The last, there is some evidence that students like to work in smaller groupings.
45
On the other word, there is some evidence that students feels enjoy and happy to work in a group, they may think that working with group gives the
freedom for them to reveal their opinion. From Mc
Donough’s explanation, the writer sums up that group work has many advantages. Those are students get the flexibility to share the ideas and to
exchange the information, and then the classroom may become more dynamic, next they may increase their spoken language actively, finally group work creates
an effective climate and cohesive whole class environment in the class room, therefore, students like to work in group.
For Harmer the advantages of group work; first, group work increases opportunity for individual students to talk.
46
Thus, group work gives individual students chance to talk increasingly, and then it may give students enjoyable in
speaking. Second, group work consists of two or more students that have less
problematic in their personal relationships and also have a greater chance of different opinions and varied contributions.
47
It means that group work has advantages to share different opinion one another without including students’
personal relationships and to give varied contributions. Then, group work encourages students to develop their skills of
cooperation and negotiation, and also more private than work in front of the whole class.
48
On the other hand, students have to possess ability of cooperation and negotiation in learning. Thus, the teacher uses group work that may give them
more chance to cooperate and to negotiate with others. Next, students have autonomy and are allowed to make their own
decisions without teacher’s instruction.
49
This statement means that the teacher
45
Jo McDonough and Christopher Shaw, Materials and Methods in ELT …………, p. 204.
46
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching 4
th
Edition, New York: Longman Publishing, 2009, p. 166
47
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching ……….…………., p. 166
48
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching ……………….…., p. 166
49
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching4
th
Edition, New York: Longman Publishing, 2009, p. 166
cannot ask students to follow himher decision because students can make their decision by discussing their opinion with friends in group work.
Finally, some students may choose their level of participation more readily than in a whole-class or pair work situation in order to avoid individual students
becoming passive in groups.
50
It means that group work gives some students the freedom to choose their participation in order to elude passivity.
From Harmer’s statement, it can be seen that group work may increase students’ opportunity to speak, increase students’ contribution in working with a
group, develop students’ cooperation and negotiation, make their own decision,
and then they may chose their level of participation. In addition, Brown stated that advantages of group work are:
51
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
In sum up, group work has many advantages in developing students’ learning activity. First, it may help students to communicate and to share the ideas
with others. Second, it may make the classroom becoming dynamic. Third, it may give the motivation, comfortable and enjoyment in learning. The last, it may
develop social interaction and responsibility for themselves.
5. Disadvantages of Group Work
As a method, group work has disadvantages. According to Donough, the disadvantages of group work are; first, there is some concern that some students
will probably not provide such as a good „language model’ as the teacher, so it required a more complex arrangement by the teacher as feedback and it need
control to make the more talk active students do not dominate the quieter
50
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching4
th
Edition, New York: Longman Publishing, 2009, p. 166.
51
H. Douglas Brown, Teaching by Principles: an Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy 2
nd
Edition, San Francisco: Addison Wesley Longman, 2001, p. 177-179.
students.
52
It means that the teacher has to control some students who are talk active and gives the opportunity to students who are quieter.
Second, there are several possible to rearrange the classroom in order to increase a communicative environment. For example, rearrange the furniture in
the classroom. But sometimes, other colleagues think negatively that an active class will increase noise level.
53
On the other hand, to make a communicative environment, the teacher should rearrange the classroom. It may be arrange the
chairs by grouping. However an active class is identical with a noise class. Third, some monolingual classes prefer use their mother tongue rather than
use target language, particularly in discussing and sharing something. Therefore, using target language in the classroom may initially be perceived as artificial.
54
It means that the teacher and students do not use the target language in the
classroom. Then, target language is only used as artificial. Next, learners often have strong preferences. Consequently, teacher
control and direct input material are low.
55
This statement means that students have preferences that can make them difficult to get the material directly.
After that, if the class is divided into smaller unit, there may be problems that students do not want to work with those of their peers assigned by the teacher
to the same group.
56
It means that group work has some problems, one of those problems is students do not like to work with some friends in the same group.
Finally, in conducting group work, the problems commonly heard are class arrangement and class size. It is all very well if you have only a small,
multilingual class of co-operative adults working in a comfortable, modern environment, but it will be difficult with a class of forty.
57
It seems that group work will be easy if it is conducted in the small class, because if it is conducted in
52
Jo McDonough and Christopher Shaw, Materials and Methods in ELT: Second Edition A Teacher’s Guide, Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2003, p. 204.
53
Jo McDonough and Christopher Shaw, Materials and Methods in ELT….., p. 204-205.
54
Jo McDonough and Christopher Shaw, Materials and Methods in ELT……...…, p. 205.
55
Jo McDonough and Christopher Shaw, Materials and Methods in ELT……...…, p. 205.
56
Jo McDonough and Christopher Shaw, Materials and Methods in ELT…...……, p. 205.
57
Jo McDonough and Christopher Shaw, Materials and Methods in ELT…...……, p. 205.
the big class, it may have some problems, for example, the arrangement of classroom is not suitable for group work activity.
Based on the explanation above, the writer concludes that disadvantages of group work are students cannot be a good language model as a teacher, the teacher
cannot control all students, the class become noisy, students use their mother language to communicate with their friends, some students do not contribute in
doing a task, and the teacher will be difficult to arrange a big size class that consist of forty students.
Meanwhile, based on Harmer disadvantages of group work; first, the class is likely to be noisy. Then, some teachers may lose control and feel hard to build
the whole class but it is easy to dissipate and spill into smaller entities.
58
It means that the class of group work may become noisy because the teacher may not
control all students. Second, not all students enjoy it because they would prefer listen to the
teacher’s explanation rather than work in group with their peers. Sometimes, students feel themselves in unsuitable groups and wish moving to the others
group.
59
On the other word, some students do not like to work with group because they are not enjoying with it. Thus, they prefer like to pay attention on the
teacher’s explanation rather than work in group. Next, some students are passive whereas others may dominate because
individuals may fall into group roles that become fossilized.
60
This statement means that group wok may consist of some students who passive and the others
who active. Finally, group work may take a long time to organize; beginning and
ending group work activities, moreover where students move around the class that wastes time and becomes chaotic.
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That is why group work may make the class
58
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching 4
th
Edition, New York: Longman Publishing, 2009, p. 166
59
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching ……………….., p. 166.
60
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching ………….……., p. 166.
61
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching …………….…., p. 166.
