Discussions, group formats

Pairs: I use this one a lot whenever there’s a discussion in my class since it provides the maximum opportunity to my kids to speak out their thoughts. Also, I would sometimes put weaker students together and it gives a chance to guide them individually.

Small groups: use this one too but not that often.

Whole-class groups: frankly speaking, I almost never use it because students would become silent easily in a big discussion, everyone is counting on others' contributions in this kind of form.

 

Discussion, systems: forms like Spiderwebs, Socratic seminars and Harkness are totally strangers to me. Hope someone can fill me in about these methods.

 

Formal debate

Use it when there’s an interesting and trendy issue raised from the unit, it’s an opportunity for students to do some serious research online. Once a week probably.

 

Stimulus-to-interaction

Student presentation + questions + discussion

Use it at a high frequency, every time when we need to do a presentation, whether it’s in a group or personal.

 

Video + learning comprehension + discussion

It’s also a discussion method I adopted a lot. Very effective because students would naturally come up with their own thought after watching the video and having a basic understanding of the theme or issue, which laid a foundation for them.

 

Role-played interactions

It’s also very interesting and highly popular among students but happened nearly once every two weeks because it makes a request for the play, the dialogue-making and roles and everything, a little bit complicated but great. They enjoy it.

 

Prepared interactions: Seldom use it because I worried whether it would give students sufficient opportunity to speak.

Oral exam practice is an opportunity for a conversational task. Students can practice their orals in pairs, or groups of three, taking it in turns to mark the criterion. Once all students have performed, students will have a self lead, short discussion about how they marked their classmate’s performance. This way, students can help each other to better understand the requirements of each criteria and find places in their oral exam performance they can improve on.

After students have studied the stimulus, a question will be given to the class by the teacher. Students should write down their responses to the question, or questions that they have, on a half sheet of A4 paper. The teacher will then ask students to hold their cards up for the rest of the class to see as a prompt for other students to engage them and kick start the discussion.

In pairs, students are asked to walk around the school grounds and take pictures of scenes that relate to the 5 themes. They have 15-20 mins to do so. On their return to the classroom, they will submit their pictures to the teacher digitally (whatever method is easiest for you, mine is Google classroom). The pictures will be shown to the class who must discuss what theme/s they believe the photos represent and where they are taken etc. To increase the difficulty, the names of the students taking the pictures can be anonymous so that the class cannot ask them questions.

In groups of 4, students should discuss what they saw in their mind’s eye when reading a section of a text. Students should share their meanings and interpretations of what they read and then combine their efforts into creating an image of what they saw on an A3 or A2 piece of paper. The groups will compare their work as a class and discuss differences and similarities between the drawings.

I use pair work to assist students who may be having difficulty understanding certain aspects of something that we are learning. So I encourage them to exchange ideas with a partner as guidance in their practice.

I use small group discussions in the planning stage of a debate. Small group work can also be used when discussing perspectives in a novel. Teams collaborate at the end to comment on the story from various perspectives.

I have been experimenting with various topics with my class in large class discussions. School policies and hot news topics are affecting Malaysians are popular. I have a little more trouble getting participation from all students when discussing the themes from the class novel.

I love this type of discussion. I use it every year and it's a fantastic way to bring out original and well planned discussions. I usually give the class a few days of planning and research time.

We have used this kind of discussion a lot this year as it is encouraged in the textbook we're using. There are some fantastic guiding questions to help critical thinking and consideration of elements such as TOK.

We haven't used this method as much and I plan to do more listening comprehension with the class.

Students played the role of examiner in the DP oral exam practice tasks earlier in the year. In my MYP class, I set them a compare and contrast task for a book they were reading. They needed to create a radio show where they compared two texts, with sound effects, intro/outro jingle and all. It was a lot of fun.

I have not used this approach at all. However, I think the 'panel of experts' interaction would be very interesting to do in class. I may plan to use that.

Students work in groups on a specified topic, taking turns rolling the die. One student rolls the die; the number that is rolled is the number of things he or she has to say, whether it be words, or sentences. Play moves to the next student.

Unfortunately, my student haven't formed a healthy sleep habit, so they often show up in mt class half-awake. That's when I use informal chat to talk about random things (recent events, games, celebrities, etc.) for 2-3 minutes to wake them up.

This is often used to lead-in a new section. 
Often I would prepare some visual stimulus, such as pictures and videos, with research questions to lead the students into thinking about the issues for this topic. I would try finding out something they might be interested (For example, I mentioned The Croods when talking about family and marriage. ) 

All the three types are used in reading and listening comprehension lessons. But I'm usually struggling to encourage my students to speak English during groups discussions. Extremely struggling. My suggestion for those with paralleling experiences is to set a goal for the group discussion so that they will try to reach that goal. 

I should call this one of my most frequently used methods. Students always have a lot to say when the right text is selected. Recently I let them listened to a debate about the value of recycling. Since they have never imagined there should be a negative side of recycling, they got intrigued and  participated actively in the discussion.

I'd say my stereotypical view toward this is that it works better for primary school or middle school students.

I've never adopted these three approaches. My feeling is that these are more suitable for university students or HL students. It requires high autonomy to make contributions in those kind of discussions.

Formal debate is challenging, but I find it a fantastic way to facilitate intensive engagement in a topic. Students tend to form a very deep and comprehensive understanding of the topic question since they have to consider both sides. 
I would personally allow my students to (not encourage, though) read their scripts, so that the less advanced student also have opportunities to make contributions,

First off, you’re going to have to come up with a scenario and characters. You can make up your own characters or you can use a guide to murder mystery parties to get off on the right track. You can even purchase murder mystery party kits online.

Next, you’ll need to assign each of your students a character at the party. Each student will receive a card with secret information about his or her character, which the student should keep to him or herself unless asked a direct question by another character, in which case the student has to answer truthfully.

The aim of the game is to figure out who murdered the host of the party by asking questions and snooping for clues. You can leave clues around your classroom ahead of time, making them as simple as notecards describing an item (for example, a silver bracelet with a strange, rusty red stain on it) or you could create actual props, depending on the time you have to work on this project.

First off, you’re going to have to come up with a scenario and characters. You can make up your own characters or you can use a guide to murder mystery parties to get off on the right track. You can even purchase murder mystery party kits online.

Next, you’ll need to assign each of your students a character at the party. Each student will receive a card with secret information about his or her character, which the student should keep to him or herself unless asked a direct question by another character, in which case the student has to answer truthfully.

The aim of the game is to figure out who murdered the host of the party by asking questions and snooping for clues. You can leave clues around your classroom ahead of time, making them as simple as notecards describing an item (for example, a silver bracelet with a strange, rusty red stain on it) or you could create actual props, depending on the time you have to work on this project.