As for my primary school Ss, I use group work when planning a role-play activity or when they play games to practise the vocabulary and “chunks of language” learnt. I also use it when they are doing craft-works and project work. 

As for my 10^th year Ss I use group work to discuss ideas about a certain topic and then share those ideas with the other groups; I use it for reading and writing activities. An example of a recent writing activity I’ve used was when discussing the topic “Teenagers’ issues”. After having read a few texts on teenagers talking about their issues, Ss were asked to, in groups,  think of a specific issue, write a short text describing it and then they swapped their texts with the other groups. The next step was to write an advice to that teenager according to the issue presented. Then each of the groups shared their texts. 

Last, but obviously, no the least, I also use it for project work. 

I would like to be able to make group work more collaborative, because, group work isn’t exactly the same thing as collaborative learning. I would like to quote Jane A. Scheuermann, when she says that “All collaborative learning is done in a group (of at least two people), but not all group work is inherently collaborative! The trick is to structure the activity in a way that makes students work together to be successful.”  

This is what I would like to achieve next, because I’m aware that when my Ss work in groups this isn’t always true and I do believe it is important and desirable. 

Having Ss with different learning styles and different skills working together, can benefit each of the Ss as well as the whole group. Lower- skilled Ss might feel more comfortable, having the help and support of their peers.

As it comes to assessing and correcting, group work can reduce the number of final products the teacher has to grade. So, feedback from the teacher is easier. 

Besides this, Ss normally enjoy working in groups and they do feel more motivated. 

Under the Einstein Schools program, a project of the International Astronomical Union that celebrates the 100th anniversary of our school, students will help students explore the latest discoveries in astronomy. Students will participate in: - Launch of the program of activities on January 15, National Culture Day and birthday of the great national poet Mihai Eminescu. He was an important writer, playwright and journalist and was categorized by literary critics as the most important poetic voice in Romanian literature. (Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luceaf%C4%83rul_(poem) - Participate in observations of the astronomical phenomena visible in 2019 on the territory of our country (January 22: Venus and Jupiter planets in conjunction, March 20: Spring equinox, 22-23 April: The maximum of the meteor stream Liride (ZHR = 20) , 6-7 May: The Meteor Meter's Maximum Eta Aquaride (ZHR = 60), June 10: The Jupiter Planet Opposition, June 21: The Summer Solstice, July 9: The Saturn Planet in Opposition, July 28-29: The Meteor Current Delta Aquaride (ZHR = 20), August 12-13: Maximum Perseid Meteor Current (ZHR = 60-100), Sept. 9: Neptune Planet Opposition, September 23: Autumn Equinox, Oct. 21-22: Meteor Current Orionide (ZHR = 20), October 27: The Uranus Planet in opposition (visible all night) November 17-18: The maximum of the meteorite stream Leonide (ZHR = 15) November 24: Venus and Jupier planets in conjunction -14 December: The maximum of the Geminide meteor current (Z. HR = 120) and December 22: Winter Solstice) - Developing a curriculum of school development with a mathematical-physics-geodiversity trans-disciplinary approach with the theme "Flashing on the sky" -Search events, competitions, symposiums in the Einstein School Program

 

I also use erasmus Projects!

I enjoy group work because it enables the exchange of  ideas, learning, and skills, which allows to develop a richer and more interesting work. 

I enjoy group work because that way I know that students work with more motivation and it is easier to provide opportunities to learn for all types of learners. 

 

In this context I would like to do exactly the same: learn together with peers, share experiences and find/create new ways of solving old problems. 

As a teacher I am constantly checking and giving feedback on what they are doing and available for any doubts they may have. 

I think that students feel more motivated to work and learn. 

Learning English as a foreign language gives me the possibility to do lots of group work, especially with older students. They prepare role plays, interviews, debates, posters, timelines or write news and present them, and so on.

I also use PBL because for those students who are really eager to know more, it makes them feel free to develop their knowledge. They feel free to choose the content of their project, they want they want to approach it, develop it and present the final product. They see it as a challenge and are anxious for the final product.

I would like to know more tools and strategies to implement group work in my classes. 

As a languages teacher I would like to know specifically strategies that would allow my students to prepare better their speaking skills. 

