LESSON STUDY: USING GROUPWORK ACTIVITY TO ENCHANCE STUDENT’S OUTPUT IN EAP CLASSES

Abstract

This article is a product of collaborative work between three university instructors that specifically focused on developing and enhancing students’ output using groupwork in their English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classes. The experimental part of this paper was based on the method commonly known as lesson study and aimed at observing and analyzing the use of language input covered during the classes by students. To provide favorable environment for the language practice, greater time was allocated for the production part of the lesson, where students did a role play activity in groups. The experiment proved that groupwork indeed enhances student output and engages more of them. At the same time, it was revealed that providing more time for the production part does not always lead to an increase in student talking time. Low-performing students’ output as well, did not necessarily improve during such activities.