Collaborative learning and classroom management Our students are often more interested in each other than in the teacher. We can harness this interest to help us to motivate students by using learners as a resource in collaborative classroom activities. Here are some activities and ideas to try at different stages of the English course in your class. 1 Change places! Write questions on the board, e.g. What did you do at the weekend? What is your favourite day of the week? Students ask and answer these with a partner. Then, they change places and ask and answer with a different person. Repeat with various different partners. Finally give students a slip of paper and ask them to write their new partner’s name on the paper. They then ask and answer the same questions and write one piece of information about their partner on the paper. Stop the activity and ask volunteers to report back to class what their last partner told them. Collect the slips of paper to ‘test’ students at the end of the class – paraphrase some of the information on the slips of paper and students try to remember who said this. 2 Ten topics Elicit/feed in 10 topics that students would like to talk about and write them on the board. Each student then writes their name on a piece of paper and sticks it on the wall. Ask a volunteer to choose one of the topics. Students then talk about that topic with a partner for 1 minute. Use a timer, or shout ‘stop’ and raise your arm when the minute is up. Each student now writes one thing that their partner told them on the partner’s paper. Repeat with the other topics, with students changing partner each time. When you stop the activity, students collect their piece of paper from the wall, sit down and read the information. Can they see any errors? If so, can they correct them? Collect and save these papers so that you can use the information to create a Find someone who… activity in a future class. 3 Dictogloss This is a very flexible type of dictation which involves listening to the teacher, speaking in groups, writing and checking. The teacher reads a short text to the students, who just listen. The teacher reads the text again, and the learners take notes. Then in groups they recreate the text from their notes. To check the groups’ texts, volunteers can write the text on the board, sentence by sentence, while their classmates make any necessary corrections. We can accept any versions of the original text if the language is correct. For lower levels you can help students by giving them the text with words missing and they have to fill the gaps. 4 Writing on the wall Write questions on large sheets of paper and stick them in different places in the room. Students walk around and write their answers to the questions on the same piece of paper. Give a time limit to make this more dynamic. When you think it appropriate, stop the activity, arrange students into groups, and then hand out one or more of the written-on sheets of paper to each group. Each group has to summarise the information on their sheet, e.g., ‘Most people think…’ Use this as a springboard to generate ideas for a discussion or for a more formal writing activity. 5 Global resource We can use the comments on LearnEnglish Kids and LearnEnglish Teens as a global resource. Here you are not limited to the ideas and thoughts of the learners in your class and students can interact with other English learners around the world. The content produced by website members from over 220 different countries can be used as suggested on this lesson plan: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/learnenglish-teens-magazine-section
6 Learner diary Print the diary http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/learnenglish-teens-learner-diary and use it to look at the different sections of the LearnEnglish Teens website, with your learners working individually and then in pairs or groups. Students complete a section of the diary at home then discuss their ideas in pairs or small groups before doing whole class feedback. Collect in the diaries weekly and comment on students’ involvement and encourage them to reflect on their learning. Giving feedback weekly motivates students as they can see that you are taking their learning and opinions seriously. 7 Creative problem solving Give students a challenge to help develop their critical thinking skills* by asking them to work collaboratively to solve a problem creatively. First, students match Chindogu inventions to explanations. Then, brainstorm real life problems that your students might have, e.g., they have too much homework, their bedroom is untidy. Next, in groups, students discuss a Chindogu invention to ‘solve’ this problem and take turns to pitch the idea to the class. Students vote on the most imaginative invention. Adapt this lesson plan for your class: http://www.onestopenglish.com/community/lesson-share/lessonshare-archive/speaking/speaking-inventions/145171.article 8 Sentence auction Give students 10 sentences, most having one or more errors, but some being correct. Students try to decide individually, which are the correct sentences and then they compare their ideas in groups. The object is to then buy the sentences which the group thinks are correct by bidding against the other groups. The group that bids the most money for any sentence wins that sentence.Each group has a total of 1000 euros to bid with. The winner is the team which buys the most correct sentences. Use this for revising problem vocabulary or structures and for feedback after writing and speaking, using common errors from the class. 9 Cut up sentences This is a simple way to revise structures and vocabulary with younger learners. Arrange students into small groups. Give out one cut up sentence to each group (each group has a ‘collector’). The group works together to order the words. One person (the writer) from each group writes the correct sentence on the board. Give points for correct sentences and a bonus point for the first to finish. 10 Back to the board Students work in two or three groups. One volunteer from each group stands or sits with their back to the board. The teacher writes a word on the board and the group members explain the word to the volunteer (without using that word) until he or she guesses the word and that team wins a point. Change ‘volunteers’ and repeat for 6 or 7 words. You can have a noisy game where students shout out their clues or a quieter, more controlled game where they take turns to speak.
* Further reading – Teaching children to learn, Robert Fisher
Sally Trowbridge 2015