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ps means that more students have more opportunity to talk more. Group work activities not only give students far more chance to speak the target language but also encourage them to be more involved and to concentrate on the task. Students feel more confident when they are working in groups than when they are on show in front of the whole class.

Group work helps students increase the relationship between students and encourage them to cooperate and negotiate in English. Harris (1991) says that “By designing more group assignments, we can exploit the benefits of group-work, where the weaker students will learn by having others help” and he also claims that “the students who teach each other will learn better than if they were learning alone”. In addition, group work activities enable teachers to create and provide students with as many opportunities to communicate and practice what they have learnt as possible. A great number of researchers such as Nolasco and Arthur (1988), Harmer (1991), Brown (1994b), Gower et al. (1995), Ur (1996), and Davies & Pearse (2000) also share the same finding that group work activities provide students the best chances for practice. Ur (1996) affirmed:

In group- work, learners perform a learning task through small group interaction. It is a form of learners' activation that if of particular value in the practice of oral fluency: learners in a class that is divided into five groups get five times as many opportunities to talk as in full class organization. (p. 232)

Nolasco & Arthur (1988) report that grouping is one technique that has been used to reduce the negative effects of large classes. It is stated that :

Group work have the advantage that learners are working simultaneously and , therefore, not only is language practice time greatly increased, but children are less likely to become bored or lose interest because they are actively involved. (p. 17)

In other words, when group work activities are used, students are the centre of learning, and the teacher is similar to a monitor who creates an appropriate atmosphere to address educational activities.

2.3.2.2. Disadvantages of using group work activities.

Apart from above indicated advantages, group work activities can not avoid having a few disadvantages.

Group work activities have a bit challenging to teachers because the aim of working in groups is to provide students opportunities to interact with each other without teacher's interruption, so the teacher has less control over what is being done in carrying out group activities than when doing whole class activities. When the teacher does not keep an eye on students, they may ignore their present task to chat or lapse into native language. Therefore native consequences may result if group work activities are carried out in the wrong way with a lack of teacher's oversight and control (Harris and Firth, 1990).

Furthermore, in each group there are both strong students and weak students, and as usual strong students are usually active and dominate the group's work, resulting in reduced chances for week students to express their ideas due to their passive manner. In addition, each member of the group has to conform to the norm established by all group members, so sometimes conflicts may occur within a group because o