Small-Group Information For Program Managers

When you hear the term small-group instruction, perhaps you find yourself wondering, “How would small-group instruction benefit our program, our tutors, and—most important—our students? How do small groups help students who haven’t been able to learn well in a classroom setting? Are the benefits worth the extra work it takes to design a new way of delivering instruction?”

ProLiteracy America believes that the answer to the last question is a resounding “Yes!”—and that even students who receive their primary instruction through one-to-one tutoring are helped by participating in some form of group work.

The benefits to students can be many. Among them are reduced feelings of isolation, access to a peer-based support system, an increased sense of belonging to a community, and a growing feeling of ownership of the learning process. All these benefits tend to result in greater enthusiasm for learning and increased retention rates.

We at ProLiteracy America are convinced that small-group instruction can have benefits for literacy and ESL students alike. However, we understand that every literacy program is different. Each program has to carefully consider whether small-group instruction will fit its particular needs.

We hope that the attached information will help you in your decision-making process. You’ll find information about small-group instruction that is of special interest to program managers and to staff and volunteers who support students and instructors, including:

  • questions program staff need to ask themselves when deciding whether or not to offer small-group instruction
  • descriptions of the four types of small-group learning that a program might offer: primary instruction, supplemental instruction, special-topic classes, and project-based groups
  • interviews with tutors and students who are enthusiastic about small groups and able to discuss both the advantages and the disadvantages

Small-Group Information

for Program Managers

Contents

Communities of Learners: Each One Teaches Others

Small-Group Learning Possibilities

Tutors Find Benefits and Challenges in Small-Group Instruction

Students Share Views on Learning in Small Groups

Thinking About Small-Group Instruction: A Starting Point

Small Groups: Open or Closed Entry and Exit?

Communities of Learners: Each One Teaches Others

A Definition

Small-group instruction goes by many names, each carrying its own nuances. Collaborative learning, cooperative learning, participatory learning, and project-based learning are just a few of the terms associated with small-group learning. For the purposes of its plans, ProLiteracy has defined small-group instruction to mean a group of two to about five learners. The learners see themselves as part of the group. They share a common purpose and make decisions together about the group’s goals.

Varied Purposes

Small-group instruction can take many shapes and serve many purposes. A one-size-fits-all approach to small-group instruction doesn’t serve the diverse needs of basic literacy and ESL learners, nor does it serve the differing capacities of programs sponsoring the instruction.

Most small groups have one of the following as a main goal:

  • to provide primary instruction
  • to supplement primary instruction (e.g., conversation groups, writing workshops, grammar or spelling classes)
  • to explore special topics (e.g., math, citizenship, job readiness, health)
  • to complete a project (e.g., organizing a student conference, publishing a book of student writings, getting out the vote)

Reasons to Try It

Small-group instruction offers several advantages for programs, volunteers, and learners. For example, it can create a “community of learners,” where the pressures, opportunities, and responsibilities of teaching and learning are shared. It provides an alternative for students and tutors who don't want the isolation of one-to-one tutoring. In the face of growing literacy and ESL demands, it maximizes program

resources, including volunteers, staff, and time. It can prepare students to go on to adult basic education

classes and GED classes. For ESL learners in particular, it provides English practice with a variety of people and a ready-made lab for cultural discussions and real-world interactions. (See the “Small-Group Learning Possibilities” piece for more details.)

Meeting the Challenges

ProLiteracy recognizes that small-group instruction may add new twists to the familiar challenges of volunteer-based literacy work: managing groups, training volunteers, orienting students, keeping records, and assessing progress. ProLiteracy’s efforts to support small-group instruction will attempt to address these areas.

ProLiteracy will also be offering small-group instruction workshops for program managers, trainers, and tutors at national, regional, and state conferences. Future issues of LitScape will also provide articles to help ProLiteracy affiliates learn more about the possibilities of small-group instruction.

ProLiteracy America Recommends:

 For All Students

  • Make small-group and one-to-one learning opportunities available to students through primary instruction, supplemental instruction, special topics, and/or project-based learning.
  • Encourage students to participate in one or more types of small-group learning.
  • Train small-group tutors in appropriate small-group instructional techniques, materials, and assessment procedures.

 For ESL Students in Particular

  • Place ESL learners in small groups for their primary instruction whenever possible.
  • When it’s necessary to place ESL learners with one-to-one tutors, offer other programming opportunities for ESL students to come together in groups (e.g., conversation clubs, citizenship preparation classes, or groups to plan programwide special events), and encourage students to participate.

