Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing: Stages of Team Development and Their Impact on Teaching Language Classes

Isabella Keilani, Austria

Isabella Keilani is an ESL teacher based in Gaz. She is interested in methodology, group dynamics and integrating technology into the classroom. She works with teenagers as well as adults and always enjoys a good challenge. E-mail: isabella.english@hotmail.com

Have you ever had the experience of teaching a new class, hitting it off immediately, giving the group some time to form and consolidate, getting into gear and starting to work efficiently, when all of a sudden nothing seems to work anymore?

You start reflecting on your teaching: Is the content relevant to your students? Are the tasks challenging enough, yet not too difficult? Are you supportive as a teacher? etc. If you have ticked off everything with a yes, you might start checking your body language and voice once again, might even re-watch Amy Cuddy’s TED Talk on „Power Posing“ and still wonder why it is in this special group with the kids you have liked so much from the beginning that things do not go smoothly anymore, while other groups are working so well.

If you have supportive colleagues in your staff room, you might go and talk to them.

In my case, I approached the German teacher, who is usually very relaxed, yet very constructive about things. What she reminded me of, was that, well, it was that time of year, wasn’t it? At our afternoon school we start courses in February and prepare them for exams a year later. And whenever problems typically arise, is around the end of May until the beginning of June. My very relaxed colleague reminded me of this and said; „You will see after the summer break everything will be alright again.“

And it was. Not just by itself, of course, but after actively working on the learning environment, talking a lot with the students, changing seating arrangements and so on.

So obviously, the whole thing seemed to be cyclical. And if you stay relaxed, take the right steps and be insistant, everything will turn out all right in the end.

Change of scene:

Last week I took part in an in-house training at my morning job. I work at a GP’s practice from eight to twelve every morning and as one of our staff members has graduated from medical school and left us, a new assistant has joined our team and the workload seems to be ever-increasing, we decided to have a moderated team meeting with „team building“ as one of the focusses.

The lady leading the workshop introduced us to Bruce Tuckman's 1965 article, "Developmental Sequence in Small Groups.“ I remembered having read about the four phases of „Forming“, „Storming“, „Norming“ and „Performing“ before, maintaining that every group goes through four basic and detectable stages, in later editions added by the fifth stage of „Adjournment“.

In the first stage, the so-called forming stage, most members of a group are excited, anxious, careful when dealing with the others, make an effort and try to get to know the others. In this phase it is very important to be supportive and to communicate a lot.

In the second stage, the storming stage, things can really get rough. The honeymoon is over and conflicts may arise. Different working styles might cause problems, people might challenge other’s authorities and be frustrated by the sheer overwhelming workload. In a nutshell, everybody needs to find their place and this does not always happen without friction. This is when many teams fail. But every group goes through that phase and what we can best do at that stage is to keep calm, remain positive and work on trust building and relationships.

In the third stage, the norming stage, group members have found their place, got to know their colleagues better and have learned how to work together efficiently. They help each other, give each other constructive feedback, are committed to their work and usually make great progress. This is when the team leader, in our case the teacher, can step back and transfer more responsibility to the individual team members. Even at this stage, though, the team could fall back into stage two, as, for example, new tasks and challenges might come up.

The fourth stage, the forming stage, is where we all are aiming. Hard work has paid off, goals have been achieved and success is being celebrated. People really feel part of the team.

But as always in life - and especially with language classes - nothing lasts forever. So it is time to say good bye and in group development we have reached the stage of adjourning.

So, getting back to our annual „June - Blues“ at our Graz-based language school, it obviously is not just a coincidence that things do not seem to work out at a regular interval but simply natural phases of group development.

What was really revealing at our workshop at the GP’s surgery, was that obviously not all members of a team are in the same phase at the same time - especially when group members are leaving or new members are joining a team. A new member could very well see herself still in phase one, while senior members simply do not realize that anything has changed as they have been doing their job routinely for a couple of years already.

The same is true for language classes. Every time students leave - and this might happen for various reasons - or new students join the class, this has an impact on the whole group, and consequently also on teaching.

So, obviously there is more to good teaching than just choosing the right activities at the right time.

Teaching is constant learning and developing and this is why it is challenging and fun and definitely worth all the friction and hurdles along the way.

References

Tuckman, B. (1965) Developmental Sequence in Small Groups

Gunn, V. (2007) Approaches to Small Group Learning and Teaching, http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_12157_en.pdf [October 15, 2016]

Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing - Understanding the Stages of Team Formation, https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_86.htm [October 15, 2016

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