Shehu
Monterey Institute of International Studies
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
Abstract
In the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA), the social nature of
learning has been supported by extensive research (Canale & Swain, 1980;
Donato, 1994; Swain, 2000; Vygotsky, 1978). As one of the ways to promote
social interaction, group work is considered an important part of a teacher’s
pedagogy. The way a teacher feels about group work has implications for the
way the classroom is run, as teachers’ beliefs are a crucial influence in
classroom practice (Borg, 2011). This study investigated teachers’
pedagogical beliefs about group work, the influence of teacher training and
education on beliefs, and whether these teachers assigned group work in
their classrooms, along with the reasons given for assigning group work.
Participants were four ESL instructors in Monterey. Roughly 640 minutes of
non-participant classroom observation were conducted. Questionnaire
responses suggested that participants agreed with positive statements about
group work and disagreed with negative ones. Group work accounted for
30% of total time observed in these teachers’ classes. Follow-up interviews
revealed that the primary reason participants did not assign group work was
due to concern regarding varied levels of students’ language proficiency.
Results suggested that classroom context, more than pedagogical beliefs,
influenced the decision to assign group work. Two participants reported that
teacher training and education have positively influenced beliefs about group
work, another credited education with overcomplicating the idea of group
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
work, whereas the fourth expressed no change on beliefs regarding group
work due to teacher training.
As both a graduate student and English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher, I have
witnessed the numerous benefits of group work: thought-provoking contributions by a
peer that might not have been offered in front of the whole group, increased student
control and learner autonomy (Kumaravadivelu, 2003), as well as the collaborative power
of distributed help (Donato, 1994) (capitalizing on individual knowledge and strengths,
learners are able to help each other achieve the desired outcome). As a language learner, I
have also experienced increased ownership of the learning process in group work as
“learners have to show more initiative if the activity is to work” (original emphasis, Stotz,
1991, p. 132), which suggests that group work promotes not only learner autonomy but
also peer collaboration. And finally, during group work, one is afforded more opportunities
for turn taking (Stotz, 1991), and simply produces more language.
There is considerable research in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) that
supports the efficacy of group work in a foreign language (FL) classroom. Group work not
only gives students a structured opportunity to produce the target language (TL) in the
classroom, but also engages them in negotiation for meaning (Donato, 1994), which means
that students co-construct meaning during classroom interaction and provide scaffolding
similar to that of expert-to-novice.
Incorporating group work into the classroom has its challenges including
determining what type of group work activities help with language acquisition, figuring out
how to implement group work into a lesson, and determining how to assess outcomes.
Group work can be vaguely defined and, depending on the teacher, it could mean anything
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
from students discussing a reading to a group presentation to the class. This paper will thus
define group work and explicitly state what was counted as group work in the classroom.
Furthermore, since it is teachers who plan, assign, and oversee group work, this paper will
also explore their beliefs about its importance for language acquisition, how their beliefs
align with teaching practices and how teacher training and education have influenced
teachers’ pedagogical beliefs.
Literature Review
Benefits of Group Work
The field of SLA, influenced by the rediscovery of Vygotsky’s (1978) Zone of
Proximal Development (ZPD), has taken a social turn (Block, 2003). The ZPD, defined as the
gap between the things a learner can do only with social support, and those he/she will
soon master enough to perform autonomously, illustrates the fundamentally social nature
of learning. Group work in the classroom allows students to provide each other with
“guided support,” which is “analogous to expert scaffolding” (Donato, 1994, p. 51). Group
work gives students the opportunity to practice the TL with one another and work
collaboratively towards language production, whether that is performing a role-play or
completing an information-gap activity. Tsui (1996) wrote, “when students produce the
language that they are studying they are testing out the hypothesis which they have formed
about the language” (p. 146). Donato (1994) argued that students test hypotheses about
the TL and co-construct language during group work. This theory is exemplified by
Donato’s study of the collaborative output between a group of French language learners
whose negotiations of the target form resulted in “the idealized solution to the [language]
problem” (p. 52) they could not have achieved on their own. Donato detailed the
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
interaction between three French language learners’ attempts to construct the French past
compound tense of the reflexive verb “to remember.” Each learner possessed only a part of
the desired construction: one of the learners produced the correct past participle but also
produced the incorrect auxiliary verb, whereas another was able to supply the appropriate
auxiliary, but was unable to produce the correct reflexive verb. Eventually and only by
synthesizing their knowledge the three learners were able to achieve the correct
construction.
