“Teaching Interpersonal Skills” by Linda G. McGrew and Stephen D. Lewis introduces another goal and benefit of collaborative learning: teaching interpersonal skills through collaborative learning. The authors point out the importance of interpersonal skills in the workplace. The lack of these skills, including an inability to get along with coworkers, poor work ethics and job performance, often can be the cause of an employee’s failures at work or even result in someone losing their job.
The authors also state that students commonly work as a team with their peers in school, and that adults usually work in the same way. Successful teamwork not only creates productivity and efficiency, it also produces a feeling of ownership, pride and friendship among the coworkers. Therefore, it is important for teachers to train students intentionally in both the leadership and followership roles so they can fit into any situation when working in a team. This is especially beneficial for introverted students.
In order to teach students social skills through teamwork, the authors discuss definitions of groups and their characteristics. A group consists of “individuals who interact using verbal and nonverbal communication to accomplish a common goal.” The key elements to consider in planning group work are the group size (three to five is most suitable), composition of the group (diverse but cohesive: mix members with different talents, intellect, background, genders, personalities, and social skills), and careful planning of each step for the group activity.
I agree with the authors’ opinion that careful planning is essential for successful group activities. The steps for group activities are:
1) Determine the project objectives (to fulfill a certain goal and learn certain skills); set up time phrases for the projects along with intermittent checkpoints; and select group members.
2) Introduce the project or activity with clear directions, timelines and checkpoints (which must include students evaluating one another); discuss all details with the class at the beginning.
3) Monitor the process, ensuring the students are on task and following the directions; help to solve any interpersonal problems if any occur.
4) Presentation and evaluation. The evaluation should include both team grade and individual grade to ensure fairness. This is to encourage both teamwork and individual accountability.
The article has made me reconsider the missions of education. I used to think that the main goal of education was to teach the students academic knowledge so they could be useful citizens in society. (At most, we may add cultivating ethical integrity in the curriculum.) I never thought about teaching social skills as part of our main tasks. But consider how important social skills are for any person, whether he or she be a student, a teacher, a worker in any kind of job, we should all agree that communicative skills are essential for his or her success and existence, and therefore these should be taught in school. This is especially true for language teachers. If students in a language class are not inhibited by their lack of interpersonal communicative skills, they will be more inclined to speak in the target language. In addition, if students possess strong interpersonal skills, they will have the desire to express themselves in the target language, even when they do not know much about the target language. This was the case with the artistically talented students I taught at M408 in the fall of 2010. Those kids had no communicative difficulties at all, for they were trained to be performers and that made them quick language learners.
Teaching social skills is one of the main areas of focus in special education. The purpose of this is to help these students make a smooth transition into general society. Regrettably, we ignore the necessity of teaching social skills in general educational classes. I believe this understanding will benefit general education teachers tremendously.
The authors recommend some subjects for group work activities, such as international issues, technology, career education, professional development, career strategies and diversity. Inspired by these ideas, I thought about possible group activities for my future teaching, in ESL classes, Mandarin language classes, and other content classes:
• Introduce different musicians/authors/artists/painters
• Introduce different geographical regions/countries /areas
• Introduce various natural phenomenon /climate/weather
• Describe different things you and your classmates do daily
• Introduce a historical event/period in history (each group member introduces one aspect)
In these activities, each member studies one particular aspect of the project and the group engages in discussion and works together to give a presentation.
I believe with careful design and planning, the above activities can arouse the students’ interest because they engage the students individually and collectively, and socially and academically.
