High school English teachers' perceptions of out-of-class teamwork

Resumen

This paper presents a study that aimed to find out how teachers of English perceive teamwork outside the classroom in the context of upper secondary education in Mexico. The study focused on the way teachers are implementing or encouraging this collaborative work and the results that are being obtained with teamwork. The research design was structured within a mixed mode methodology. For the quantitative face, a Likert-type survey designed by Ruiz Esparza, Medrano, and Zepeda (2016) was implemented while the qualitative phase comprised two focus groups. The questions for these focus groups were designed according to the data obtained in the quantitative phase. Results evidence the need for teachers to have clear guidelines on follow up strategies after they assign collaborative tasks outside the classroom and on the need to train students for teamwork to be effective for learning. The relevance of this study lies in the fact that it provides insights into the teachers’ perceptions and implementation of teamwork outside the classroom as well as, the results that are being obtained by these teachers. The study hopes to serve as reference for other disciplines and further research on the topic of out-of-class teamwork at regional or national levels and to contribute information and data to international studies by providing a new context, that of Mexico and upper secondary education.