Small-Group Learning Possibilities

Small-group learning can take many forms. It can be the way students learn all the time or part of the time. It can be the format for comprehensive basic literacy or English as a second language curricula. It can deliver smaller chunks of learning in supplementary classes, themes, or projects. Listed below are ideas for small-group learning that programs have used effectively.

Primary Instruction Groups

Regular, comprehensive, ongoing instruction is organized around reading, writing, and/or English-language development; e.g.,

  • biweekly or daily ESL groups
  • biweekly or daily basic literacy groups

Supplemental Groups

Instruction is organized around targeted skill development in an area related to the primary instruction; e.g.,

  • grammar
  • spelling
  • phonics
  • writing
  • English conversation
  • math
  • pleasure reading
  • public speaking

Special Topic Groups

Instruction is organized around the exploration of topics or themes of particular interest, generally for a fixed period of time; e.g.,

  • managing finances
  • math for home improvement
  • local history
  • gathering oral histories
  • getting a commercial driver’s license
  • health
  • cooking
  • first aid
  • starting your own business
  • voting
  • understanding welfare reform and your rights
  • career exploration
  • how local government works

Project-Based Groups

Instruction is organized around producing a product or seeing an event from planning though evaluation; e.g.,

  • making story quilts
  • publishing student writings
  • planning, implementing, and evaluating a family, student, or community event
  • taking a field trip
  • renovating a room or building
  • making a video or children’s book
  • developing a readers’ theater group or literacy theater group
  • celebrating International Women’s Day (March 8) or International Literacy Day (September 8)
  • creating a job portfolio
  • publishing a community resource book
  • maintaining a student bulletin board
  • planning a student strand in a conference

Tutors Find Benefits and Challenges in Small-Group Instruction

Working together in small groups is a tremendous confidence booster for students, says Lois Hand. “They hear other people make mistakes, and then they hear somebody come up with a really good answer. They’ll say, ‘Oh, that’s good. That’s a great answer!’ Well, what do you think that does to self-esteem?”

Hand has tutored small groups of English as a second language learners at the Literacy Center of Harlingen in Harlingen, Texas, for 11 years. She is among a growing number of tutors who work with students in small groups rather than one-to-one.

Another tutor, Janise Kee of Peoria, Ill., joins Hand in describing some of the strengths and snarls that can come with small-group instruction. Kee conducts a reading class at Common Cause, a social service agency in Peoria. She has tutored small groups there on and off for nine years. Her current class emphasizes recreational reading and library use.

According to both tutors, one of the greatest benefits for students in small-group settings is the support they receive from one another. That support can take many forms. For example, students often help one another during class. They prompt each other when reading aloud, says Kee, and they help explain concepts to each other.

Sometimes Kee matches students to cooperate on activities. “I may pair a student who can’t write independently with a student who can, and they brainstorm together, and then the one who can write independently writes the results,” she explains. Kee’s class, unlike Hand’s, consists of students with a range of skill levels. Some of Kee’s students get placed in her class only until a tutor can be assigned to work one-to-one with them.

Support can also come in the form of inspiration. Students can get one another excited about something, such as reading a particular book, says Kee. “Since one of the points of the class is to try to get students to read more on their own and practice their reading more regularly, that’s been a really big help,” she adds.

Learning in a group can also relieve students’ feelings of isolation and provide positive reinforcement. “They really find out they’re not an island unto themselves, that there are a lot of other people who are having the same problems as they are,” says Hand. “A teacher can say, ‘You did fine,’ but it means an awful lot coming from a peer.”

Strong camaraderie can develop among members of groups. They joke together and worry about each other. Some form friendships outside of class.

“We have a lot of joking and teasing going on in the class—friendly, not mean,” says Kee. “The students are pretty comfortable with each other. My core group of three just teases me to death.”

Hand says that the small-group environment enables ESL students to get acquainted with people outside their own circle of friends or their church. Perfect strangers from different parts of town can meet and work together in the classroom. “It just strengthens them,” says Hand. “Don’t think that isn’t important when they go out to look for a job, because they’re going to be with people who they don’t know then.”

