Group work in school has become more prominent in education. Many teachers believe that group work is important because it gives pupils the opportunity to learn from each other. It also enhances their communication skills and helps them to develop interpersonal relationship skills.

          There are different ways of forming groups and when a teacher might like to use each method:

• Pupils’s Choice: Pupil’s choice groups are good for fun group games they like to be with their friend for. However, at some point, this can be hard depending on your class. There might be pupils who can get left out or get no group at all. It is important that the teacher is aware of any issues she needs to solve quickly.
• Ability-based Groups: This is grouping pupils with other pupils of similar abilities. Ability-based groups are good to use when you are focussing on a specific concept where the level of understanding in your class is very wide. The difficulty with this is knowing where to put the pupils in between different groups.
• Mixed Ability Groups: These are groups formed by the teacher with a specific focus on getting as wide a level of abilities into one group as possible. Advanced pupils can help the developing ones. Mixed ability groups can be used for a range of learning activities with a specific focus.
• Random Groups: These groups are good for game-based activities where abilities are not the focus, discussion groups and getting to know you’ games. These have random element in their creation to get pupils into groups.

By: By: Julieta Evangelista Cabang T-II, Asuncion Consunji Elem. School, Samal, Bataan