TWO HEADS ARE BETTER THAN ONE

Cooperative Lear ning is a very formal way of structuring activities in a learning environment that includes specific elements intended to increase the potential for rich and deep learning by the participants . ‘Pair work’ is a classroom activity in which the whole class is divided into pairs. It is really a type of group work, using 'groups' of two. Because the point of pair work is to get students speaking and listening, the content of a pair work session should be mainly oral. The paper discusses the historical background of pair work. It presents a list of different Cooperative Learning Techniques using pairs along with a detailed description of the teachers and students activities for each technique. Although there are many advantages of using pair work in classrooms, it also has a few limitations. The paper attempts to help teachers overcome these limitations