Attitudes to Pair Work

The interview data provide explanations for their attitude to pair work that the learners experienced. When asked during the final interviews how the learners felt about pair work, all learners, even if Sung and Sun included some negative aspects of pair work, expressed a clear preference for pair work rather than for individual work, adding their reasons for this preference. These findings concur with Storch’s findings (2004) which reported about learners’ preference for pair and group work.

Learners’ comments on their attitudes towards pair work can be related to the strengths and weaknesses of pair work. They explained why they prefer pair work and some of them suggested more than two reasons. The comments can be divided into four categories: availability of immediate feedback, pleasure in the process of pair work, opportunity for communication and exposure to the target language.

Most learners who gave their reasons for preferring pair work responded to the availability of immediate feedback. The learners noted that pair work provided opportunities to give and receive immediate feedback on grammatical, lexical or phonological errors or language difficulties. June explained how he was pleased to receive assistance from his partner:

I was really happy to get some assistance from Hyuk. Owing to his help, I could participate in the activities more actively. Even if I suggested wrong expressions, my partner helped me to correct the errors. Thus, the help made me more comfortable to participate in the activities.

Given that June assumed the role of novice in most activities, his comment shows approval for how he relied on his partner and how his partner’s assistance affected his participation. On the other hand, Hyuk, who was June’s partner, also said that he was pleased to be able to offer assistance to June:

I sometimes provided help to June when he had difficulties in the given activities. It was quite fun to explain my thoughts in order to assist June’s difficulties. In the process, I could organise my thoughts. Um:: I think it also helped my learning because it could give me the opportunity to make my thoughts clear.

Hyuk’s comment indicates that providing elaborative explanations as a form of feedback could enhance his own learning via verbalisation of his own thoughts. Another example of this feedback effect can be found from Mijin and Chang. They noted their mutual assistance:

Mijin: I think several times we solved problems that we couldn’t do alone. Through adding to Chang’s idea or my idea, we could complete the activities. And:

sometimes, with his help or my help, we could find solutions. I think it was really helpful for my learning

Chang: I didn’t expect that I could help Mijin and she could help me as well. But it happened in pair work. With assistance to each other, we could complete

activities and I believe the quality of our outcome was improved.

Their comments show that they saw pair work as providing the opportunities to co- construct their knowledge to help each other. As Foster and Ohta (2005) explain, co- construction can allow learners to participate in problem-solving processes that they cannot complete individually, constructing language skills with the mutual assistance. Furthermore, as Chang comments, pair work via such mutual assistance can lead to the improvement of learners’ performance.

Half of the participants, including June, Jang, Min, Mia, Jimin, and Chang, mentioned pleasure in the process of pair work. They regarded pair work as a more interesting way

of working, compared with boring individual work. Min explained the benefits of pair work:

When I work individually, I tend to focus on product. However, this time while working together, I felt pleasure in the process of the work.

Jimin also expressed a positive attitude to pair work based on his experience during seven weeks:

When I worked alone, I was obsessed with finding answers. However, I focused more on the process of finding answers in pair work. …[ ]… It was the first time that I felt it was fun to do activities. It was very good for me.

A similar response was found in Chang’s interview:

The more I worked with my partner, the more fun I felt. When I worked alone, I focused on the product. However, I didn’t like doing that. The process was more fun because of working together. So, I think we made better product. Um:: so, I felt pleasure in collaborative work.

Their responses show they became more focused on the process of learning rather than on the product while working in pairs, and in the process of pair work they could feel pleasure in doing activities. Their comments can be connected with Dweck’s (1986, 2006) distinction between learning goals and performance goals. According to Dweck, learners guided by learning goals seek to increase their understanding or competence whereas learners guided by performance goals seek positive judgement on their performance. The learners’ comments imply that pair work might make learners focus more on the learning process in comparison with individual work.

A few learners, including Jang, Mia, Jina and Mijin, mentioned that pair work provided the opportunity for communication and could lead to learning via the process. While working together, learners had many chances to talk and listen to their partner. Whether they spoke their first language, Korean, or the target language, English, they could

explain their knowledge of language via verbalising or could listen to different

perspectives from their partner. Pair work made it possible to communicate with one another. Ohta (2001) comments that interactive tasks are similar to conversation in that learners become a speaker and a listener at the same time. In Mia’s case, she

specifically mentioned about verbalisation of her knowledge of language:

I liked to have an opportunity to speak. There were good opportunities to explain what I thought to my partner. I think: um:: the pair work made me think more deeply. I prefer pair work.

As Swain (2005) advocates, the process of verbalisation can allow learners to become aware of their knowledge limitations, to predict linguistic needs and to set goals for further learning. In the process, learners can engage in explaining, reflecting and describing to solve linguistic problems.

In addition to the verbalisation, Jina and Hyuk explained that pair work made it possible to listen to another’s knowledge of language and gain a different perspective:

Jina: I like to listen to my partner’s ideas. Sometimes, the ideas helped to expand my thoughts and enhance my English expressions.

Hyuk: Sometimes, I was surprised by my partner’s suggestions. Owing to my partner, I could expand my English vocabulary. I think it is really worthwhile to listen to other’s thoughts. Pair work makes it happen.

Their comments show how they regarded listening to each other. It is especially interesting that both learners played an expert role in most activities. Even if they frequently provided assistance when their partner had difficulties with the target language, and contributed considerably to completing the activities, their comments confirmed that they considered their partner’s talk to be valuable and to affect their own learning as well. Ohta (2001) emphasises that the role of a listener consists of working to understand what has been said and mentally mapping along with the utterance.

Thus, the peer listeners can have resources available for thinking immediately and more broadly about production (Ohta, 2001).

In relation to her reasons for preferring pair work, Mijin commented on both verbalising her knowledge of language and listening to her partner:

While doing pair work, I could say what I was thinking. In the process, my

thoughts became clearer. Also, it gave me an opportunity to listen to my partner’s thoughts. Through listening to him, I could learn new things.

These learners’ comments suggest that pair work seems to lead the learners to communicate with each other and they regarded the process of communicating their own knowledge of language and listening to their partner’s knowledge of language as the benefit of pair work.

Some learners, including Jang, Min, Young and Jimin, explained that pair work, compared with individual work, provided them with more opportunities for exposure to the target language. Jang explained that one of the benefits of working with a partner was a chance to speak the target language:

If I work alone, I never read a text aloud. Rather I just read it with my eyes. Also, I could talk to my partner in English. I love it. I think it is really important to practice English and the pair work made it possible. I like it.

Jang’s comment implies that he regarded a main benefit of pair work for language learning was the opportunities for talking and reading in the target language. A similar response was given by Young. He pointed out the importance of pronunciation:

Pair work gave me more opportunities to speak English. The process of the command of language can help to enhance learning, but pronunciation cannot be neglected. When I work alone, I tend not to read a text aloud thereby neglect the pronunciation. However, in pair work, I paid more attention to pronouncing.