Teaching Strategies to Develop EFL Learners’ Abilities to Work in Groups.

Abstract

Group work tasks have been adopted by teachers for years but the causes behind the successes and failures of some groups still missing as well as the factors that develop students group work abilities. Those reasons and factors will solve a lot of teachers' and learners' problems during group work adaptations. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating whether teachers use any teaching strategies to develop students’ group work skills. The hypothesis states that using teaching strategies will develop students’ abilities to work in groups, and the more students adopt group work skills, the more successful groups will be. A quantitative study was used to confirm this hypothesis, two questionnaires were administered: one for students and the other for teachers, as research tools. The data were gathered in the Department of Forging Languages at Abdelhafid Boussouf University Center during the academic year 2022-2023.The students’ questionnaire was administered to second-year bachelor. The findings revealed that students work individually in groups because they lack group work skills, which leads them to face many problems rather than benefit from this technique. On the other hand, the teachers’ questionnaire noted that teachers do not often use teaching strategies to develop students’ group work skills; this would affect the group work process negatively, create problems between group members, and reduce learning achievements. The issue studied is not unprecedented since most teachers are aware of students’ problems during group work; therefore, this study recommends teachers allocate more attention to students' group work skills and try different teaching strategies to help students adopt group work abilities.