Students often wonder whether activities in pairs or groups of three are really useful because the teacher can't check each group's grammatical mistakes or vocabulary problems during the conversation.

We need to look at this situation knowing that the teacher is still secretly at work. Each teacher has a system to gather all the errors that the groups make while more or less blending in with their students so that they can go over them later. We see that sometimes they are silently taking notes, without attracting too much attention, and at other times they join the pairs and take part in the conversation (probably to highlight new words or structures that are being explained). They might even go on to correct a mistake on the spur of the moment if it is very relevant. This won't generally happen very often in this type of activity because correction is not really the aim.

So why do we do it? To take away the pressure that students feel when the teacher is looking at them while they're practising. It's already difficult enough not to break the flow of our argument, add content and take our partners into account, without feeling as though the teacher is scrutinising every word that we say on top of that.

Far from being helpful, providing too many corrections risks making the speaker forget why they are talking, or even worse, make them think that they are not able to do so successfully and, worst of all, make them feel so uncomfortable that they give up.

To be able to create a monologue or interactive task effectively, it is necessary to have acquired a certain fluency that is gained through trust. It's very common for students to have previously studied structures that they don't master well enough to use because they haven't spent enough time practising them outside of sentence completion exercises. They need to practise with the improvisation and unpredictability that comes with talking to a partner and, although it seems contradictory, not being directly watched by their teacher can be beneficial. It's important to remember that the teacher is taking note, either mentally or physically, of some mistakes but above all, the students are seeing that what they have learned is useful, that they are able to communicate and, if not, they can find out where their mistakes or uncertainties are to later look for a solution. The teacher will always be more effective if the student is the one who asks than if they prevent mistakes.

Being confident sounds very basic and seems like an irrelevant topic, but any learner taking a beginner, or more advanced, course who is required to have a specific formal skill knows that basic does not mean easy.

On the other hand, there are students who need to work on this more than others.

In all groups, there are usually one or two students who naturally take on the role of spokespersons. This is useful for the flow of the class and for these students themselves as they take full advantage of the opportunities to interact. However, at the same time there are students who are more introverted, or who simply feel less confident at the time. They don’t have time gather together their ideas to join in and do not face up to the situation. This is not important if it happens from time to time but if it occurs regularly, it can lead to a kind of role sharing where those who are less secure become passive for the rest of the course. If this happens, overcoming the inertia is even more complicated because, in addition, the difference between the two groups increases and their own perception of themselves worsens.

Everything the teacher plans to do in the classroom has a purpose even if it’s not always clear at first sight.