Collaborative group work provides opportunities for both social and academic language development, with proficient English-speaking peers providing good models for English learners. The table below depicts a few types of collaborative groups.
| Type | Procedure | Purpose |
| Buddy System | Pair students; one more capable is paired with a student less proficient in English. The buddy helps the student in and out of the class until the second language learner becomes proficient and knowledgeable about class and school routines. | Helps the new second language learner become a member of the classroom society. Helps the student become comfortable in the school. |
| Writing Response Groups | Students share their writing with one another, concentrate on what is good in the papers, and help one another improve their writing. The teacher begins by modeling good response partners and giving students specific strategies for improving their papers. | Writing response groups have several purposes: making students independent; helping students improve their writing; and giving students an audience for their writing and immediate response to their writing. |
| Literature Response Groups | Teacher first models response to literature, emphasizing the variety of acceptable responses. Students learn to value individual responses and support responses with what they have read. Students focus on individual feelings first and later on structure and form of literature. | To help students use their own background knowledge to respond to literature. To value students' individual responses and to help them become independent readers of literature. |
| Cooperative Groups | Students are given specific roles and responsibilities for group work. Students become responsible for the success of one another and they teach and learn from one another, creating success for all members of the group. | Build individual and group responsibility for learning. Build success for all members of the group. Develop creative, active learners. |
Excerpted From:
Excerpt from Reading, Writing and Learning in ESL: A Resource Book for K-12 Teachers, MyLabSchool Edition, by S.F. Peregoy, O.F. Boyle, 2005 edition, p. 87.
© ______ 2005, Allyn & Bacon, an imprint of Pearson Education Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The reproduction, duplication, or distribution of this material by any means including but not limited to email and blogs is strictly prohibited without the explicit permission of the publisher.
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