During group work students are also able to assist each other in meaning-making,
by thinking critically about language, evaluating the forms they use for an activity, and
deciding how to best express an idea (Donato, 1994). Larsen-Freeman (2003) argued that
“language acquisition takes place through some sort of interaction” (p. 87) and, while
interaction also happens during whole-class discussion and between a teacher and student,
group work makes students interact more regularly. As Maloof (2000) pointed out,
students in groups are afforded more opportunities to talk than they would be in solitary
or whole-class work. Group work also allows for languaging, which defined by Swain
(2006) as “the process of making meaning and shaping knowledge and experience through
language” (p. 89), is a key component in the internalization process; i.e. by talking to each
other about language, learners’ inner thoughts about the target language transform into
internal cognitive activity.
Other researchers have pointed out the many benefits to group work. Long and
Porter (1985) listed five pedagogical arguments for using group work in the language
classroom: group work (1) increases language practice opportunities, (2) improves the
quality of student talk, (3) helps individualize instruction, (4) promotes a positive affective
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
climate, and (5) motivates learners (pp. 207-212). Furthermore, Swain (2000) stated that,
in peer work, “jointly constructed performance” is better than “individual competencies”
(p. 111), because the results of collaboration are greater than individual skills. Hall and
Verplaetse (2000) noted that group work affords “multiple opportunities for language
learners to use and extend their knowledge of the target language” (p. 288). Group work is
effective in many ways and there are many reasons to believe in its importance for
language acquisition.
Teacher Beliefs and Implementation of Group Work
While much research supports group work, it is possible that some classroom
teachers are either unaware of such research or have otherwise developed their own
beliefs about group work based on their own experience. Yet another thing to consider
regarding teacher beliefs is how classroom context interferes with pedagogical beliefs. As
Razfar (2012) noted, teacher education programs assume that “beliefs are supposed to be
consistent, conscious, and teachers should maintain fidelity to them across different
situations” (p. 63). This assumption leads one to think that if a teacher believes in the
importance of group work for language acquisition, he/she undoubtedly assigns group
work on a regular basis. A teacher’s classroom practice, however, is often influenced by the
context in which he/she teaches, the school’s pedagogical practices and the student
population. As Phipps and Borg (2009) noted, “contextual factors, such as a prescribed
curriculum, time constraints, and high-stakes examinations, mediate the extent to which
teachers can act in accordance with their beliefs” (p. 381).
Other factors may interfere with implementation of group work even if a teacher
believes in its usefulness. According to Granger (2013), even cultural stereotypes could
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
influence the decision to implement group work; for example, a teacher may believe that
students from Asian backgrounds do not feel comfortable speaking up in class or
participating fully during group work. Other impediments to group work abound: Granger
warned that teachers’ classroom practice “informed by curricular requirements and […] by
educators’ conscious or unconscious beliefs and biases, can marginalize and even silence
learners” (p. 2). It is thus possible that a teacher may not assign group work because
he/she believes that students from certain backgrounds are less likely to participate in
group-discussion. Also, Brown (2007) cited a teacher’s fear of losing control of the
classroom or the fear that students’ errors will be reinforced in a group as possible reasons
for not assigning group work.
Barcelos and Kalaja (2013) suggested that teacher beliefs may not align with
classroom practice “because of clashing interests or ambiguities in the context, including
large group sizes, low student motivation or proficiency” (p. 2). Many language classes have
students of mixed proficiencies and grouping students in such a classroom is challenging.
Slavin (2006) asserted that a mixed-level group allows students to support one another,
but perhaps some teachers worry that in a mixed-level group higher proficiency students
may take over the group while the lower proficiency students remain silent. Indeed there
are countless reasons why a teacher may not assign group work even if he/she believes
that group work supports language acquisition, an issue that clearly needs further
investigation.