Collaborative work is extremely inclusive and gives the possibility to everyone the opportunity to work respecting what they know how to do .It's funny to watch them work. 

For group presentations concerning the school curricula, they prepare them at home with research. However, there is certainly not much English language learning involved as they tend to speak Portuguese all the time and even their researches are in Portuguese! 

I find that students feel accompanied in this process and therefore feel useful to others by sharing their experiences and knowledge.

I agree with the videos above when they refer to the development of life skills. In no other better situation do we have students working together for the same purpose, do we have them communicating with each other and using the English language freely without being afraid of making mistakes. Patience, respect for others’ opinions and rules are some of the main reasons I enjoy having my students to work in groups.

I always try to integrate some form of group work or group discussion in all of my lessons because they seem to learn more with each other than in teacher centered lessons.

We're doing class projects. We are included in eTwinning.

    

Methodology used:

1- group organization. I let them choose with who they want to work

2- Brainstorming activity – they decide what event they want to organize

3 – Planning each tasks and determining regular meeting for giving feedback and making decisions

4- Investigate and collect information

5- Construct the organization of the activity

6- Make contacts, arrange meeting, make reservations, etc

7- Accomplish the event

8 assess the whole activity and each group parts

2. they increase their performance and productivity;

3. they learn better as they may develop their understanding through discussion and explanation (developing communication skills, as well);

4. they improve their self-confidence and self-knowledge, getting to know their strengths and weaknesses;

5. They can split more complex tasks into parts, which help them not only to learn more, but also to help one another;

6. they develop skills, especially soft skills (thinking and assessment skills, communication, planning, problem-solving, time management, responsibility, …) 

 

- the students enjoy learning through better understanding the tasks;

- the students enjoy being with other people;

- the students may develop their communication skills to talk about any subject to small and large audiences;

- the student develop their ability to be tolerant and respectful towards differences;

- the students may learn about responsibility.

I like work in the groups because we all share responsibility for the result and we can exchange ideas and learn from each other. 

My students like to work in groups when they have to explore different topics. Each group gets assignment to present their result to other groups. They are aware that they are responsible for teaching others, so they are taking that very seriously.   

 

- develop respect for others and cooperation; 

- know hear; 

- stimulate creativity and critical thinking; 

- to promote the social formation necessary to know how to be in society; 

- develop the capacity for argumentation; 

- develop decision-making capacity.

I think it is when working in groups, we teachers, and students, that learning becomes meaningful, and we discover connections that alone would not be possible.

- Ask a class in pairs; 

- Laboratory activity (Physics and Chemistry), in groups of 3 to 4 students;

 - Interdisciplinary project work in groups of 4 to 5 students.

 Besides, it can provide opportunities for all types of learners as they learn the content with each other.
 By doing research, talking to each other and respecting each other’s opinions, making decisions, negotiating, cooperating and having the possibility of doing a creative final product, students also gain more autonomy and self-confidence.

Group work promotes learning and raises respect and friendships among diverse groups of students. In fact, the more diversity in a team, the higher the benefits for each student. 

In group work, the most important thing is not to be alone, to have interactions and dialogical relationships to solve the tasks that are asked of us, or to solve a problem – thinking together is good and usually produces better results than thinking alone. 

I do lots of group works for writing activities . At the moment my 9 graders are "creating" their own invention. They are engineers, webdesigners, architects, scientist, manual workers...The final "product" will be shared with the rest of the class.
This way they will be developing different skills as well as be aware which tasks  these jobs involve

            When there are broader topics to be debated and presented in class, I usually divide students into large groups.

Different students have different skills so they can share and improve together new skills and their own ones.

Each student can learn in their own rhythm if they work collaboratively and sometimes go further than only with the teacher, because they want to be proud between peers.

They should share responsibilities and define tasks for each one and for that they must negotiate. They develop abilities to solve problems and have critical thinking.

 

 

 

I enjoy group work because it´s good to share ideas and solve problems with other colleagues. 

 

I would like that all my students were able to cooperate inside the group. In fact very often the weakest students rely on the good ones to develop the work and don’t engage as I expected them to. It’s not easy to promote collaboration when you have multi-level students in a foreign language class. 

 

I also would like to have more evaluation tools for assessing each students’ contribution for the group work. 

