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127SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS VOLUME 3 I ISSUE 5 I 2022 _ISSN: 2181-1601
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF 2022=5.016) Passport: http://sjifactor.com/passport.php?id=22257
CLASSROOM INTERACTION: ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
Nodira Nuraddinovna Davletova
Teacher at the Department of Interfaculty Foreign Languages Faculty of Foreign
Philology Urgench state university
ABSTRACT
This article proposes deep explanation of classroom interaction and advantages of pair work while teaching EFL. Practice in a classroom is formative to the extent that evidence about student's achievement is elicited, interpreted, and used by teachers, learners, or their peers. There is an ongoing debate regarding what means can be used to determine a teacher's performance
Key words: Teaching method, categorized, communication, shy, develop.
Introduction
Using a variety of seating arrangements and groupings of students is important as it allows learners to practice different types of things. Working with others gives students the opportunity to interact with a variety of people and learn from one another. It also encourages cooperation which will help students get along in class and could reduce the number of student outbursts too.
Classroom Interaction Patterns: Advantage & Disadvantage
There was a time when the traditional approach of teaching was adopted by most of the teachers, where the learner used to be dependent only on the lesson delivered by teachers. They were not exposed to enough practice of speaking on their own and hence the interaction among the students in classroom was almost absent. But as the Teaching method changed with time so has the education system. Teaching method now demands more of students interaction rather than just to listening to the teachers. Hence the classroom interaction is very essential in today, teaching methods. Classroom Interaction is a practice that enhances the development of the two very important language skills which are speaking and listening among the students. Types of Classroom Interaction
Classroom Interaction can be categorized under these main headings such as: -Collaborative Learning
- Discussions and Debates
- Interactive Sessions
- Loud Reading
- Story-telling
- Soliloquies
SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS VOLUME 3 I ISSUE 5 I 2022 _ISSN: 2181-1601
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- Conversation with learners
- Role Play
Advantages & Disadvantages as Individual work:
Advantages Disadvantages
• Time to think • No ideas
• Time to plan what say/do • Feeling insulted
• Learner can work at own pace • Feeling nervous
Advantages & Disadvantages as Pair work:
Advantages • Practices communication • All participate • Learner can help each other • Can learn from each other and generate more ideas • Makes them independent learners • Boots confidence as they practice in pairs before the whole class Disadvantages • Frustrating and difficult if partners are at different level or don't enjoy working together • Difficult if one partner dominates • Fear they will learn partner's mistakes • May speak in mother tongue"Urdu/Punjabi not English • Can be noisy!
Advantages & Disadvantages as Group work:
Advantages • Practices group discussion • Develop team work • Promotes peer learning • Listening to and respecting others'opinions • Can learn from each other and generate more ideas • Makes them independent learners • Develop sense of responsibility of individual roles in group Disadvantages • Learners may feel shy to speak in a group • Others may be more likely to speak in L 1in group • Difficult to organize room space • Some learners may dominate and do all the work • Some may be shy or lazy and do no work • More likely they will speak in Urdu/ Punjabi instead of English
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Advantages & Disadvantages as Teams work:
Advantages Disadvantages
• Fun and competitive • Some may be dominate so they
• Everyone engaged as want to can win
win • Others will be less confident so
• As a wormer or filler to energize not participate
• Good way to revise work • Some less competitive than
• Develops team spirit others
• Can be very noisy as
competition
Advantages & Disadvantages as Mingle work:
Advantages Disadvantages
• Getting to know each other to • Noisy!
overcome shyness • Difficult to organize with large
• Speaking to many different classes
people • Not enough space unless taken
• Every one participant outside the classroom
• Helps consolidate language and • Shy learners may not
develop skills participate
• Develop confidence • Learners may speak in mother
• Fun and engaging tongue: Urdu/Punjabi not
English
Advantages & Disadvantages as Whole class work:
Advantages Disadvantages
• Useful when teacher needs • Some learners feel shy about
every one's attention, e. g. giving answers in front of
instruction and feed back others
• To elicit from class and not • Some learners may not do
pick on individuals anything
• Learners feel less pressured
Why make use of these different ways of working?
Each type of work-individual, pair and group- has its place in the language classroom. As the above table shows, there are certain pros and cons of each approach, but all can be connected to theory dealing with effective language learning. Some activities and topics may be best suited to one particular style of work, but the key is to use variety
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VOLUME 3 I ISSUE 5 I 2022 ISSN: 2181-1601
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF 2022=5.016) Passport: http://sjifactor.com/passport.php?id=222ff7
and give students a sufficient number of opportunities to work and learn from one another.
A benefit of students working together is that, by explaining a concept or idea to peers, that idea or concept becomes clearer to the student doing the explaining. Why is it important to share ideas with others in a group work setting?
• learning to be conscious of how you learn will help you to better understand how someone else learns
• becoming conscious of how you AND OTHERS learn will help you to understand better how your students learn
• becoming conscious also requires FOLLOW-UP action which is not always easy or quick
How should pair work be structured?
In order for it to be successful and a valuable use of class time, students need to be able to practice taking on each role to get maximum exposure with the material. For example, if students are practicing a two-person dialogue, each student should have a turn with each role. To take pair work one step further, the teacher should have students work on the same activity in different pairs; by working with several other students in the class, each student gets ample practice, they could make use of Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development, and has the opportunity to hear and help other students with pronunciation.
What are some examples of good pair or group work activities?
Map Quest Students are both given a map (can be authentic or teacher made). One student asks for directions to a particular place on the map and the other student gives directions. Students switch roles and repeat activity.