As part of the Practicum class at MIIS, teachers-in-training develop and expand upon
their practice by observing videos of their teaching and submitting them for peer and
instructor scrutiny. During this process I was struck by the possibility of a gap between
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
teacher beliefs about the importance of group work for language acquisition and whether
group work was assigned in the classroom.
Focus on Teachers
As teacher planning and intentional decision-making helps ensure that students are
“relaxed, comfortable, unstressed, interested and motivated” (Wajnryb, 1992, p. 58), a
teacher’s pedagogical beliefs are surely important. Teachers are in charge of assigning,
modeling and implementing group work. Obviously, students’ beliefs toward group work
are important as well, but it is the teacher that is largely responsible for its eventual
outcome. As Allwright and Bailey (1991) wrote, “it is considered to be a teacher’s job […] to
plan a sequence of lessons and bring them to life effectively in the classroom” (p. 22). This
study, therefore, investigates (1) teachers’ beliefs about the importance of group work for
language acquisition, (2) how much group work these teachers assigned in the classroom,
(3) the reasons why teachers assigned or did not assign group work, and (4) how teacher
training and education have influenced teacher beliefs about group work.
Research Questions
RQ 1: What are participants’ beliefs about the importance of group work for
language acquisition?
RQ 2: In two classroom observations of the same teacher, how much group work
does he/she assign?
RQ 3: What are the reasons, teachers give for using or not using group work?
RQ 4: How have teacher training and education influenced teachers’ beliefs about
the importance of group work for language acquisition?
Methods
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
This study does not offer generalizations on teacher beliefs or the importance of
group work en masse; instead it is an opportunity to look at beliefs and practices side-by-
side and to note potential misalignments. Any patterns suggested by the findings for the
four research questions are only suggested here and would need further research to
substantiate.
For the purposes of this research, group work will be operationalized as a
collaborative effort between two or more students working together to discuss an assigned
reading, answer questions about an assigned reading, complete an activity, or prepare and
present a role-play. Group work as it is understood in this paper must involve some kind of
student output, ranging from a discussion to a presentation.
Borg (2011) defines beliefs as “propositions individuals consider to be true and
which are often tacit, have a strong evaluative and affective component, [and] provide a
basis for action” (pp. 370-371). I have decided to use Borg’s definition of beliefs because it
most closely mirrors my participants’ understanding of teacher beliefs. All four participants
reported that their beliefs influenced their actions in the classroom, and that beliefs have
an evaluative and affective component. Indeed, as Borg (2001) wrote, “[b]eliefs play an
important role in many aspects of teaching” (p. 186) with each participant in this research
reporting that what they believe to be sound pedagogy is very important in their
professional development.
Participants
Participants in this study are three pre-service teachers and current MATESOL
students at MIIS who have yet to enter the professional field of teaching, and a recent MIIS
MATESOL graduate in-service teacher who is, at the time of this research, an adjunct
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
instructor for the MIIS Intensive ESL program. The other three pre-service teachers are ESL
instructors at the Peace Resource Center, a community outreach program, in Seaside,
California. Participants’ names have been changed in order to preserve anonymity. My
participant selection aligns with “purposeful sampling” model defined by Duff (2008) as
“random sampling from an accessible population” (pg. 115). However, accessibility was not
the only reason for my participant selection but also because I wanted to see how the
teacher training and education at MIIS may have influenced teacher beliefs about the
importance of group work for language acquisition. As Barcelos and Kalaja (2013) wrote,
“[t]he discussion of changes in teacher beliefs about language learning and teaching is
related to two processes: changes that pre-service teachers go through in teacher
education and changes made in their practice by in-service teachers” (p. 3). This research
offers a glimpse into teachers’ beliefs about group work in both pre-service and in-service
contexts.