Learning in small groups can provide other opportunities that are especially helpful for ESL students, Hand explains. The group setting encourages discussion, creating chances to practice spoken English. In group work, students must ask each other questions. According to Hand, students in groups don’t have nearly the trouble with formulating questions that students have when prompted by a tutor who’s following a script. Also, problem-solving discussions are more authentic when done between learners rather than between a learner and a tutor who already knows the answer.

Another strength of small-group instruction is that the combined experience of group members provides more sources of ideas than would be possible in a one-to-one setting. In the small groups Kee has tutored, students have been quite open about their lives, and that has invigorated discussion.

“We read the biography of Martin Luther King, and we had someone in class who marched with him,” says Kee. “I’ve only lived one life, and when I’m in a group with six students, there are seven lives to draw on.”

Both Kee and Hand acknowledge that tutoring small groups can present challenges. One of the greatest ongoing concerns Kee has about small-group instruction is how to address individual needs. Her class contains students at reading levels anywhere from mid-first grade up to about seventh grade. Over the years, she has developed strategies to help each student get the attention he or she requires.

“If I notice a student having a particular need, I try to work it into a lesson, or I try to meet with them individually,” Kee explains. “One thing I do is after class I stay for about half an hour,” she says. “That’s to help people check out books from the library, but it also gives them a chance to talk to me personally.”

Kee says that sometimes she has the group work on an activity that most of the students can do independently. Then she provides assistance to students who need it, while the others work on their own.

Like Kee, Hand recommends that students who have fallen behind and need special attention meet individually with a tutor outside of class. She also suggests finding a computer program that can answer their needs.

Hand reports much success with incorporating topics that address individual needs into ESL group lessons. She says she once had a student who was having trouble understanding vocabulary required for her job as a waitress, terms such as sunny-side up and over easy. So Hand brought a menu to class. She discovered that everyone in the group needed to learn the same vocabulary. That’s what’s nice about having a group with all members at the same level of proficiency, she comments.

One challenge both Kee and Hand have faced in their small groups is the tendency of especially eager and outgoing students to dominate discussion. Both tutors approach the situation similarly: they begin directing questions and conversation to quieter students to give them a chance to talk.

A major challenge for Kee is dealing with the group’s “open-in, open-out” enrollment policy. “I may show up on Monday and have two new students. I may show up on Wednesday, and tutors have been found for three of my students, and they’re gone. So I never know exactly how big the group is going to be. Also, that makes it difficult to have any kind of sustained project,” she says, adding that it can be difficult to build on any particular skill.

No two small groups will be the same. Subject matter, personalities, and policies can differ widely. Each situation will reveal its own strengths and weaknesses, and each tutor will find her or his own surprises in doing small-group instruction.

For example, Kee was surprised by just how much fun it’s been. “I didn’t expect it to be unpleasant, but I wasn’t expecting to have belly laughs. Sometimes I do,” she remarks. “It’s been really great. A lot of my students are amazing people.”

Students Share Views on Learning in Small Groups

What do students who have experienced small-group instruction have to say about it? For about a year, Ellen Kerce has been a member of a small student writing group that meets once a week at The Learning Place in Syracuse, N.Y. She also works one-to-one with a reading tutor, so she has two learning approaches to compare.

Kerce says the support she has received from other members of the writing group has been a great help for her. “Without their support, I don’t think I would have gotten as far as I have now,” she says. When Kerce first arrived at the class, the other students reassured and encouraged her. They helped her overcome the embarrassment she felt about the level of some of her skills. “They were all telling me, ‘Don’t be embarrassed,’” Kerce says. “We all had to go through the same thing.”

Reluctant to write at all during her first few classes with the group, Kerce gradually became more comfortable expressing herself on paper. “Every day I would just write two lines or three lines until I got to where I could feel comfortable being in that group,” says Kerce. “It was the people that helped me get as far as I am now.”

Kerce comments that seeing how interested other students were in learning strengthened her own motivation to learn. “You look at them and see they’re putting all their attention on what they’re doing, and that will give you inspiration,” she adds. “You say, ‘If they can do it, I can do it.’”

Kerce says that she enjoys both being in the writing group and having one-to-one sessions with her tutor. She likes each setting for different reasons. She says that with her tutor she reads more and seems to learn more than she does in the writing group. In the writing group, she gets to experiment more and to enjoy the companionship of the other students.

“We’re friends, and we enjoy being with each other,” she declares. “We’ll be talking, and we’ll be writing something, and we’ll be reading, and then we’ll take and make a joke out of it. It’s just fun. Even though we’ll be learning, too, it’s fun.”