Becuse the contribution of an individual will add to the common goal. Thex feel valuable and also I like to hear new ideas that will further my personal growth. 

Students become more active in their learning process, they learn with the teacher and with their peers.

The teachers' role is therefore to establish the equilibrium between expositional classes and the groups' activities.

Participating in group works helps students in their individual and intellectual development. They learn how to express their thoughts, how to do research, question, make plans, decide, make commitments and share tasks. 

When doing group work, I usually divide Ss in groups of three or four, depending on the activity to be done and the total number of students.

They are given some subtopics and each group chooses one. Then they divide the different tasks among themselves and decide about the final product. As we don’t have much time, we always set a time limit for the conclusion and the presentation of the final product to the class.

 

My younger students usually do activities regarding the input of new vocabulary and language structures like, for instance, getting to know more about their favourite jobs or movie stars, English speaking countries, etc. and doing PowerPoints about them. They also prepare role-plays about everyday situations like going to a restaurant, going shopping, inviting friends and making arrangements, making phone calls, among others. They sometimes surprise me with pretty humorous situations they create for the role-play activity.

Some of them also like doing activities that involve manual work, such as making Christmas and Valentine´s cards.

Older students do research work to learn more about the different topics to be studied and decide how to present their conclusions to the class. For instance, this year, my 11^th Grade students did group work on environmental problems and they came out with videos and PowerPoint and Prezi presentations.

In previous years I have also participated in eTwinning projects, with older students. Their favourite activity was talking to their partners using Skype, of course!

Students enjoy group work because they like to work with their classmates. I believe that group work is very important as it helps develop different skills ; in fact, students need to share their ponts of view and accept others different from their own , they need to respect everyone’s pace, strengths and weakenesses. 

Personally I’m a fan of teamwork. I really feel that if we work with the right people everything is much easier and fruitful. 

I like group work because it’s a way to exchange ideas and learn from sharing knowledge. Also, it gives us new insights into the topics we’re studying/exploring. Besides this, we can meet new people and learn different languages if we’re working with people from different nationalities, for example.

I would also like to have better group work assessment tools. 

 

As a teacher, I believe group-work can be challenging and inspiring. Students get to share their ideas, talents and skills, and the outcome is often more eclectic and surprising. Besides that, I also think students tend to really listen to each other's ideas and discuss them. So, though it may, sometimes, be time consuming, it is important and essential.

I have also participated on a project with a French and an Italian teacher, and their classes. It was an online project (eTwinning).

What I'd really like to achieve next is to learn more about: 

o   strategies of implementing and orienting this type of work;

o  ways to insure all the students participate;

o  tools or rubrics to better follow and check student/project development (formative assessment);

o   tools or rubrics to evaluate this type of work (summative assessment).

I'd love to work on longer term projects or even shorter term ones, but projects that really motivate and develop student learning/ competences. 

There isn’t a way to format group work. We just need to add group work into our routine.
https://www.impactteachers.com/8-benefits-implementing-group-work/teacher-tips

1.    If presentation of results is task for students with lower abilities in a subject, better students have a task to prepare them for presentation of his common work. This includes explanations, suggestions, etc.  – they become their teachers.  

2.     Students with higher abilities and more interested for a subject together, so as students with lower abilities or less interested. In that case I can give them different level of tasks. For first group or groups I can prepare tasks that includes more complicated applying of some math contents, and for other groups tasks that includes more of their specific interests or abilities.

I implement group work to do projects and presentations in class. For instance, this term students have done a project about a singer they like. They have looked for specific information, they have designed a poster and they have presented it in class. 

* are at the core of the learning process

* get to know each other better

* can decide what they want to learn and choose how to do it

* can work together to pool their expertise, knowledge and skills

* can develop communication, self-management and teamwork skills

* share, joint efforts, re-evaluate their views and come to solutions/conclusions to the problem

* learn how to plan more effectively and to manage their time

* may tackle larger and more complex problems and assignments than they would be able to do individually

* develop critical thinking, respect for the others and creativity

* improve social interaction and interpersonal skills

* develop feedback and assessment skills 

* implement international group work (group with students form different countries)

* be able to monitor and evaluate group work more effectively