Materials and Procedures
Materials used for observations in the four participants’ classes included an
observation tool adapted for observing and quantifying group work (Appendix A). The
observation scheme is a modified version of one from Nunan and Bailey (2009) and
requires that a tally is kept of the frequency of group work during class. I decided not to
include all teacher directions given while setting up a group work activity into the total
time devoted to group work. Modeling is certainly a crucial component of setting up group
work; however, since there was great variation in the time that different teachers took to
set up activities, including frequent interruptions by students during group work asking for
further clarification, I decided that only interaction between students should count as
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
group work. Group work included only in-class activities where students were either
paired or put in groups of two or more to complete an activity. A wide breadth of activities
was covered under this type of classification and perhaps future studies can focus on
specific group work activities.
I observed classes as a non-participant observer. According to Nunan and Bailey
(2009) “classroom observation [is] a family of related procedures for gathering data during
actual language lessons or tutorial sessions, primarily by watching, listening, and
recording” (p. 258). During observation I took hand-written notes and was the proverbial
‘fly on the wall.’ Students populating the classrooms of the selected teachers were indirect
participants in the research: no information or participation was asked of them. In order to
prevent the teacher from altering his/her class in any way based on the questionnaire, I
observed two classes of each participant before the questionnaire soliciting beliefs on
group work was distributed.
The questionnaire (Appendix B) was distributed to participants in person.
Statements of the questionnaire were designed to represent a range of aspects regarding
group work, thus eliciting responses that would suggest a global picture of teacher beliefs
about group work and its perceived importance for language acquisition. The
questionnaire contains 18 controlled-response items, each with a five point Likert scale,
with 1 corresponding to “disagree completely” and 5 corresponding to “agree completely.”
Finally, a follow-up semi-structured interview (Appendix C) consisting of five questions
was conducted in person once observations concluded and the questionnaire was finished.
I conducted interviews shortly after I had observed the second class for each teacher, so
that the events that transpired in the classroom were still fresh in the teacher’s mind.
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
Inspired by Richards (2009), I used a semi-structured interview that “has a clear picture of
the topics that need to be covered […] but is prepared to allow the interview to develop in
unexpected directions” (p. 186).
Analysis
Data from questionnaire responses were compiled in a Microsoft Word spreadsheet
(Appendix D). Data were grouped according to whether the statement represented group
work positively (statements 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18) or negatively (statements 5, 7,
9, 10, 11, 13, 16). The likert scale values were then averaged to determine an overall
agreement with positive and negative statements. Total minutes allocated to group work
were summed and divided by the total class time observed to give an impression of the
overall proportion of time devoted to group work. Due to the small sample size of
participants it was possible to compute the data using Excel.
Participant responses from the follow-up interviews were tabulated (see Appendix
E), with key terms bolded summarizing responses to the five interview questions. Each
interview lasted between 25 to 30 minutes; responses were transcribed using a computer.
The transcripts were then analyzed in order to retrieve key terms that give an overall
impression of participants’ responses. I did not have a priori hypotheses regarding
expected outcomes of responses because as Silverman (2011) stated, “[in qualitative
research] hypotheses are often generated from the analysis rather than stated at the
outset” (part 1, table 1.2). Based on three out of four participant responses, one emerging
hypothesis was students’ varied levels of language proficiency as reason for these
participants to not assign group work in their classrooms (see Appendix E). Another
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
hypothesis was that for three participants, classroom context influenced the decision to
assign or not assign group work more so than beliefs.
My approach for interpreting the data was through thematic coding as a form of
analysis in qualitative research (Attride-Stirling, 2001). I followed several procedural steps
similar to those suggested by Attride-Stirling (1) reduced data into manageable chunks, i.e.
drew out salient features from the whole text, (2) identified common themes, (3) re-
arranged common themes around larger organizing themes, and lastly (4) interpreted the
emerging themes and patterns pertaining to the research questions.
Results
RQ 1: What are language teacher beliefs about the importance of group work for
language acquisition as revealed by a self-report questionnaire?
Positive statements about group work were largely agreed with by participants; the
average of positive statements about group work was 3.54 out of 5 for total agreement.
With 3 being “neutral” and 5 being “strongly agree,” these answers suggest a fairly
consistent level of agreement with statements positively evaluating group work. These
results are further supported by the fact that the average for negative statements regarding
group work was 2.35. While this is only .65 points below neutral, it does suggest that the
participants disagreed with negative statements about group work (Table 1 below presents
responses).
