Both theory and research support the use of group activities to aid student learning. However, some students are reluctant to learn with peers for fear that the peers will gain more. The article attempts to address this fear. This article provides educators with explanations to give their students as to why, even in norm referenced assessment…

A great deal of theory and research, not to mention students' and teachers' practical experience, supports the use of group activities in education. Collaborative learning and cooperative learning are two terms commonly used in discussions of how and why to use group activities. This article looks at the issue of whether the two…

Students studying together inside their classrooms is widely advocated in the literature on teaching methodology. This paper provides a brief overview on the idea of students also studying together outside of class, either face-to-face or electronically. Such out of class student-student interaction offers many of the same benefits of in class…

It appears that the use of group activities is continuing to gain momentum in both mainstream education (Gillies, 2007) and L2 education (Jacobs & Goh, 2007), based on support from theory, research and people's own experiences with groups as teachers and students. However, the use of group activities brings with it a host of questions that…

We begin the article with a brief discussion of why groups are recommended in language teaching. After that, we describe what Cooperative Learning (CL) is. Then, we suggest ways in which CL and Information Technology (IT) fit well together. This is followed by some examples of how to combine CL with IT. [This article was published in Teaching of…

This chapter describes how cooperative learning provides one means of making the best of the less than ideal situation that teachers face when facilitating learning in large classes. The chapter begins with a description of some of the difficulties teachers confront when using group activities with large classes. Next, background on cooperative…

In this chapter, I describe my use of cooperative learning in the mid-1990s when I was teaching English to students in their final year at a secondary school in Singapore. I will first discuss how I came to learn about cooperative learning. Then, I will illustrate how I set up the classroom for cooperative learning and how I used it in the…

Projects are not new in education (for example, see Kilpatrick, 1918), but in the last 20 years, they seem to have become more popular in second language education, as projects fit with emphases on communication, tasks, cooperation among students, learner autonomy, curricular integration, alternative assessment, links between the classroom and the…

Investigates out-of-class academic collaboration among students at a polytechnic in Singapore as they worked on collaborative assignments. Data were collected via a questionnaire completed by 232 students, interviews were conducted with 10 lecturers, observations were made of eight student groups as they collaborated on teacher-required work…

Group activities have become more common in second language instruction. For example, a few years ago I collaborated on a study comparing ESL coursebooks from the 1960s with those from the 1990s (Jacobs, Crookall, & Thiyaragarajali, 1997). My colleagues and I found many more group activities in the latter books. Key support for the increase in…

Summarizes a discussion about cooperative learning in second-language teaching by 45 teachers, highlighting six issues: how to cover the syllabus, how long cooperative groups should stay together, how cooperative learning is affected by competition in society, using cooperative learning with low language proficiency students, using cooperative…

The goal of this paper is to advocate that cooperative learning be a key, but not the only, methodology used in peace education. Two reasons will be put forward to support this view. First, research has shown that cooperative learning promotes positive educational outcomes generally. Second, cooperative learning is harmonious with peace education…

An essay on use of cooperative learning (CL) techniques in the second language classroom looks at the benefits of CL, examines the current status of their use, particularly in Singapore, and makes recommendations for implementing CL techniques in second language reading instruction. The discussion begins with a review of literature on group…

In this paper, the following key questions will be examined. What is distinctive about cooperative learning, which makes it different from just groupwork? What has research found about the effectiveness of cooperative learning in promoting thinking? What conditions in cooperative learning help promote thinking? What theoretical perspectives…

This paper offers insights on how to facilitate student-student interaction in the science classroom. These insights derive from the education and the linguistics literature. Cooperative learning research offers a means of understanding what helps groups of students interact successfully. Systemic functional linguistics provides tools for…