It is this instructional approach that the present paper will focus on. These tasks aim at establishing positive dependencies among the learners, and hold the learners responsible for a product as the outcome of a cooperative learning phase (Oxford, 1997). Cooperative learning methods stress the importance of tasks that can only be solved successfully through the collaboration of team members. Blume, Kielwein, & Schmidt, 2018 1 Klein-Landeck & Hinz, 2014 Küchler & Roters, 2014 see also Heckt, 2009). A recurring motif in the growing body of literature on this topic is the idea of individualising learning processes by implementing learner-centred forms of teaching – in particular, by using methods associated with cooperative learning, such as Bus Stop, Placemat and Jigsaw Puzzle (e.g.
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The IEGLL conference and the resulting publications in this volume provide ample proof to support the fact that Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) practitioners in Germany are currently concerned with the question of how good TEFL can be realised in heterogeneous learner groups (e.g., Bongartz & Rohde, 2015 Chilla & Vogt, 2017 Roters, Gerlach, & Eßer, 2018).
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The paper shows how this practice is modified in order to allow for the learner-centredness demanded by cooperative learning. The interactional practice ‘ content-related assistance’ is analysed in detail as a collaborative, multimodal work of all participants.
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The paper discusses possible reasons for this interactional density, and highlights the heterogeneity of the learner group as one of them. The data indicate that the teacher deals with a variety of communicative tasks during cooperative learning phases and interacts frequently with the learners. It analyses video-taped English lessons in which cooperative learning methods were implemented. This paper argues that a focus on interaction is just as crucial as choosing adequate, learner-centred methods in heterogeneous English classrooms.