This was originally going to be a comment on Willy Cardoso’s
Blog – Authentic Teaching, but it got to be so long I decided to
make it a post all its own. As a result, it also connects to
Kalinago’s dogme questions of the week, which I was going to
address anyway. A maxim we often learn (and that I push) in
training courses is the importance of pair work. Willy commented
that some learners prefer to work alone and that pair work is
often over-relied upon with the ESL classroom. I would disagree.
I have had many learners that prefer working alone. In fact, I
am one of those learners myself. But language is co-constructed;
it is social. We don’t learn language to think to ourselves in a
foreign tongue. We learn it to learn how to communicate to and
with others. This is why pair/group work is so important. The
students need to learn how to communicate with other
individuals. It’s the spontaneous nature of such communication
that is of value within pair and group work. You can learn a lot
on your own, but to then