Picture Description Students work in partners and compete to draw the most accurate image. One partner holds an image in their hand and describes the image to the other partner who tries to draw the image. Once the image is competed partners can switch roles and repeat activity.
Blindfolded Directions In partners, one student leads the blind-folded partner through an obstacle course by giving verbal directions. Students can switch roles and repeat activity.
SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS VOLUME 3 I ISSUE 5 I 2022 _ISSN: 2181-1601
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Same/Different-differences
Spot the difference is a name given to a puzzle where two versions of an image are shown side by side, and the player has to find differences between them. For this partner activity the pair has to figure out what those differences are by asking each other questions. For second language learning it is important to choose or create images that incorporate vocabulary known by the student. By asking students to work in stages (5 differences at a time) they will be less likely to get overwhelmed and find the task more motivating.
The tendency with primary learners is to treat the class as a whole group and underestimate their ability to work in pairs or in small groups. Even very young learners can become independent in their learning and guided process early or they will be more likely to grow into autonomous and successful language learners. The advantages of pair work and small group work
• Gives learners more speaking time
• Changes the pace of the lesson
• Takes the spotlight off you and puts it onto the children
• Allows them to mix with everyone in the group
• Gives them a sense of achievement when reaching a team goal
• Teaches them how to lead and be led by someone other than the teacher
• Allows you to monitor, move around the class and really listen to the language they are producing
Pitfalls and how to avoid them
• You could lose control of the class. Set up a signal before you start, like a visual time out with your hands, so that they know when to stop. Don't shout for them to stop as they will just shout louder!
• You are not able to listen to everyone at once and hear what they are saying - set up groups of three where A and B talk while C monitors. Then swap roles. They are producing language; you just want to make sure the language they are producing is English. Have a fun system of every mother tongue word you hear the monitor must stand up and then stay standing. The activity stops if all monitors are standing. This will make them aware of using English as much a possible and using their first language as little as possible.
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• The classroom will get very noisy. This is OK, as long as they aren't shouting. Move them into different places in the room so that they can hear themselves speak.
How to set up pair and group work
• Be sure to fully explain the procedure before splitting the class up.
• Always demonstrate either yourself of with the help of a volunteer exactly what they have to do.
• Ask them to tell you what they have to do before they do it (in their mother tongue if need be) to check their understanding.
• Have fill in activities ready for the quick finishers - but be sure that they have completed the task correctly first and haven't just finished early because they misunderstood what they had to do.
• Don't forget to have feedback time after pair work so that the children don't feel that they have been wasting time. It's important to share their work as a whole group although this doesn't have to be systematic.
• Set a clear time limit.
• Control who works with who so children aren't always being dominated or dominating others.
Activities which lend themselves to pair work
• Roll the ball
This can be used to practise any language that requires a question/answer pattern. They can roll the ball to each other and have to say the appropriate sentence as they roll the ball. E.g. 'Hello.' 'Hello.' 'What's your name?' etc. Remember the sentences they practise should be fairly short.
• Information gap
Give each pair a picture. The pictures should be nearly the same with two or three elements missing from each picture. Without showing each other the pictures they should describe the missing objects. They will practise colour, prepositions of place, and adjectives such as big, small, etc. Then they can compare their pictures.
• Telephone conversations
Sitting back to back they can practise telephone language or just simple exchanges that don't have to be connected to the telephone itself. Sitting back to back should arouse their interest and help train them with listening skills. It's a challenge, but a fun one!
Activities which lend themselves to group work
• Posters
Used to practise categorizing skills, reviewing colours and names of toys. The
SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS VOLUME 3 I ISSUE 5 I 2022 _ISSN: 2181-1601
Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF 2022=5.016) Passport: http://sjifactor.com/passport.php?id=222ff7
children can be in charge of finding pictures of toys and grouping in terms of colour or type of toy and displaying their work.
• Cuisenaire rods
If you can find a set of these wooden, colour coded rods you'll find they come in handy for a whole host of activities. Give a random selection to the small groups. Together they must imagine a scene and build it to then describe to the class.
• Weather dressing Conclusion
Pair work is great for practicing model dialogues, playing games such as battleship, conducting vocabulary checks, and completing worksheets. Working in pairs gives individual students a lot of speaking time. If working together, students will often have more confidence than when completing exercises individually. If students are competing with their partners, they will be more motivated. Students can work in groups or form teams for role plays, races, games such as board games or card games, and discussions. Groups give students the opportunity to create more complex dialogues, explore relationships between characters, pool knowledge together, and have a more social learning environment. Additionally there is a better chance for self correction or peer correction and for a discussion on a wider range of thoughts and opinions with larger group sizes. On the other hand, individual speaking time is limited when working in groups. You can increase the amount of speaking time students have by decreasing the size of groups to three or four people. If you are in a large class and want all the groups to present material at the end of the lesson, larger groups may be necessary but limit group size to about six.
Mixing up the structure of your activities will keep classes interesting but be sure not to waste a lot of time rearranging the classroom. If you make groups for an activity at the beginning of class, it may be best to stick with that arrangement for the duration of the lesson.
References
1. http://www.proteacher.org/c/988 Choosing Partners.html
2. https://www.slideshare.net/OscarGonzalez83/classroom-interaction-734449Q5
3. https://busyteacher.org/4265-pair-work-vs-group-work-whats-better-for-the.html
4. https://www.nile-elt.com/sites/default/files/files/1161 S4.pdf
5.
http://dspace.bracu.ac.bd/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1Q361/9Q/Q7263Q11%2Q.PDF?sequenc e=6
