1. GROUP WORK AS DIDACTIC STRATEGY IN A MIXED - ABILITY CLASS SCHOOL YEAR 2005/2006

2. TARGET A CLASS OF THE FIRST YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL (14-YEAR-OLD) WITH INTERPERSONAL PROBLEMS AND PARTICULARLY MIXED ABILITIES

3. OBJECTIVES To educate children to the value of cooperation to promote integration and friendly relationships in heterogeneous groups to facilitate the learning process to improve time management to manage disagreement in a polite way to practise natural spoken English

4. PLACE AND TIME THE ENGLISH CLASS PRESUMABLY FOUR OR FIVE ONE-HOUR PERIODS

5. 1st STAGE preparation of the students to cooperative work through games and tasks discussion groups setting the rules

6. 2nd STAGE Explanation of the activities the students are supposed to do (preparing and performing a short sketch using all the grammar structures and linguistic functions studied so far) Clarification of the finalities Formation of the groups Seating and space arrangement Assignation of the roles within the group

7. 3rd STAGE The students start to work on their own They discuss and decide about setting and characters Then they start writing the script

8. 4th STAGE PERFORMANCE OF THE SKETCHES WITH A VOLUNTARY CAMERAMAN WHO WILL PRODUCE AN AMATEUR VIDEO

9. 5th STAGE EVALUATION The teacher will evaluate both the success of cooperation and the final output The students will be evaluated both individually and in groups