Group Work in the Teaching and

Learning of English as a Foreign

Language—Problems and Potential
MICHAEL H. LONG
THE CASE FOR introducing a change in the manner or content of

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teaching and learning will presumably reflect either (a) a change
in the aims of the teaching-learning process, or (b) the feeling that
existing aims are not being achieved or only inefficiently achieved
by current practice, or (c) a combination of (a) and (b). As the aims,
conscious or unconscious, and existing manner and content of language
teaching and learning are seldom the same in any two cases, it is
clearly impossible to generalise as to the desirability of introducing
or extending the use of group-work in the EFL classroom. Disparity
of aims within a class, however, may well constitute one of the strongest
arguments in favour, for group work potentially allows both the
determining of aims and the manner and pace of their achievement
to vary.
As more information becomes available on individual differences
among teachers and learners of foreign languages, so dissatisfaction
increases with inflexible forms of classroom organisation. The lockstep
system—whereby the teacher presents and practises the same material
in the same way to and with all the learners simultaneously—rides
roughshod over variables such as age, aptitude, sex, motivation,
intelligence, interest, and teaching or learning styles. It may be
appropriate for some teaching and learning some of the time, but
hardly for all teaching and learning all of the time. Many problems
of discipline can be traced to a denial to students of the freedom
to work towards goals perceived by them as worthwhile, or to do
so in a manner appropriate and enjoyable to them. Even where
externally imposed syllabus or examination requirements prescribe
deadlines for the attainment of certain levels of proficiency by whole
groups of learners, regardless of their individual aims and abilities,
group-work can at least allowflexibilityin the manner of attainment
and, if well organised, increase the speed and efficiency of the process.
As many writers have pointed out, the lockstep system can be
grossly inefficient in terms of productivity.1 The time spent on 'skill-
getting' language-learning activities can be reduced quite dramatically
by organising a class of learners into pairs. G. Broughton2 has suggested
'See, for example, A. F. Deyes: 'Speech Activity in the Language Class', ELTJ,
XXVm, 3, 1974, 222-6.
•See G. Broughton: 'Practice in Pairs'. ELTJ May 1969,13-16.
285
286 Michael H. Long

several ways in which controlled practice of sentence patterns can

be obtained through provision by the teacher of simple blackboard
cues for oral question-and-answer work. Two lists of words,
butcher meat
grocer vegetables
baker bread
etc. etc.

can elicit the following types of exchanges between students:

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1: Does a butcher sell vegetables?
2: No, he doesn't. He sells meat.
or:
1: What's a butcher?
2: Someone who sells meat.

The same work carried out by the class as one unit—Marfa asking
Pedro, while the remaining students listen (or not, as the case may
be)—inevitably involves long periods of inactivity for some learners
and means that all are obliged to progress at the same pace, probably
too slow for some and too fast for others. However imaginative the
teacher, the resulting frustration may turn to boredom or despair,
and once more show itself as the beginnings of a discipline problem.
Group work is not a solution to such problems, but may help to
obviate or alleviate them.
While there is disagreement about the need for practice to saturation
point of newly encountered language items and an increasing tendency
to emphasise provision for learners of opportunities for communicative
use of these items, few would deny that it is the latter 'skill-using'
stage that is most time-consuming. Teachers and students of large
classes will attest to the management problems involved in providing
forty, sixty, or a hundred learners with enough opportunities for
engaging in creative, personalised language exchanges in a class
period of (say) fifty minutes. How often do two or three native
speakers communicate to their satisfaction about some topic of
interest to them in less than five minutes? Yet twenty groups of
(say) three learners, simultaneously practising communicative use
of the language for five minutes each, still take a total of only five
minutes of lesson time.
As important as the increased quantity of communicative language
practice is the difference in quality of student talk obtainable in
the small group setting. Teacher-directed practice tends to be, if
not a drill per se, then 'drill-like', with a pedagogic focus on formal
correctness, i.e. on how something is said rather than on what is
said. Working face to face with chosen peers, relieved of the need
for grammatical accuracy in everything they say, students are more
 Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language 287

likely to experiment—to use language creatively—than when

nominated to speak publicly in front of fifty class-mates and the
inhibiting figure of the teacher.3 Given some sort of problem-solving
activity conducive of communicative use of English, student-initiated
talk can more easily focus on doing something with the new language
rather than on the language as an end in itself, and communicative
effectiveness becomes a criterion for judging linguistic performance
as successful. A recent experiment4 has shown, however, that the
right kind of learning task alone is insufficient to guarantee creative
foreign language use. Student talk in teacher-led discussions was

