One of the big action research questions I would like to explore next year is about kids working in groups. Specifically, I’d like to look at both language and content negotiation in student work groups. Doing observations for my dissertation I’ve seen pair work that is really effective in the primary grades. But, in the intermediate grades, I haven’t been impressed with any group work or pair work I’ve seen.
In one classroom, the teacher sets the expectations that all the students have the same answers and help each other get those answers. This was during a social studies activity. In the group I was observing with an English language learner, the group members just told him word for word what to write. When I sat down and tried to talk to the boy about what they were learning, he was completely clueless. In another class, the teacher usually informally announces that students should work in pairs or with someone at their table. The two english language learners in that class are usually completely left out of this process. People chose their friends to work with, or someone they know will be able to help them finish the assignment quickly. Both times I’ve observed one of the ELL girls ( the student who really needs the most support and interaction) has worked completely by herself. The boy I observed was a marginal participant in the group, receiving but not negotiating information.
So, I need to think about how to structure group work so that students are engaged with the content as opposed to concerned with completing an assignment. The kind of negotiation that is required for language learners to figure out language and content needs sympathetic interlocutors. Part of what I would like to do is really model what these content based conversations should look like, and then also model how to be an effective ‘mentor’ for someone who needs help negotiating the language or content. So often we assume students have these skills and they don’t.
