Pairs

This seating arrangement can be formed by combining two individual student desks and seats or using a rectangular table to have two seats to form a pair spaced away from other pairs. Leaving sufficient space between pairs allow the teacher to have access to the learners in order to monitor the work. This arrangement is seemingly similar to the orderly rows but the goal here is to  increase the student talking time and overcome the challenge of increased teacher talking time in language classrooms (Harmer, 2015). 

‘I’m going to split you all up’ is a commonly used phrase during English language learning activities in primary year levels. As pair work is popular and widely employed by teachers it is important to identify what learners perceptions on ‘splitting them up’. As mentioned by Harmer (2015) does it really increase student talk time? Study conducted on primary year five English language class in Singapore concludes that even though working in pairs provides the opportunity for pupils to develop higher order thinking and increase target Language use while working together on a task, teachers interventions with instructions such as ‘go to your partners now’, ‘Can you do this in two minutes’, ‘Can all of you now face the screen?’ negatively affect the expected learning outcomes to increase interaction, target language use and higher order thinking processes (Lwin, Goh, & Doyle, 2012).

In order to get the maximum benefit from pair work and this seating arrangement, it is vital for the teachers to be mindful of the learning outcomes  – whether to focus on getting the language task done in a given amount of time while teacher having full autonomy over each process of the activity or to focus on facilitating collaboration, negotiating meaning through the target language, increase student talk time, provide opportunities for translaguaging and promoting overall learner autonomy. 

There are number of practical advantages to working in pairs. In small to medium sized classes during pair work the language teacher can allocate time to focus on one or two pairs to give feedback on learning activities while allowing other students to continue their pair work. Pairing the learners based on their language abilities (ability grouping) will be meaningful as in such settings both learners benefit from each other giving credit to the saying 'two heads are better than one'.

References

Harmer, J. (2015). The Practice of English Language Teaching (Vol. 18). Harlow: Harlow: P.Ed Australia.

Lwin, S. M., Goh, C., & Doyle, P. (2012). 'I'm going to split you all up': examining transitions to group/pair work in two primary English classrooms. Language and Education, 26(1), 19-33. doi:10.1080/09500782.2011.609281