Using Group-Work to Optimize Learning Opportunities for Grade 1 and 2 English Language Learners in the Classroom

One of the effective strategies teachers may use in their classrooms to enhance student learning is group work. Through group work, students have opportunities to collaborate and rely on each other to work out the assigned tasks. The benefits of working in a group are immense as it allows both high and low academic students to learn from each other, as well as listen and compare different perspectives, ideas, and thoughts. Although it is the teacher’s role to prepare and set up the environment for successful group work, the students participate and take ownership of their own learning throughout the process of working with their peers. All students can benefit from group work. One of the groups of students who benefit greatly from group work is English language learners (ELLs). By comparing data from two semi-structured interviews with two elementary teachers and a literature review of the information on this topic, the use of group work was explored in terms of identifying how social, intellectual, and linguistic growth occurs with ELLs in the mainstream classroom