According to Brown 2001: 178, group work has these following advantages:
1 Group work generates interactive language.
2 Group work offers an embracing affective climate.
3 Group work promotes learner responsibility and autonomy.
4 Group work is a step toward individualizing instruction.
To conclude, group work involving communicative tasks is essential to develop oral proficiency because it demands maximum student’s participation in
an orally purposeful activity.
c. Kinds of group work activities
Brown 2001: 183 listed some of typical group task as follows: 1
Games A game could be any activity that formalizes a technique into units that
can be scored in some way. Guessing games are common language classroom activities.
2 Role-play and simulations
Role-play minimally involves giving a role to one or more members of a group and assigning an objective or purpose that participants must accomplish.
Students pretend they are in various social contexts and have a variety of social roles. In role play activities, the teacher gives information to the learners such as
who they are and what they think or feel. Simulations are very similar to role-plays but what makes simulations
different than role plays is that they are more elaborate. Simulations usually
involve a more complex structure and often larger groups where the entire group is working through an imaginary situation as a social unit, the object of which is
to solve some specific problem. In simulations, students can bring items to the class to create a realistic environment.
3 Drama
Drama is more formalized form of role-play or simulation, with a pre- planned story line and script.
4 Projects
5 Interview
Interviews are useful at all levels of proficiency. Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people. It is a good idea that the teacher
provides a rubric to students so that they know what type of questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students should prepare their own interview
questions. Conducting interviews with people gives students a chance to practice their speaking ability not only in class but also outside and helps them becoming
socialized. After interviews, each student can present his or her study to the class. Moreover, students can interview each other and introduce his or her partner to
the class. 6
Brainstorming Brainstorming is a technique whose purpose is to initiate some sort of
thinking process. On a given topic, students can produce ideas in a limited time. Depending on the context, either individual or group brainstorming is effective
and learners generate ideas quickly and freely. The good characteristic of
brainstorming is that the students are not criticized for their ideas so students will be open to share new ideas.
7 Information gap
Information gap activities include a tremendous variety of techniques in which the objective is to convey or to request information. In this activity,
students are supposed to be working in pairs. One student will have the information that other partner does not have and the partners will share their
information. Information gap activities serve many purposes such as solving a problem or collecting information. Also, each partner plays an important role
because the task cannot be completed if the partners do not provide the information the others need. These activities are effective because everybody has
the opportunity to talk extensively in the target language. 8
Jigsaw Jigsaw techniques are a special form of information gap in which each
member of a group is given some specific information and the goal is to pool all information to achieve some objective.
9 Problem solving and decision making
Problem- solving group techniques focus on the group’s solution of a
specified problem. Decision-making techniques are simply one kind of problem solving where the ultimate goal is for students to make a decision.
10 Opinion exchange
d. The organization of group work
Killen 2009: 173 suggests before implementing group, the teacher can start by pairing the students. That is a useful way to help learners to develop their
listening skills and their ability to express their ideas clearly and concisely. Once, when the teachers have selected an appropriate type of activity, then
the planning phase should include the followings seven “rules’ for implementing group work, as proposed by Brown 2001: 187.
1 Introduce the technique
2 Justify the use of small groups for the technique
3 Model the technique
4 Give explicit detailed instructions
5 Divide the class into groups.
6 Check for clarification
7 Set the task in motion.
B. Conceptual Framework
As discusses in the previous chapter, teaching activities is one of the most important elements affecting the English teaching and learning process including
in teaching speaking. The applications of appropriate teaching activities are very essential in determining the success of the English teaching and learning process.
In speaking, the appropriate activities can influence students’ performance. There are some characteristics of effective speaking class which should be
considered before applying particular teaching activities. One of them is
