Abstract The benefits of Group Discussion (GD) and its importance as a parameter for judging a potential candidate&apos;s performance in interviews have long been recognized, and GD has been accorded a place of honour in the &apos;English&apos; curriculum of engineering colleges. Recruiters have in recent times used GD as a yardstick for judging a prospective Yet the non-participation of some learners in a GD may be attributed to socio-cultural factors that need to be examined to understand the reasons for non-participation and find ways to invite better participation from the silent learners without making them feel ashamed or alienated in any way. Keywords: GD, second language classroom, CLT, socio-cultural factors Scene 1: Inside campus bus: I was witness to a strange incident while travelling to college by college bus. The bus I was travelling in stopped at a place to pick up passengers en route to college and on the particular day, there were several vacant seats since several three seaters were occupied by a lone passenger. Yet those who got in, all of them boys were standing at the footboard or huddled near the driver&apos;s area. When asked to occupy the vacant seats, they refused. Curiosity set me asking them the reason

ELT) M Phil

M R Vishwanathan

PGDTE M A ( English

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Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 14:11 November 2014 
M. R. Vishwanathan, M.A. (English), PGDTE, M.Phil. (ELT), Ph.D. (ELT) 
Group Discussion in an ESL Classroom: A Socio-cultural Perspective 245 
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Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 Vol. 14:11 November 2014 
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Group Discussion in an ESL Classroom: 
A Socio-cultural Perspective 
 
M. R. Vishwanathan, M.A. (English), PGDTE, M.Phil. (ELT), Ph.D. (ELT) 
======================================================== 
Abstract 
The benefits of Group Discussion (GD) and its importance as a parameter for judging 
a potential candidate’s performance in interviews have long been recognized, and GD has 
been accorded a place of honour in the ‘English’ curriculum of engineering colleges.  
 
Recruiters have in recent times used GD as a yardstick for judging a prospective 
candidate’s potential for a job with the company since communication skills have come to be 
regarded as a requirement for performing well on the job. The globalised nature of work 
culture implies that soft skills in general and negotiation skills in particular are insisted on by 
employers and communication skills are increasingly seen as a passport to fulfilling jobs in 
Multinational companies. 
 
Yet the non-participation of some learners in a GD may  be attributed to socio-cultural 
factors that need to be examined to understand the reasons for non- participation and find 
ways to  invite better participation from the silent learners without making them feel ashamed 
or alienated in any way.    
Keywords: GD, second language classroom, CLT, socio-cultural factors 
 
Scene 1:  
Inside campus bus: I was witness to a strange incident while travelling to college by 
college bus. The bus I was travelling in stopped at a place to pick up passengers en route to 
college and on the particular day, there were several vacant seats since several three seaters 
were occupied by a lone passenger. Yet those who got in, all of them boys were standing at 
the footboard or huddled near the driver’s area. When asked to occupy the vacant seats, they 
refused. Curiosity set me asking them the reason. 
 
 
Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 14:11 November 2014 
M. R. Vishwanathan, M.A. (English), PGDTE, M.Phil. (ELT), Ph.D. (ELT) 
Group Discussion in an ESL Classroom: A Socio-cultural Perspective 246 
All the boys said in unison: “Sir, akkada ladies unnaru meaning  (Sir, the seats are 
occupied by girls). It was evident that these boys followed the general idea of segregation 
practised all over India, and were simply following what they had been doing all along. None 
wanted to sit next to girls either from shyness or from fear of being mocked or fear of 
resistance from girls. The disparity in world views in major cities and other parts of the world 
could not have being more striking.  
 
Scene 2:  
ELCS lab: A GD session in progress; several students keep mum or simply say, “Sir, 
I don’t want to speak.” Among whom are passengers who refused to sit next to girls. Despite 
threats of poor marks for non-participation, they refuse to open up.  The bus incident floats in 
my mind’s eye and I refuse to read defiance in their reaction. I suspect it may be for reasons 
beyond my purview and I choose to investigate. 
 
Role of Group Discussion 
Group discussion has a crucial role to play in improving learners’ fluency in a second 
/foreign language. The advent of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) as a popular 
teaching approach only aided the reverence with which CLT was held by curriculum 
designers. CLT advocates the teaching-learning of a second language in a natural setting 
where learners learn a second /foreign language in a non-threatening environment.  As has 
been rightly observed by Freeman (2008), “The most obvious characteristic of CLT is that 
almost everything that is done is done with a communicative intent (p.129). It is therefore an 
approach that believes that “students should be given an opportunity to express their ideas 
and opinions “(Freeman, 2008, p.126) so that through active participation in communicative 
activities with the teacher as facilitator, a lot of authentic speaking happens and there is 
negotiation of meaning between and among learners.  
 
Team Activity 
Of the several activities available to leaners to choose from in order to improve their 
spoken English, GD is perhaps the most convenient and sought after because it is a team 
activity that “encourages cooperative relationships among students. It gives students an 
opportunity to work on negotiating meaning (Freeman, 2008, p.127). 
 
