Designing groupwork activities: a case study

This chapter starts from college teachers’ frequent recognition that pedagogic materials, in ‘language through literature’ as in many other fields, often work best when designed with a particular group (or at least kind) of student in mind, and with sensitivity to linguistic, cultural and other factors which characterise a given teaching situation. Despite widespread acknowledgement of the value in targeting materials this way, however, not much importance is given in teacher-development or during in-service training to understanding how workshop materials can be devised rather than merely used. This chapter considers aspects of groupwork-materials design including: choice of passage; devising tasks; implementing the activity in a classroom session; and evaluating the learning which takes place. Discussion is organised around an activity (based on Elizabeth Smart’s 'By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept', 1945) which was devised by the author for a given occasion. Participants' responses, when the activity was tested in two experimental classes, are reported.

Translated into Slovenian as, ‘Nacrtovanjeskupinskedejavnosti: studijprimera’, and re-published in Sodobna Pedogogika, vol 47, no 9-10 (1996), pp. 484-498, ISSN 0038-0474.