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frequently found to be characterised by the kind of pseudo-
communicative language use common to normal lockstep teaching.
It was among students able to work on the same task in a small-
group setting (pairwork in the experiment) that an increase was
observed in the variety of what was said, as measured in rhetorical,
pedagogical, and social-interactional terms.
In addition to its positive effects on the quantity and quality of
student talk, there exists a series of other factors which may make
the introduction or extension of the use of group-work potentially
beneficial to many EFL teachers and learners. They include the
exploitability of the experience of group work in primary schools
brought to secondary and tertiary education by increasing numbers
of learners, the need for variety in a teacher's lessons, the desirability
of weaning students from dependence on their teacher as the only
source of learning, and the relatively more active role in the learning
process—their learning how to learn—that this brings. The increasing
proportion of unstreamed, mixed-ability classes in state education
systems also merits attention, as does a growing awareness of the
significance of affective learning, including development of social
interaction skills, as part of the educational product.
It is important, however, when considering the potential offered by
group work, to face the problems arising from its introduction.
Before turning to these, it should also be recognised that there is
little proof that group-work does much of what is often claimed for
it in the ELT literature. Because of the difficulty in identifying and
controlling variables in educational research, it is almost impossible
to establish a causal relationship between any classroom practice
and successful learning. This difficulty is compounded by the scarcity
8
See D. Barnes, Language in the Classroom, The Open University Press, 1973,
pp. 17-20, and M. H. Long, 'Group work and communicative competence in the
ESOL classroom', in (eds.) M. Burt and H. Dulay: On TESOL '75. New Directions
in Second Language Learning, Teaching and Bilingual Education. TESOL, George-
town University, 1975.
4
See M. H. Long, L. Adams, M. McLean, and F. Castanos: 'Doing things
with words: verbal interaction in lockstep and small group classroom situations',
in (eds.) J. Fanselow and R. Crymes: On TESOL '76. TESOL, Georgetown
University, 1976.
288 Michael H. Long

at present of validated instruments for describing what goes on in

foreign language, as opposed to content subject classrooms,5 and
the scarcity, too, of locally valid measures of achievement. The
teacher deciding to introduce or extend the use of group-work in
the classroom, therefore, does so largely on the basis of intuition
and common sense.
As with the introduction of a new 'method', set of materials, or
piece of educational hardware, sudden conversion to group work
has often caught teachers and students unaware, adding a new
dimension to confusion rather than learning. Even if the rigidity

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of lockstep teaching is considered undesirable, it is a well-tried system
which we know can be relied upon to produce at least some of the
goods, and some teachers and students are practised at teaching
and learning in that way. A sudden, wholesale abandonment of
existing practice is therefore a dangerous undertaking; more advisable
would be a gradual introduction or increase in the use of group work
for, at first, short periods of class time. There is, in any case, no
suggestion that group work is the ideal or only form of classroom
organisation for all language-learning tasks; both the class functioning
as one unit and individuals working alone, for example, will be
preferable alternatives for some types of work.
The following is a list of some of the questions a teacher might
ask before embarking on what could otherwise be a wasteful
expenditure of time and energy.6
1. How many students do I want to work in each group?
2. How many groups do I want in each class of students ?
3. Which students will work together?
4. How will the groups be formed ?
5. Is there any advantage in imposing a particular structure on the groups?
6. What kind of work will the students do in groups?
7. What relationship will group work share with the rest of the teaching and
learning in our classes?
8. How will my role and that of my students change?

Several of these questions are inter-related and so will be discussed

together.

