Students are always responsible for their own learning, but we should also promote group work and encourage them to work collaboratively in order to reach a common goal. Students should interact with each other and learn to work in a variety of groups.
• Getting into groups.
In order to group students, you could give some students questions and the rest of the group, numerous possible answers to a given question, e.g. “What would you put in a fruit salad?” One student could have apple, whilst another has orange and so on. Students should discuss the answers and form a group based on their theory. Alternatively, you could have a few photos, which are cut into pieces. Students should circulate the class, seeing if their pieces match up, ultimately forming a group once all pieces have been put together.
• Getting into groups #2.
Give students stickers (white label stickers) in a variety of ways. Cut the label in half and have half the word on one part and the rest on the other. Students then need to find their partner. Vary this by breaking words into syllables for more able groups. Alternatively, give some students key words and others the definition, or give numbers on one sticker and the full written version of the number on another. For History, split the stickers in half with dates on some and events on another. Get students into learning partners/groups by finding matches.
• Verbal tennis.
In pairs, students say a key word related to the topic or string a sentence together. Student “A” starts and then student “B” needs to respond with a new word/next part of the sentence. Students who hesitate could lose a point to try to encourage forward thinking.