Table 1Summary of Survey ResponsesParticipant Mean response on Positive
StatementsMean Response on Negative Statements
Buffy 3.909 2.428
Faith 3.909 2.285
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
Cordelia 2.909 2.142
Anya 3.454 2.571
RQ 2: In two classroom observations of the same teacher, how much group work
does he/she assign?
Overall, out of 640 minutes of class time observed, 192 minutes were dedicated to
group work, thus 30% of the time was spent doing group work. The IESL instructor, Buffy,
dedicated 60 minutes to group work out of the total 160 minutes between two classes. The
PRC instructor, Faith, dedicated 72 minutes to group work out of the total 240 minutes
between two classes observed. The other two PRC instructors, Cordelia and Anya each
dedicated 60 minutes to group work out of a total of 240 minutes between two classes.
(Results are presented in Table 2 below).
Table 2Percentage of Class Time Devoted to Group WorkParticipant % of time Buffy 37.5%
Faith 30%
Cordelia 25%
Anya 25%
At 60 minutes devoted to group work out of a total 160, Buffy dedicated the highest
percentage of time to group work followed by Faith, Cordelia and Anya. With only two
classes per instructor observed it is impossible to offer a comprehensive picture of how
much these teachers value group work by how much time they dedicate to group work
throughout the semester. It must be noted though that although the mean of positive
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
statements about group work for both Buffy and Faith was at 3.9, Buffy assigned 25% more
of her total class time to group work than Faith. Still, we cannot assume that Buffy values
group work more than the other three participants. Furthermore, there is no general
consensus in research for what percentage of class time should be spent on group work
and this study did not aim to find the ideal time spent doing group work.
RQ 3: What are the reasons, as revealed by a follow-up interview for teachers to use
or not use group work?
Reasons for not assigning group work
Buffy reported that she does not assign group work for lessons and activities during
which she intended to focus on students’ accuracy, whereas Faith, Cordelia and Anya cited
concern over students’ mixed language proficiency (see Appendix E). As PRC instructors,
they have classes with students of varying language levels, and I personally witnessed
some of the disparities behind these teachers’ concerns. Faith hesitated to assign group
work because “a higher proficiency student tends to take over group discussion.” In the two
observations of her class, I witnessed this phenomenon, which led the lower-level students
to respond only in their L1, during group work discussion. Cordelia expressed the same
concern about assigning group work at the PRC. Anya reported the need to first gauge how
well students interact with each other before assigning them in groups; with the semester
at the PRC in only its second week, Anya may have still felt uncertain about classroom
dynamics.
Reasons for assigning group work
Buffy assigned group work because “group work creates community” and because,
during group discussion, students “practice circumlocution,” which, as Buffy reported, is an
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
important strategy for language learners. Faith believed that group work allows for
languaging (Swain, 2006, 2010), which Faith defined as “talking about language,” whereas
both Cordelia and Anya reported to use group work when students’ language proficiency
was similar (see Appendix E).
RQ 4: How have teacher training and education influenced teacher’s beliefs about the
importance of group work for language acquisition as revealed by the interview?
With the exception of Cordelia, all participants credited their teacher training at
MIIS for either positively or negatively influencing beliefs about group work (see Appendix
E). As a veteran teacher, Cordelia referenced experience and intuition regarding the class
and level of students for deciding to assign or to not assign group work. Faith reported that
her education at MIIS has overcomplicated her beliefs about group work. She reported
assigning group work less because she was worried that unless it was properly
implemented according to “rules laid down by some theoretical principle,” it would not
support language acquisition. Anya reported that her teacher-training program has
positively influenced her beliefs about group work in the classroom. She also credited her
education for deepening her understanding of what constitutes group work beyond
something more than “some fake task like, make two people read a dialogue.” Buffy
expressed frustration over having to do so much group work as a learning teacher, but she
realized that her training was leading by example, using group-work heavy classes to
illustrate the uses of group work. Buffy reported assigning group work regularly and
credited her teacher training for positively influencing her beliefs about group work.