1 and 2: Group size and the number of groups in a class

Experimental work by social psychologists can tell us a certain amount
about the influence of group size on productivity and performance
generally. Regrettably, however, little work has been carried out in
educational settings, and even less in language classrooms. Certain
•But see the 'FOCUS' system described in J. Fanselow: 'Rashomon', to appear in
TESOL Quarterly, 1977.
This is not a complete list. Questions as to the need for additional or alternative
materials and forms of evaluation, for example, will not be discussed for lack of
space.
 Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language 289

obvious points for the teacher to bear in mind are that although in
bigger groups there are more problem-solving resources, increased
size brings added problems of intra-group organisation and
communication. Where the task does not involve problem-solving
so much as the meaningful practice of material already understood,
quantity of practice per student will rise as group size decreases.
If the language work being done requires supervision, then size
will become a function of the number of students the teacher feels
capable of supervising, and hence, of the number of groups capable
of independent work. Unfortunately, the quantity of the material

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available for group-work often overrides all these considerations.
There is no obvious reason why groups need be of equal size,
and in practice an arbitrary prior decision by the teacher to this
effect runs the risk of exchanging one artificially uniform system of
classroom organisation for another. Existing 'natural' groupings
among students, based on such factors as friendship, respect or
dislike, may be revealed by simple sociometric tests, and are unlikely
to divide a class of forty neatly into (say) eight groups of five.7 A
teacher may prefer to accept the principle of having groups of varying
size operating alongside one another if students' wishes are thereby
respected, if the ability distribution in a class is skewed, or if interest
grouping or task type so dictates. Nor need such groupings remain
constant, but may be expected and, therefore, allowed to vary from
one task or occasion to another.

3, 4, and 5: The composition, formation and internal structure of groups

The way in which group size and number of groups may be influenced
by the manner of their formation—the interpretation of a sociogram—
has already been noted. Whether the teacher chooses to group by
ability, achievement, interest, seating arrangements, or randomly,
the same influence will be at work. Which method of formation of
groups is opted foe will depend on his or her wider views, e.g. as
to the merits of homogeneous versus heterogeneous ability grouping,
or the type of work to be done, and may itself be influenced by
whether or not it is intended to impose a particular internal structure
on a group once it is formed. The two main considerations here
are the relative effectiveness of various communication networks
for different types of task, and the need and/or desirability of a
designated group leader.
After a survey of the relevant evidence Shaw8 concluded that more
centralised networks, e.g. the wheel, are more efficient with simple
'A comprehensive account of the use of sociometric tests in education is
provided by K. M. Evans in Sociometry and Education, Routledge and Regan
Paul, 1968.
"M. E. Shaw, 'Communication networks', in (ed.) L. Berkowitz, Advances in
Experimental Social Psychology, Academic Press, 1964.
290 Michael H. Long

Some communication networks in five-person groups

WHEEL CIRCLE COMCON

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tasks, but more diffuse networks, e.g. the circle, are superior with
complex tasks, and in these networks, socio-emotional satisfaction
is usually greater. I know of no ready way of distinguishing simple
and complex foreign-language learning tasks. However, if accuracy
is at a premium, as where small groups of students are being given
concentrated 'skill-getting' oral-aural practice with some new language
item, then the teacher may so organise group-formation as to ensure
the presence in each group of a student with the sociometric status
and linguistic ability to fulfil the role of group leader, for which
purpose a network with high centrality (such as the wheel) will
be conducive of success.
That centralised networks need not result in low socio-emotional
satisfaction in the language classroom was one of the findings of a
longitudinal study,9 carried out in Mexico, where questionnaire
surveys of students who had used the wheel and a decentralised
(Comcon) network showed minimal differences in attitude to group
work. Performance differences between the differently structured
groups were slight as regards quantity of output, but 'quality' of
output in terms of percentages of student language errors corrected
by group members was higher in groups using the centralised net-
work. Observation suggested, too, that leaderless diffuse networks
were heavily prone to unequal distribution of language practice among
group members.
Enough has been said to show that group size, formation,
composition, and structure are complex and interdependent factors,
decisions as to which will clearly vary from one teaching situation to
another. So much more surprising, therefore, is the readiness of some
writers to decree optimal solutions in these fields and also that
concerning 'correct' uses of group work.
9
I am grateful to Prof. A. Spicer and R. L. Allwright of the University of Essex,
and to G. Kaye and M. A. Frankel of the British Council for useful discussions
of the data from this study.
 Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language 291

