Salam Madam,
Well concerning the " group work " or what we call " the Group Pedagogy" , the teacher has to deal with it regularly and depending on the task to be achieved
The group pedagogy will serve the teacher more while dealing with the "Project Work " which is a Must that the teachers have to deal with it .
From the beginning of the year the teacher has to Ask his learners to Form their groups according to their neighborhood , their likes and dislikes .....
The ideal Number of the Group is not more than 4 (four) and the teacher has to instruct them from the beginning of the MS1 level that each member of the group has a role to play depending on the competencies of each member .
for example : 1 or 2 gather the information / 1 writes / 1 draws .... and 1 of the 4 member will be the spokesman the day of the presentation of the Project work.
This is the case of the Project Work which must be done by a group not individual work and please instruct your learners from the beginning of the MS1 level not to buy Projects from Cyber cafe , the teacher has to show his learners how use such source of information , Select , edit then fleshing out what has been selected
Concerning the classroom situation we generally deal with "Pair Work" and sometimes with "group work " depending on the Task, but generally the "Pair Work" is the dominant task in our syllabus , the teacher has the deal with it make his learners work in pair , it's more motivating for the learners , where the learners listen to each others , respect each others and discover each others
The reason that makes the teacher ovoid "group work or Pair work " is as Madam Hayet said our classes are overcrowded , and each time I ask my friends and colleagues while I lead meetings and seminars I just ask them one question
What do you suggest ?, this is our fact , our classrooms are overcrowded ,
We have to adapt our teaching technics to such classroom situations and the best way is train our learners from the beginning of the school year to such tasks and this is not impossible .
salam