Group Work: B2+ - Patrick McMahon

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held between small numbers of students and it is common practice for the lecturer to ask one group member to report their discussion to the whole class. Other group work activities may take more preparation, for example:

       giving a group presentation

       writing a group assignment.

      These tasks will probably involve meeting your group outside class to spend time working together. Some group work assignments may even last several weeks or months. Examples of these from Business Studies are:

       setting up and running a university-based business

       designing a product and the marketing campaign for it.

      When you work in groups, you sometimes have the option of choosing your own group members; this means you might decide to work with friends. Alternatively, you may be told who to work with by the lecturer. Another option is to have a random selection process. The size of groups might be small with two, three or four students, or there could be ten or more.

       For more information on forming a group, see Chapter 2.

       Tips

       Try not to feel nervous when working in a group with people you do not know; use it as an opportunity to meet new people and make friends.

       Use the opportunity of working with others to develop your English language speaking skills, as well as to get help when you are not sure what to do.

       Reasons why university students work in groups

       Glossary

      participate If you participate in an activity, you take part in it.

      collaborate When one person or group collaborates with another, they work together, especially on a book or on some research.

      Understanding the purpose of working in groups will motivate you to participate. This is important as a high percentage of your marks at university will come from group work. If you do not understand the reasons for working with others, it is unlikely you will participate well. University lecturers generally believe that:

       you can learn more about a topic when working in a group than when working alone

       teamwork skills are very important and can only be learned through group participation

       the most important part of learning happens while you are working with other students, not when working alone

       group work is an important preparation for the world of work as you will need to collaborate with colleagues in your professional life after university.

      

Exercise 1

      Compare what happens in group work assignments in an English-speaking university with what happens in your own country. Read the statements and tick the columns that are true for you.

University assignments English-speaking universities My country
True False True False
1 Group work is a popular way of setting work for students.
2 Lecturers expect students to spend time working together outside class.
3 Lecturers encourage students to discuss ideas in groups and to learn from each other.
4 Students listen to each other and appreciate each other’s points of view.
5 Students take responsibility for finding out what they need to learn and learning it on their own.

       Now check the key for answers and comments on this exercise.

       What is the value of working with other students?

       Glossary

      background reading Background reading involves the reading of related works in order to get background (contextual information) on a topic that you are intending to study or write about.

      As already stated, lecturers in English-speaking universities believe you will learn more when you work with other students than when you work alone. The following example of a group work assignment will help you to think about whether you agree or not.

      For example: Identify a shopping mall in the city and carry out a survey of its customers’ shopping habits.

      There will be a number of stages to this assignment. The first stage might be to do some background reading on people’s shopping habits. The information below shows how much you could do if you worked individually compared with working as part of a group.

      Stage 1: Find out as much as you can about people’s shopping habits by doing some background reading.

As individual work As group work
You can read a small number of articles and gain some information. Each group member can read different articles. Students can then meet and share their information with each other.
Result: You have a small amount of information. Result: You have a lot of information.

      The next stage might be to design a survey and write questions to ask shoppers. As before, this task will be easier to do as part of a group rather than done individually.

      Stage 2: Write a list of questions to ask shoppers about their shopping habits.

As individual work As group work
You write all the questions you can think of. Each group member writes a list of questions. You then work together to choose the best ones; some students have written good questions you did not think of.

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