Abstract:

The article is devoted to the problem of incorporating cooperative learning into the EFL classroom. It is argued that organizing students interaction activities in small groups makes EFL classes more effective. Particular attention is paid to the fact that students’ personality traits such as extraversion/ introversion affect the way students cooperate while doing language learning tasks in small groups. Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) is used by the authors to define students’ personality types which reflect the degree of students’ openness and readiness to communicate. Proceeding from the belief that the well-known group work roles (such as Leader, Ideas Generator, Critic, Speaker, Recorder, etc.) define the tasks of all students within a small group the authors prove the necessity to assign roles with regard to the students’ personality types and the goals the teacher wants to achieve, both academically (for example, to develop students' speaking skills) and socially (for example, to improve students’ communication skills). The group work roles are ranked in accordance with the communicative abilities necessary for their fulfilment. Instructions for allocating group work roles are formulated.

Keywords:

Personality types, extraversion-introversion, group work roles allocation, cooperative learning, EFL classroom, small groups.