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Findings and Suggestions

Researcher's Observations

5.5 Researchers Observations
1. When learners are interested in a particular activity they learn the method of working quickly and produce better pieces of written work.

2. When the goals of the beginning tasks are within the reach of the learners, they are encouraged by their success to attempt the succeeding tasks.

3. When the learners are not familiar with group and pairwork activities, teacher has to spend some time in explaining the method of work in simple English and in learner’s mother tongue.  Demostrating an activity and giving an example forming a pair with one of the brighter learners gives a better idea to the learners as to what they are expected to do.

4. Piarwork activities also generate some confusion when the learners do not know who is to sit with whom, who is to ask the question first, who is to note down the points and who is to check whose work first.  There is less confusion when learners do not change places.  For pair-work two learners sitting in one bench change places and were asked to work examinations give any indication of the level of achievement of the level of achievement of the learners’ language proficiency.  It is desirable to replace these by tests which give an indication of the learners’ competence in the language and which have practical utilitarian value.

5. Group work can also be done without changing the learners seating arrangement.  In the present study for Group work activities all the learners sitting in the front row benches were asked to turn back and sit facing the learners in the second row.  Similarly the third and fourth horizontal rows sat facing each other.  This way five or six learner of two rows formed one group. Clear instructions about what they were expected to do and how to go about the activity was given in simple English.  In addition to this, the teacher moved around the class when the activity was in progress and cleared the doubts of individual groups.

6. Learners might use a lot of Gujarati during the first few group work and pair work activities.  In the present study learners were given instructions to talk in English while talking to group members and pair partners.  But since they did not know how to agree and disagree with others opinions, how to explain their own opinion, how to point out the mistakes in somebody’s work, explain why it is wrong and suggest how it could be change, they started using Gujarati whenever they felt their knowledge of English is inadequate to meet the requirements of the situation.  To overcome this difficulty learner were taught simple sentences like:
 
I don’t agree with you
I think that’s wrong
Look here, change this
I think he is right etc.

In addition to this learners were instructed to take the teacher’s or the other group members help whenever they did not know how to say a particular thing in English.   Whenever any group sought the teacher’s help, whatever they asked for was put up on the blackboard so that all the other groups could also benefit from it.  As the learners got used to working in groups and using English for discussion, the use of Gujarati lessened gradually.