Discussion
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
This research, albeit limited, supports the idea that differences between learning
environments influence how teachers’ beliefs translate into the classroom (Duffy, 1982;
Duffy & Ball, 1986; Lampert, 1985). Ideally, we would find ourselves in a perfect classroom
where each student is at the same language level but experience shows that this is often not
the case. Many teachers find themselves in similar contexts to the PRC, and thus one crucial
part of teacher education should focus on teaching future instructors how to successfully
implement group work in a less-than-ideal classroom. As an instructor at the Intensive
English as a Second Language (IESL) program at MIIS, Buffy, assigned 25% more group
work than the other three participants; also Buffy was the only respondent who did not
mention classroom context as a reason for not assigning group work. Buffy’s students are
high-intermediate to high-advanced. Additionally, they are in their second semester, and
thus already used to participating in classroom discussion and group work. The majority of
the students at the PRC, however, are adult immigrants with little to no literacy and
without formal education in the United States. Many of these students are simply not
accustomed to academic discourse in the US, and are unfamiliar with group work in the
classroom. Thus, these findings suggest that it is crucial to prepare future teachers for
classrooms with students of diverse cultural backgrounds. Indeed if group work is
important for language acquisition, it is equally important to prepare future teachers to
implement group work in challenging classroom situations.
Limitations
Dörnyei and Taguchi (2010) listed many advantages to questionnaires such as cost
effectiveness, and researcher time and effort. They warned, however, that there are many
disadvantages to a questionnaire such as the simplicity and superficiality of answers,
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
unmotivated respondents, self-deception and fatigue effects (Dörnyei & Taguchi, 2010, pp.
7-9). Several procedural steps as proposed by Dörnyei and Taguchi were taken in order to
construct a good questionnaire. The length of the questionnaire was considered in order to
circumvent the fatigue effect. At only 18 questions, the survey took at most 15 minutes to
complete, according to participants. The questionnaire has clear instructions, and was
designed to focus solely on eliciting responses on teacher beliefs about group work
resulting in responses, which pertain directly to the research at hand. Obviously even the
best questionnaire has its flaws, and 18 responses on the survey used for this research
cannot adequately sum up teacher beliefs about group work.
For this reason, a follow-up semi-structured interview was conducted in person
with each participant in order to address some possible gaps in the questionnaire.
However, even the interview cannot sum up participants’ beliefs about the importance of
group work in the classroom. For example, two of my participants are completing their last
semester at MIIS, and I know firsthand how taxing and busy the last semester can be. It is
very possible that despite my best attempt to keep the interview short at only five
questions, participants could have rushed through their responses without reflecting
because of time concerns.
This research has other important limitations that must be acknowledged. Despite
the attempt to remain hidden, a researcher’s presence could have influenced class
dynamics, including teachers’ behavior. Wajnryb (1992) warned that not only does the
presence of a visitor affect the classroom dynamics but that “observers need to realize that
the samples of data brought from the classroom are inevitably limited, and that sweeping
generalizations should be avoided” (p. 19). Thus even though I observed two instead of one
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
class for each participant, two classes out of an entire semester is too little time to make
overall generalizations about participants’ use or lack of group work in the classroom.
At only four participants, the sample size is too small to make strong generalizations
about the influence of teacher training on participants’ beliefs about group work and
classroom pedagogy. A more extensive investigation, looking at not only current teachers
in training, but also participants that have graduated from the same program during the
last several years is needed.
Conclusion
This study does not present a simple relationship between teacher beliefs about
group work and its implementation in the classroom but it does suggest the need to
prepare future teachers for implementing group work in a mixed-level proficiency
classroom. This research also suggests the need for teacher education programs to prepare
future teachers for classrooms in various contexts, from more academically oriented
English to community outreach programs. Two out of the four participants reported that
teacher education and training have positively influenced beliefs about group work,
whereas another expressed that teacher education has overcomplicated the idea of group
work and made her less likely to assign it even though she believed in its usefulness.
Participants reported that classroom dynamics and interpersonal relationships
between students were influencing factors on whether to assign group work; teachers
reported fear of talkative students taking over group discussion. This finding suggests the
need to also prepare future teachers for various student personalities and appropriate
ways to address them.
