Modern changes in the education system require higher education institutions to introduce innovative teaching methods and approaches. Teaching English at the State University of Telecommunications is based on a model of learning that puts the student in an active position, where the learning process is based on search and research activities, during which there is not only exchange of information and opinions, but also debates and discussions.

Group-work is created for including each student in various activities at any stage of the lesson and it helps students learn to:

• express their opinions, assumptions and research results confidently;
• use encyclopedic literature, find the necessary information, generalize, analyze;
• make a choice and be responsible for it;
• solve problems together;
• to assign roles, work in a team;
• support each other. 

The organization of work in the classroom is created in a such way that students could work to achieve results without any control of a tutor. To do this, the goals and rules, which will be performed in a group-work, are explained at the beginning of the task.

Groups are created as diverse as possible uniting students of different language levels and temper. Different categories are used for division into groups: by interests, by geometric figures, by numbers on cards, by the first letter of the name or surname, at the request of students, etc. 

Thus, the well-organized group-work can successfully provide the implementation of basic methodological and didactic principles of teaching.

Prepared by Olena Korzh, Associate Professor of
the English language department