Педагогические науки/3.Методические основы
воспитательного процесса
канд. філос. наук Халезова Л. В.
Севастопольський інститут банківської справи
Української академії банківської справи
Національного банку України
What can group work teach a student?
What can group work teach a teacher?
Nowadays
we can use loads of ideas of what to do in the classroom as from the Net so
from our own personal experience. Modern students have already gone viral: they
get depressed if their smart phones are accidentally left at home; they
communicate mainly through Facebook, VK, or Twitter. They even get their
education on-line.
But today I am going to speak about that
basic form of work that will survive any technological revolution. I will speak
about the benefits of group work, no matter if you are in the classroom, or
performing a webinar, or giving some project work as a home assignment.
The importance of group work can hardly be
overstated. This is a great practical opportunity to, first of all, test the
students to see what social roles they are likely to perform in their future
careers, secondly, to help them understand their so-called career anchors and
prove that their choice is not better or worse (it is as it is!), thirdly, to
help students find their place in a team so that the result of a project work
is excellent.
Let’s find out what career anchor is and
how it can change the self-esteem of a person. Edgar Schein was the first to
introduce these ideas to the scientific world in 1970s. A career anchor is
one's self-concept, and consists of one's perceptions of one's talents and
abilities, one's basic values and one's perceptions of motives and needs as
they pertain to career. In Schein's original research from the mid-1970s he
identified five possible career anchor constructs: autonomy/independence, security/stability,
technical-functional competence, general managerial competence, and
entrepreneurial creativity.
Follow-up studies in the 1980s identified
three additional constructs: service or dedication to a cause, pure challenge,
and life style.
A 2008 study distinguishes between
entrepreneurship and creativity to form nine possible constructs [1].
Typically a person chooses several anchors
when deciding his future working position. The person with autonomy/independence
anchor will be a poor team player; he / she will always try to do everything by
himself paying no attention to the plan or schedule. The one with
security/stability anchor will be choosing a job that is comfortable and
convenient: nine-to-five, sick leave, company transport, free lunch even if the
money is not so good. Such people are never adventurous and choose one job for
life. Technical-functional competence is the anchor that practically everybody
has: lucky is the person if he has found his way and has become a Master no
matter if he / she is the best in baking, selling or bringing up children. If
somebody has general managerial competence he / she will be a good manager
manipulating others to do the job. If somebody has a entrepreneurial creativity
anchor he / she will always organize his own business, companies, unions, etc.
It is simply the best if the person combines technical-functional competence, general
managerial competence, entrepreneurial creativity and security/stability
anchors. Poor CEO is if his employers are mainly managers but not performers,
or vice versa all of them are independent players.
So, how can this information be used during the
lessons of live or guided discussion? As a teacher you might give a task and
first see how the roles are chosen. For example, this exercise has been taken
from my textbook “Grammar through speaking” [2, p. 38]:
Task 2. A family game. You are all
relatives of a big family. Take your roles and play a “Sunday dinner” show
according to the situation: Mother has been given a promotion to work in New
York. She is in double minds and needs the advice of her family. The family
(parents - children) should either go all together or stay in Ukraine. Give
advice according to your role, try to compare what the family will have if they
accept or refuse to go to New York.
Roles:
Mother – does not know whether to accept the proposal. Father – absolutely phlegmatic person interested in football only. Elder daughter (son) – totally against
because of a passionate romance. Younger
daughter (son) – totally for because has never flown by plane. Mother’s parents: Mother – it is a good chance for the whole family! Father
– my daughter will be the first in the company one day. Father’s parents: Mother – No! No! No! It is so far and so unstable! Father
– Let them try! Elder daughter’s
boyfriend – Take me with you! Elder
son’s girlfriend – Take me with you! Poor
relatives from Saratov, uncles, aunts – choose legends for themselves and
act accordingly.
This
can be a funny task for a group of more than 3 students. Explain the task, let
students choose their roles, give a minute to think of their reasons and start.
Always check everybody has a chance to speak. This can also be a good
opportunity for you to see how the group works and if the students are team
workers or individual players. This exercise (if it is performed in a group of
freshmen who still have not fought for their own niche) will show a teacher
what to do later with this particular team, what to pay attention to and how to
manipulate. You can analyze their work and explain the roles they have chosen
and their behaviour while performing. Do not forget to say that such a choice
is subconscious sometimes, so it is useless to make autonomy/independence
type to be in charge of a project! On the other hand, such analysis will help
your students see-through and in case of performing any work together choose
such personality types to their team who will work productively on the spot or
at a long-term blueprint.
Literature
1. Schein, Edgar H. (November 1996). Career anchors revisited: Implications for
career development in the 21st century. URL - http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4165355?uid=3739232&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21102525617637.
2. Халезова Л. В. Граматика через розмову = Grammar through speaking [ Текст ] : посібник для практичної та індивідуальної робіт з англійської мови / Л. В. Халезова. – Харків : Доміно, 2013. – 139 с. – (Англійською мовою).