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
There are several ways in which future studies could address the limitations of this
research: at only four participants, the sample size is too small to offer any conclusive data.
A longitudinal study involving more participants would yield much more comprehensive
data. Further research should be done on the ideal amount of time spent on group work in
order to explore the relationship between teacher beliefs about group work and the
amount of group work assigned in the classroom, including the type of group work
activities that are most beneficial for language acquisition. Nevertheless, this research
importantly illustrates that due to logistical considerations regarding implementation of
group work in the classroom, positive beliefs regarding group work do not automatically
translate into its use in the language classroom.
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
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Appendix A
Observation Tool for the Amount of Group Work in the Classroom
Time Activity Characterized as Group Work as defined in
the Research Proposal
Activity not Constituting Group Work
Notes
Appendix B
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
Group Work Survey (online version appears as single page)
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1nHaQC5qrTKbwIa3nph8jNV8C2t-XUzDHBCermY_qDM8/viewform
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
Appendix C
Interview
1. How do you see the role of group work in the classroom?2. Do you believe that group work in the classroom is important for language acquisition? Please elaborate on your answer!3. What are some reasons why you would choose to not assign group work during your class?4. In what ways has your education and training at MIIS influenced your pedagogical beliefs about teaching and learning?5. In what ways has your education and training at MIIS influenced your beliefs about the use of group work in the classroom?
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
Appendix D
Questionnaire Responses
Statement Buffy Faith Cordelia Anya1. Positive 5 4 4 42. Positive 4 5 3 43. Positive 3 3 2 34. Positive 4 5 3 35. Negative 3 3 1 26. Positive 3 4 3 37. Negative 2 1 4 38. Positive 4 5 4 49. Negative 2 4 2 2
10. Negative 3 2 2 211. Negative 2 1 1 212. Positive 3 3 1 313. Negative 3 1 1 214. Positive 5 5 4 415. Positive 4 3 2 416. Negative 2 4 4 317. Positive 4 3 3 218. Positive 4 3 3 4
Appendix E
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
Qualitative Data
Questions Buffy Faith Cordelia Anya1. How do you see the role of group work in the classroom?
Important because it provides students with a chance to interact. Group work creates community
Necessary, but must be done correctly. Difficult if students not on the same page
It’s fine as long as the level of students is the same
It depends on how you design and implement it
2. Do you believe that group work is important for language acquisition?
Yes, because it provides students with the chance to practice circumlocution to have their meaning understood
Yes, allows for languaging, but also detrimental depending on context
I don’t think it’s necessary but it doesn’t hurt. It works well in a higher level-class
Not necessary for language acquisition but doesn’t hurt. Often students hate doing it
3. What are some of the reasons why you would choose to not assign group work during class?
When I need to focus on accuracy. I don’t think students should interrupt each other to offer corrections
If I believe students are not able to perform the task without aid. Fear that one talkative student will take over
I would not if I thought the level of students is very different. At the PRC for example, a higher level student tends to take over group work completely
I would not assign group work until I get a feel for the classroom and had the chance to observe how students interact with each other
4. In what ways have your education and training at MIIS influenced your pedagogical beliefs about teaching and learning?
It has sparked an interest in content-based teaching
This idea that you must always have a task. Feelings of guilt if students aren’t busy all the time during class
MIIS has definitely made me see the importance of conducting a needs assessment
It’s made me see that textbooks do not need to have a central role in the classroom. And that a classroom should be learner instead of
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Teacher Beliefs about Group Work Lina Shehuand the Implementation of Group Work in the Classroom
teacher centered
5. In what ways have your education and training at MIIS influenced your beliefs about the use of group work in the classroom?
I had to do a lot of group work as a grad student, which was frustrating, but now I see that they were leading by example. Showing us why it’s important
Overcomplicated and
problematized the idea of group
work. Made me cautious to use it
I hasn’t really changed my beliefs about group work. I taught for many years and usually I get a sense of when to assign it based on a particular class
Definitely made me want to use group work more in the classroom. And not some fake task like, make two people read a dialogue and call it group work. I have a much better idea how to design and implement group work because of my education at MIIS
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