Grammar lessons sometimes might become a really hard part of your teaching practices when you do not consider language as a system (Kumaravadivelu, 1948). However, we cannot deny that grammar is an aspect that plays a pivotal role in a language, therefore, we need to teach the basic principles of it.
Collaboration and cooperation have been perceived by several researchers as two influencing factors in learning. For Gerlach (1994) "Collaborative learning is based on the idea that learning is a naturally social act in which the participants talk among themselves. It is through the talk that learning occurs" (p. 12). According to this author, working as a team and promoting students' cooperation arises as a relevant strategy for building knowledge, Based on this, I decided to use Cooperative language learning in some of my classes.
More specifically, I used the jigsaw technique, which is part of this method in the following way.
Dividing content into chunks
The very first step I followed was dividing the content into chunks. In this specific lesson we were studying the structures for present progressive.
I divided this content into four chunks: subject, verb to be, rules for -ing endings and finally the complement. Every single chunk of information had a color and I put them into some envelops (so tidy, I know).
All this was the planning part, now let's see what happened in the class.
Allocation of colors and content chunks
Now, at the very beginning of the class, I told students we were going to work in groups and I started giving a specific color to each one.
The next step was making the groups.
This is the way the groups were made. As you can see, all the group members were assigned the same color and this is what we call "expert groups" when talking about jigsaw technique II (Slavin, 1980).
The role of people in this station was reading the material provided and becoming "experts" in that specific content chink they were given.
Moving to station 2
The station two needed to be done in this way. It means, every single group was formed by a different group member from station 1.
In this station students were asked to explain the others what they had done in the previous group arrangement.
Therefore, all students had to explain their specific topic to the others and all group members were supposed to master the whole content.
Going back to expert groups
Finally, students were asked to return to the first station. Since they had been in the previous group, they already knew the whole content and they were able then to build up sentences in present progressive.
In this part, I wrote a sentence on the board and they had to answer some questions regarding the example by identifying the structure and using it in order to build up a conversation in regards to the activities they were doing at that moment.
It was observable that it was easier for students to infer the structures of present progressive and the use of it. In the same way, peer cooperation could be seen throughout the session.
In the following images I include some comments from students that I could write while the lesson was occurring.
During the activity, students seemed to be engaged. I also noticed that it is important to split the topic in such a way that each station takes around the same time to be developed.
Drawing instructions is also useful for students to understand better what they have to do.
Finally, I can say that Jigsaw technique was a very useful strategy in this lesson. Students were able to play a different role in the classroom; they performed an active participation when explaining the others the topic, moving around the classroom and switching stations create an accurate environment for active learning, and cooperative learning arises as an striking technique because as its main motto says "If you fail, the whole group fails".
Cite this blog post:
Tiria, Y. (2019, April 2). JIGSAW CLASSROOM: moving towards cooperative language learning [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://yohantiria.wixsite.com/blog/post/jigsaw-classroom-moving-towards-collaborative-language-learning
References
Gerlach, J.M.(1994). Is this collaboration? in Bosworth, K and Hamilton, S. (Eds), Collaborative learning; underlying processes and effective techniques, new directions for teaching and learning. No 59. San Francisco, USA; Jossey-boss publishing.
Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Holubec, E. J. (1994). The nuts and bolts of cooperative learning. Minnesota Minnesota: Interaction Book Company.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (1948). Understanding language teaching from method to post method. London; Laurence Erlbaum associates, Publishers.
Schul, J.E. (2012). Revisiting and old friend: The practice and promise of cooperative learning for the twenty-first century. The Social Studies, 102, 88-93.
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