Pica, T.  (1994).  Questions from the language classroom:  Research perspectives.  TESOL Quarterly, 28.  pp.49-79.

4. How effective is group work as an aid to L2 learning?
 

• Often group work is an efficient solution to the difficulties of reaching all the students in a large class.  Early research (Long, Adams, McLean & Castaños, 1976) showed that group work can be an effective aid to communication in the classroom, especially across a broader range of social and interpersonal functions.

 
• However, some research indicates that it is a double-edged sword: while learners have increased opportunities to interact in the target language, the interlanguage input appears to reinforce their own production errors.

 
• Research with university level learners indicates that modification and manipulation of their own errors and incorporation of other students' correct production is much more common than learners' incorporation of other errors into their own speech.

 
• In general, the effects of group work depend very much on the context.  Factors include divergent L1, cultural backgrounds and the nature of the classroom task.

 
• While group work definitely has a role in the classroom, it "by no means guarantees success in L2 learning but needs to be tempered in light of social and linguistic conditions in the classroom and the tasks given to learners in their groups.

 
References
Long, , M., Adams, L., McLean, M., & Castaños, F. (1976).  Doing things with words - Verbal interaction in lockstep and small group discussion situations.  In J. Fanselow & R. Crymes (Eds.), On TESOL '76 (pp. 137-153).  Washington, DC: TESOL.

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