Collaborative Inquiry

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markrogers

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It's funny because they just find excuses not to do stuff - for example if I group the boys and girls together they don't want to work together lol.

In what part of the world do you teach :?:
 

haleemah

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I currently teach in Kuwait...
 

markrogers

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I currently teach in Kuwait...

Ah okay makes sense now... I used to teach in Qatar and experienced the same thing...

We gotta be careful in the gulf countries cuz it's the culture there that the men and women like to be segregated or sit seperately and don't mingle - it's an understood norm so we can't force the opposite. Even amongst the children it's common that boys and girls sit seperately cuz that's what they are taught at a young age. I say don't worry about it - even if they don't wanna work together just go with it and keep them seperate as long as they are learning that's the main thing. You can still do group tasks with girls and boys seperate so it's not really an issue. ;-)
 

emsr2d2

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Ah, okay, it makes sense now. I used to teach in Qatar and experienced the same thing​.

We've [STRIKE]gotta[/STRIKE] got to be careful in the Gulf countries [STRIKE]cuz[/STRIKE] because it's the culture there that the men and women like to be segregated or sit separately and don't mingle - it's an understood norm so we can't force the opposite. Even amongst the children, it's common that boys and girls sit separately [STRIKE]cuz[/STRIKE] because that's what they are taught at a young age. I say don't worry about it - even if they don't [STRIKE]wanna[/STRIKE] want to work together, just go with it and keep them separate. As long as they are learning, that's the main thing. You can still do group tasks with girls and boys separately so it's not really an issue. ;-)

Note my corrections above. Mark Rogers, you are, of course, welcome to post responses here but please remember that as an English teacher, it's important that everything you write on this forum is correct. Learners will look at your posts as examples of correct grammatical English. We discourage the use of textspeak/chatlish (wanna/gonna/thx etc) and non-standard contractions (cuz/cos).

It might be comforting for learners to see that some words are difficult even for native speakers and teachers - "separate" is one of the most commonly mis-spelled words in English.
 

markrogers

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Yes, you are absolutely right - thank you for pointing that out. I'll be careful in my future posts.
 
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missmaryam

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With regard to collaborative work in class and the men and women (or boys and girls) wanting to be segregated, I also don't think it's a big issue. I have experience with this as well since I teach in the UAE and have seen it many times. We need to be more culturally sensitive and respect these things, and it helps to know a bit about the culture of where you are going to work before you travel there so you can be well prepared.

I've done a lot of collaborative work with my classes and they've all enjoyed and participated willingly - so at the end of the day, boys and girls working in seperate groups doesn't really matter. :-D
 

missmaryam

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Well first off, we held a meeting with all teachers cuz this was an issue with a lot of classes, not just mine. We got together and figured out the reasons why they are not motivated (that was the easy part), and then how we can engage them more in class activities so they actually want to come on their own and not just because their parents are the ones telling them to. So we came up with the following ideas:

- reward system for speaking English
- more games and fun activities
- making the topic of the lessons more appealing to them and what they are interested in and teaching around that
- praising students more (sometimes this helped and sometimes it didn't depending on the student...)
- playing some popular English songs they know in class and deriving English lessons from it (grammar and vocabulary)
- role plays and using costumes
- other fun stuff...

we came up with a lot of ideas actually when we all brainstormed together - so I'd say we did engage in "collaborative inquiry" to solve this problem - even though I've never heard of this term before (thanks missmaryam for introducing it to me), I'd say we do it a lot unconsciously at work... but only when we all have the same problem!


You're welcome Andrew! I think we've actually unconsciously demonstrated a bit of collaborative inquiry in this whole thread! In a nutshell, it's basically coming together when a problem arises and identifying its nature, designing a plan to solve it and coming up with practical solutions. It's sometimes easier said than done but it reaps numerous benefits and I would encourage everyone to try it and implement it in their workplaces if possible!
 

AndrewD

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You're welcome Andrew! I think we've actually unconsciously demonstrated a bit of collaborative inquiry in this whole thread! In a nutshell, it's basically coming together when a problem arises and identifying its nature, designing a plan to solve it and coming up with practical solutions. It's sometimes easier said than done but it reaps numerous benefits and I would encourage everyone to try it and implement it in their workplaces if possible!

I agree! :up:
 

haleemah

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I would love to do this at my school as well... but it sounds very time consuming and some teachers might think it's a bit too tedious... like someone mentioned earlier a lot depends on the work environment. However I would still like to give it a try!
 
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