Like all learning activities, group work is more likely to go well if it is 
properly planned.   Planning requires an understanding of the principle which lies 
behind successful group work.
The principle of group work
Several factors work together to result in group work where everyone 
involved is interested, active and thoughtful.   If all of these factors agree with each other, 
then group work is much more likely to be successful.   If they are not in agreement, group
work 
is likely to be unsuccessful.   The five factors are (l) the learning goals of group work, 
(2) the task, (3) the way information is distributed, (4) the seating arrangement of the 
members of the group, and (5) the social relationships between the members of the 
group.
Let us look first at the learning goals of group work before seeing how the 
factors work together.
The goals of group work
The following description of the goals of group work focuses on the spoken 
use of language.   There are several reasons for this focus.   Firstly, group work is 
most commonly used to get learners talking to each other.   Secondly, much research 
on group work in language learning has studied spoken activity partly because this is 
the most easily observed and recorded.   Thirdly, most teachers use speaking activities 
in unprincipled ways.   One of the aims of this article is to suggest how such activities 
can be used and adapted to achieve goals in language learning classes.
Group work can help learning in the following ways.
l    Negotiation of input:  Group work provides an opportunity for learners to get 
exposure to language that they can understand (negotiate comprehensible input) and 
which contains unknown items for them to learn.   There has been considerable 
research on the possible sources of this input and the processes of negotiation (Long 
& Porter, 1985), with the general recommendation that group work properly handled 
is one of the most valuable sources.
2    New language items:  Group work gives learners exposure to a range of 
language items and language functions.   This will often require preteaching of the 
needed language items.   Group work provides more opportunities for use of the new 
items compared to the opportunities in teacher-led classes.   Group work may also 
improve the quality of these opportunities in terms of individualization, motivation, 
depth of processing and affective climate.
3    Fluency:  Group work allows learners to develop fluency in the use of 
language features that they have already learned (Davies, 1982).   The arguments 
supporting group work for learning new items also apply to developing proficiency in 
the use of these items.
4    Communication strategies:  Group work gives learners the opportunity to 
learn communication strategies.   These strategies include negotiation strategies to 
control input (seeking clarification, seeking confirmation, checking comprehension, 
repetition), strategies to keep a conversation going (Holmes & Brown, 1976;  Nation, 
1980), strategies to make up for a lack of language items or a lack of fluency in the 
use of such items (Tarone, 1981) and strategies for managing long turns in speaking 
(Brown et al, 1984).
5    Content:  Particularly where English is taught through the curriculum, a goal 
of group work may be the mastery of the content of the curriculum subject the 
learners are studying.   For example, a communicative task based on the water cycle 
may have as one of its goals the learning of the processes involved in the water cycle 
and the development of an awareness of how the water cycle affects our lives.   In 
addition, the teacher may expect the learners to achieve one or more of the language 
learning goals listed above.
Types of group work
A useful way of classifying group work activities is to look at the 
distribution of the information needed to do the activity.  In many group work 
activities learners have equal access to the same material or information and co-
operate to do the task.   In the following discussion this is called the co-operating 
arrangement.   In the superior-inferior arrangement one member of the group has 
information that all the others need.   In the combining arrangement each learner has a 
different piece of information that all the others need.   In the individual arrangement 
each learner has access to the same information but must perform or deal with a 
different part of it.   These four different types of group work achieve different 
learning goals, are best suited to different kinds of tasks, require different kinds of 
seating arrangement and draw on or encourage different kinds of social relationships. 
  In order for group work to be successful, each type of group work must have its most 
suitable choice of other factors.   Let us now look at each type in turn to see how the 
principle of group work applies.
The combining arrangement
The combining arrangement is the ideal arrangement for group work because 
it ensures interest and participation.   It may be noticed that ways of making other 
group work arrangements more effective often involve adding an element of 
combining.   The essential feature of a combining arrangement is that each learner has 
unique, essential information.   This means that each learner in a group has a piece of 
information that the others do not have, and each piece of information is needed to 
complete the task.   Here is an example involving a group of three learners.
Each learner has a map of an island.   However on one learner's map only 
some of the towns are named and only some of the roads are indicated.   On the 
second learner's map some of the other towns are named, the railway system is given 
and the airport is shown.   On the third learner's map the remaining roads and towns 
are shown, the central mountain is named and the forest is indicated.   Each learner's 
map is therefore incomplete, and each learner has information that the other two do 
not have.   By combining this information each learner can make a complete map.   
They do this by keeping their map hidden from the others and by describing what is 
on their map for the others to draw on theirs.