 
Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 14:11 November 2014 
M. R. Vishwanathan, M.A. (English), PGDTE, M.Phil. (ELT), Ph.D. (ELT) 
Group Discussion in an ESL Classroom: A Socio-cultural Perspective 247 
Job-winning Performance 
The importance of Group Discussion may be gauged from the fact that companies like 
Amazon, IBM, Broadcom, and Schlumberger recruit employees based on their performance 
in GD. Business schools look for communication skills and GDs are often the clinchers. Then 
again, several organizations look for PR personnel who apart from excelling in academics 
and on the job, need to reveal to the public the human face of the company or organization.  
 
GDs, debates, and JAMs therefore play a vital role in determining a candidate’s 
success in landing that plum job, a promotion or posting abroad. English departments thus 
have a special job on their hands - promoting GD as an activity involving all learners and 
ensuring a learner-friendly ambience. The idea is to minimise teacher intervention or 
interference and maximize learner participation. GD encourages team work, tolerance and 
adapting to several points of view while sticking to one’s own. It is for this GD counts as an 
important soft skill. 
 
Green et al (1997) very appropriately list out what it takes to make a GD successful in 
any context, be it ESL or EFL: 
Discussions depend for success primarily on the willingness of all the participants to 
make substantial and coherent contributions to the process. Individual contributions depend 
on a knowledge or experience of the topic under discussion, willingness to express oneself in 
the target language and personality type (p.137). 
 
Silence versus Speech 
The question is therefore one of finding out why learners prefer silence over speech. 
To read silence as arrogance, defiance of authority or simply indifference is to indulge in 
unnecessary paranoia and treat GD as the be-all and end-all of language acquisition, which is 
not the case. Silence on the part of learners may be embedded in the socio-cultural milieu in 
which learners have grown up and been educated. It was abundantly clear that learner silence 
was indeed a problem that transcended the limited world view of a teacher, prone to see it as 
learner non-cooperation or indifference. 
 
 
 
 
Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 14:11 November 2014 
M. R. Vishwanathan, M.A. (English), PGDTE, M.Phil. (ELT), Ph.D. (ELT) 
Group Discussion in an ESL Classroom: A Socio-cultural Perspective 248 
Present Study 
This study was conducted to decode the ‘speech’ behind silence, and the student-
teacher reaction to teacher speech. The study is not the first of its kind since “classroom 
silence, particularly among Asian EFL learners, continues to attract discussion” (Harumi, 
2011, p.260) and Indian students are not alone in being seen as scapegoats for what is a 
socio-cultural phenomenon. 
 
Informal talk with students outside the classroom brought to light factors other than 
what has been commonly but mistakenly attributed to learner silence in the language lab. 
 
The Study 
The study was conducted on 40 students in their first year of engineering in a college 
affiliated to a state university in Telangana State. I had been teaching them lab for over a 
month and the silence I encountered consistently from a group (of about 20 stubborn 
learners) led to the study. The study was in the form of informal talk with the learners to find 
out the reasons for reticence. Data analysis revealed a plethora of reasons for their 
unwillingness to communicate, almost all of them showing a tendency to reticence because of 
cultural or acquired or inherited traits.  
 
Lack of Confidence 
The first reason was “lack of confidence in self-expression” (Harumi, 2011, p.264). 
This is a cultural basis since in the Indian context, it is always the tradition for the teacher to 
talk and learner to listen and take down notes.  A teacher who is eager to let students seize 
control of the class room is viewed as lazy, ignorant or incompetent. As classrooms have 
remained teacher-fronted for as long  as anyone can remember and throughout history, it is 
but  natural for students to remain ‘passive’ and let the teacher take over. 
 
Harumi (2011) observes that in Japanese EFL classrooms learner-silence “stems from 
the presence of other students or the classroom atmosphere” (p. 264). This was particularly 
true in the ESL lab which had a sizeable number of girl students. It was simply unbearable for 
boys to subject themselves to assessment or review of their performance in the presence of 
girls. It is understandable considering the high levels of patriarchy. 
 
 
Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 14:11 November 2014 
M. R. Vishwanathan, M.A. (English), PGDTE, M.Phil. (ELT), Ph.D. (ELT) 
Group Discussion in an ESL Classroom: A Socio-cultural Perspective 249 
Assumption of Unequal Contest 
Learners who were silent saw the discussion activity as an unequal contest between 
the most able and the least, which was true. It was a heterogeneous class that had learners 
whose levels of linguistic competence were high just as there were learners who were only 
then coming to grips with English. Weak users of English saw GD as a context pitting gun 
fighters against knife throwers. They   were hesitant to share their views or opinions in poor 
English. They wanted an opportunity to use their mother tongue, at least in the first few 
classes, to get over their shyness and inhibitions. The silence was neither a result of ignorance 
nor defiance or indifference but one resulting from diffidence.  
 