6 and 7: Work done in groups and its relationship to other classwork

Almost any type of language activity can be performed by learners
in groups, including practice in listening, speaking, reading, writing,
combinations of these, and diagnostic testing. Language teachers
will, of course, recognise ways in which some activities lend
themselves to group work more readily than others. It would be
negative, therefore, to suggest limitations on the kinds of activity
attempted. More important is consideration of the relationship they
may have with the rest of the teaching and learning in our classes.
Here it seems worth remembering that group work is a means to

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an end, and not an end in itself. By this is meant that student autonomy
in the target language will presumably be a goal common to all
teachers, whatever the precise nature of the skills involved in that
autonomy. This suggests utilisation of group work along the road to
that autonomy, perhaps—although this is clearly not a formula for
all language-learning tasks—following some sort of initial exposure
to the piece of language concerned, possibly by a lockstep presen-
tation, and preceding work performed by the learners alone, except
where the nature of the skill sought, e.g. the ability to initiate a
conversation with a passer-by, by definition involves interaction
between two or more persons.

8: New roles for teachers and students

As the scope of this brief article reflects, classroom management
problems of a very detailed kind, such as those concerning noise
level or the (non)-movability of furtniture, are of such a local nature
as to require local solutions. Just as these problems depend upon
flexibility on the part of both teacher and students with regard to
the physical layout of the classroom, seating arrangements, use of
space, access to materials, and so on, so the overall success of group
work depends on the ability of both parties to develop a mental
flexibility. It is often the demands made by the latter that are
underestimated.
Both teachers and students need to develop the ability to switch
freely among a variety of roles within the course of a single lesson.
During the lockstep stages the use of students to organise and conduct
any drills and the encouragement of student correction of and help
for their peers are some ways in which teachers can prepare their
students for the self-help and cooperation, including the ability to
listen critically to themselves and their fellows, necessary for group
work to be successful. Direct instruction in such activities as drilling,
questioning, correcting, providing models, manipulating visual aids,
and operating tape-recorders can also prove useful preparation for
work in small groups.
Students seem to adapt quickly to their new roles as learners.
292 Hugh Templeton

Teachers, on the other hand, often take quite some time to learn how
best to use the 'freedom' thrust upon them by a change from the
lockstep system. It is easy enough to master the mechanics of forming
small groups of students to work on a specific task. More difficult is
not to continue to dominate the class, either physically, in terms of
no longer occupying a central focal point at the front of the room,
or verbally, in terms of no longer doing most of the talking. It is
difficult for the teacher, trained and practised in the lockstep system,
to learn how to circulate unobtrusively among groups as they work,
checking that guidance or assistance is forthcoming from a group

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member when it is needed, but resisting the temptation to jump in
with a correction or the 'right' answer, thereby undermining the
confidence of the group in its own ability to seek out 'right' answers.
It is sometimes difficult, in other words, to learn to be guide—not
God. Here, as in many other ways, teachers of EFL at the secondary
and tertiary levels would seem to have a lot to learn from the staff
and methods of primary education.

A New Technique for Measuring

Listening Comprehension
HUGH TEMPLETON
THIS PAPER reports evidence supporting the use of the cloze procedure
technique as a reliable way of assessing the listening proficiency of
foreign students of English. The evidence was gathered from two
small-scale experiments conducted by the author.
Cloze procedure applied to listening comprehension
This procedure is a deceptively simple technique first applied to
language testing in the fifties, by Wilson Taylor,1 who coined the
term 'cloze'. He was referring to 'closure', a term employed by
gestalt psychologists to denote the tendency to complete familiar
but incomplete patterns by mentally filling the gaps. The procedure
consists of statistically or randomly deleting parts of a language
unit and asking subjects to respond by suggesting the missing
elements. It is different from the normal sentence-completion task
in that the parts to be replaced are chosen mathematically and the
language unit used is longer than a single sentence. Typically, the
missing parts are single words.
'See^bibliography