Introducing Pick 'N' Choose™ - Our First Cooperative Learning Product

For years, we’ve been creating teaching materials designed to make classroom talk more fun, purposeful, inclusive, and accessible for multilingual learners. But one question kept returning to us: How can we design a routine that gives students more control and helps students speak more confidently without relying on constant teacher direction?

Today, after months of development, piloting, redesigning, and diving deep into educational research, we’re excited to share the result: Pick ‘N’ Choose™ - our first-ever cooperative learning activity built with EFL and ESL learners in mind, and designed and develiped entirely in-house.

This project represents a milestone for us. Not just because it's our first trademarked product, but because it reflects a long-standing belief: when learners are given structure and meaningful choice, truly powerful communication emerges.

Why We Wanted to Build a Student-Led Discussion Routine:

The idea for Pick ‘N’ Choose™ began with us looking at problems the many EFL and ESL teachers will recognise — group talk that looks busy, but lacks purpose. Learners frozen in fear at the prospect of having to speak. Tasks and activities that leave students confused about what to do, one voice or strong learners dominating the group, and task that rely so heavily on teacher facilitation that independent interaction never really happens?

As always, we turned to the research for answers. Across fields — motivational psychology, applied linguistics, and cooperative learning — we kept finding the same message:

Choice + Structure = Better Learning

• Deci and Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory shows that supporting autonomy increases intrinsic motivation, persistence, and cognitive engagement (Deci & Ryan, 1985; 2000).
• Patall, Cooper, and Robinson (2008) demonstrated that even small, meaningful choices can reduce anxiety and increase academic performance.
• Research in language learning highlights that when students can select the language or task that fits their confidence level, they participate more willingly and communicate more fluently (Little, 1991; Ushioda, 2011).
• Cooperative learning models emphasise that structured interaction — not simply working in groups — leads to better outcomes in talk, comprehension, and social development (Johnson & Johnson, 1999; Gillies, 2016).
• These insights shaped our development process from the beginning. We didn’t want a routine that simply organised turns — we wanted one that gave students control in a way supported by decades of evidence.

How Pick ‘N’ Choose™ Emerged From the Research:

As we explored the research, a design principle became clear: Learners speak more confidently when they choose what they want to say, within a structure that keeps everyone involved.

So we thought about designing a new product based on an activity cycle where choice appears at the exact moment students often feel the most pressure — when reading aloud or asking a question in front of their peers (Braley, 2024).

Pick 'N' Choose allows students pick two prompt cards and choose the one they want to read. A prompt they find interesting. Or the one they feel most comfortable with. In short, the routine gives them ownership and lowers the stakes for them - which our own research study shows greatly lowers foreign language anxiety in shy/anxious language learners.

This “choice moment” functions like a pressure release valve, especially for multilingual learners who can feel heightened anxiety around oral tasks in front of peers.

Research in second language acquisition supports this idea: lower affective filters lead to greater willingness to communicate (Krashen, 1982). When students feel secure, their output increases in both quantity and quality.

Why Cooperative Learning?:

Alongside learner autonomy, we wanted the routine to reflect our belief in, and commitment too, collaborative learning, and meet all four of the well-established PIES principles of cooperative learning:

• Positive Interdependence
• Individual Accountability
• Equal Participation
• Simultaneous Interaction

These principles, defined and refined by decades of work from Johnson & Johnson (1999) and others, create the conditions for high-quality dialogue and language aquisition. We are always particularly drawn to how these elements help multilingual learners practise language authentically — not in scripted turns, but in structured conversation that still feels natural.

How the Final Pick 'N' Choose Routine Works:

After multiple prototypes, classroom tests, and teacher feedback cycles, we developed a simple sequence structure achieves the PIES prinicples, and a collection of team mats that allow students to follow it independently:

1. Student A fans the question cards
2. Student B picks two prompts
3. Student B chooses their prefered prompt and asks the question
4. Student C answer the question
5. Student D responds with a paraphrase, extension, or positive praise
6. The mat rotates and the routine begins again with everyone in a new role

Teachers who trialled it told us the same thing: “This is the first group-talking routine I’ve used where the whole class was all talking at the same time. Everyone was active and engaged. ”

For us, having classes full of talking learners is the biggest compliment we could ever receive, and we're really proud of our product. But if you want to try it out in your own class, what do you get?

What Comes With Pick ‘N’ Choose™

Although this post is about our development journey, many of the teachers involved in helping us develope the mats have asked what the final resource includes. So here’s a brief overview:

Every Pick 'N' Choose resource incldes:

• 3 Full-colour discussion mats for teams of 3, 4, or 5 students
• 3 Black-and-white discussion mats (so teachers and teams can personalise them)
• Clear visual icons alongside written prompts to guide each step
• Blank question card templates for unlimited adaptation and use
• Visual scaffolding for EAL/EFL learners, SEN students, and developing readers
• Easy to follow sets of visual and written teacher instructions

It was our goal was to make something that teachers could set up once and then watch students run confidently on their own every time they used it. And we proud to say we achieved that.

Why Else We’re Proud of This Release:

This routine is more than an activity — it’s a statement about what we believe learning should look like. Learning should be fun, flexible, structured, supported, personal, enjoyable and fear-free. EFL and ESL learning and resources inparticular should be:

• Student-led but academically purposeful
• Research-informed but easy to use
• Supportive of multilingual learners without excluding mainstream classrooms

We’re proud of the work behind it, and we’re excited to share it with educators who want to bring more autonomy, more participation, and more joyful learning into their classroom discussions.

If You Decide to Try It…

If you give Pick ‘N’ Choose™ a go, we would love to hear how your students respond. So please drop us and email or leave us a comment below and let us know how they get on. We're confident that you'll change in the way your classroom interacts and uses language. And you don't just have to take our word for it. Below is just some of the research to support our belief.

References

1. Braley, T. (2024) Breaking The Silence: How Can English Foreign Language Teachers Help Mitigate Foreign Lanuage Anxiety in Shy/Anxious Learners?, The Korea TESOL Journal, 19(2), 139-168
2. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behaviour.
3. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). “The ‘What’ and ‘Why’ of Goal Pursuits.” Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268.
4. Gillies, R. (2016). Cooperative Learning: Review of Research and Practice. Australian Journal of Teacher Education.
5. Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (1999). Learning Together and Alone.
6. Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition.
7. Little, D. (1991). Learner Autonomy 1: Definitions, Issues and Problems.
8. Patall, E. A., Cooper, H., & Robinson, J. C. (2008). “The Effects of Choice on Intrinsic Motivation and Related Outcomes.” Psychological Bulletin, 134(2), 270–300.
9. Ushioda, E. (2011). Motivation, Autonomy and the Language Learner.