Low Self-esteem which Led to Preference of Silence Over Participation 
Learners who preferred silence to participation, it came through, had low self-esteem. 
They didn’t want to lose face by coming off badly through participation. They blamed it on 
their poor grammar, fewer vocabulary, limited powers of expression and the attendant tension 
as reasons for non-participation. It was also a sign from the learners for the teacher to pitch in 
and help them out at crucial junctures such as helping them with ideas, supply words when 
they are lost for it, add ideas or supplement ideas so as to assure learners that with a little 
help, they too can perform well. 
 
Respect for Elders 
The fourth reason for silence was again cultural:  Learners had been taught from 
childhood that respect for elders was of the essence and that one’s own views must be 
subordinated to those of one’s teachers and parents. They were thus naturally inclined to 
accept teacher’s views as paramount and preferred to listen than butt in or participate all too 
enthusiastically. No student wanted to be seen as a Mr. Know-it-all and embarrass the 
teacher. 
 
An Expression of Unity and Solidarity 
Surprisingly, silence was used by the group members as an expression of unity too. 
All the learners applauded themselves in the thought that collective insults were not all 
anything to fret about. They sought and had security in the group they identified themselves 
with. This is very similar to though not a replica of a “Japanese cultural norm, wa (harmony) 
or ‘groupism’: the opinion of a group is valued more highly than that of the individual” 
 
Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 14:11 November 2014 
M. R. Vishwanathan, M.A. (English), PGDTE, M.Phil. (ELT), Ph.D. (ELT) 
Group Discussion in an ESL Classroom: A Socio-cultural Perspective 250 
(Harumi, 2011, p.265). Thus, even if a few members of the group are in a position to answer 
or take part in GD, the unwillingness of others condemns them to silence too. This 
“distancing strategy” (Flowerdew, 1998, p.323) somehow seemed to work well to take the 
guilt off non-participation.  
 
Implications and Suggested Measures 
GD being an inevitable part curriculum and a necessary component of English 
language lab, one mustn’t look for reasons that can explain away learner non-participation. 
Instead a few measures may be put in place that address the issue of non-participation in GD 
and suggest measures to overcome reluctance and diffidence in leaners. 
 
a. It is a great help to start any GD with a preface; classroom observation holds that 
teachers plunge straightaway into GD and hand out topics for learners to speak on. In some 
cases, the das and don’ts of GD are never given to learners, leading them to treat the whole 
exercise with indifference. The usefulness of GD   and its place in the recruitment process 
should serve as an incentive for learners to participate actively in it; besides, learners would 
also be told how it would lead them to improving their social skills, such as turn-taking, 
modulation of voice, adjusting body language, etc. 
 
b. Judicious use of L1 must be allowed; an L2 classroom often jettisons L1 use. This 
results in learners being deprived of a rich resource to use and benefit from. Learners who 
have had all their education in regional medium schools deserve better than being forced to 
use English from the very beginning of their school year. Everyone including the fluent users 
of English must be asked to use L1 even if occasionally so that none feels ridiculed for using 
L1. In any GD outside the classroom, code switching is very common and it doesn’t hurt to 
use one’s mother tongue. 
 
c. Learners learn best when they have a free hand in choosing discussion topics, 
“deriving principally from their current professional, academic or developmental concerns” 
(Green et al, 1997, p.137). This gives them a sense of freedom and responsibility. It lets 
learners draw up points, brainstorm and contribute positively to GD than if topics are chosen 
by the teacher. 
 
 
Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 14:11 November 2014 
M. R. Vishwanathan, M.A. (English), PGDTE, M.Phil. (ELT), Ph.D. (ELT) 
Group Discussion in an ESL Classroom: A Socio-cultural Perspective 251 
d. Finally, silent learners must be grouped into one category and encouraged to come 
out of their shell. This will “lead the more introverted student away from his or her concern 
with rule obedience and correctness to a more unself conscious and fluent expression of 
personal knowledge and views” (Green et al, 1997, p.137). 
 
Conclusion 
It hardly needs emphasising that while GD as an essential component of lab is needed 
for conversational fluency and making the learners job-ready, the socio-cultural aspects need 
to be taken into account to achieve the objective. To make participation in GD inclusive 
measures suggested above may be adopted. These measures will render the activity 
meaningful and productive for all. 
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References 
Flowerdew, L. (1998). A cultural perspective on group work. ELT Journal, 52(4), 323-329.  
Freeman, D. 2008). Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching.  New Delhi: Oxford 
University Press. 
Green, C.F., Christopher, E.R. & Lam, J. (1997). Developing discussion skills in the ESL 
classroom   ELT Journal, 51(2), 135-143. 
Harumi, S. (2011). Classroom silence: voices from Japanese EFL learners ELT Journal, 
65(3), 260-269. 
 
 
M. R. Vishwanathan, M.A. (English), PGDTE, M.Phil. (ELT), Ph.D. (ELT) 
Assistant Professor (English) 
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences 
National Institute of Technology  
Warangal – 506004 
Telangana 
India 
vishwanathanmrv@gmail.com  
 
 
 


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