Group discussions : the teacher's role?
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Supplementary material
Other Title
Authors
Reinders, Hayo
Lewis, Marilyn
Tsang, Rebecca
Lewis, Marilyn
Tsang, Rebecca
Author ORCID Profiles (clickable)
Degree
Grantor
Date
2003
Supervisors
Type
Journal Article
Ngā Upoko Tukutuku (Māori subject headings)
Keyword
second language acquisition (SLA)
ESL
English teacher's roles
ESL
English teacher's roles
ANZSRC Field of Research Code (2020)
Citation
Reinders, H. , Lewis, M. , & Tsang, R. 2003. Group discussions : the teacher's role?
Asian Journal of English Language Teaching (AJELT) 13, 61-73. NOTE: This is research undertaken prior to the author being affiliated with the Unitec Institute of Technology.
Abstract
Group discussions are a popular way of increasing the opportunities for authentic talk by language learners. However groups can also present problems: one or two learners may dominate talk or teachers may have difficulty in adapting to a less up-front teaching role. This article reports a small action-research project which shows how teachers can monitor and adjust their roles. The teacher-researcher wanted to adapt her directive teaching style to a more facilitative role with small groups. She analysed her own language and its effects on learners’ talk over three sessions in which three different groups of students were discussing a movie. On each occasion this analysis led to her modifying her language in the next session. This study suggests a process whereby other teachers could carry out action research in order to monitor their teaching. The actual effect of a teacher reducing her own intervention suggests that while a decrease in teacher talk may be helpful, this is not the only consideration. Teacher intervention may sometimes be important to maintain interaction levels.
Publisher
The Chinese University Press
Permanent link
Link to ePress publication
DOI
Copyright holder
The Chinese University of Press
Copyright notice
This is a preprint of an article submitted for consideration in the Asian Journal of English Language Teaching © The Chinese University of Hong Kong 2003. Only the abstract is available online at this time: Asian Journal of English Language Teaching