MAKING EFL INSTRUCTION MORE CLT-ORIENTED THROUGH INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTABILITY IN COOPERATIVE LEARNING

This article attempts to add to the literature supporting Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) by proposing the use of Cooperative Learning (CL), specifically focusing on the enactment of a key principle of CL, i.e., individual accountability. It illustrates how to train students on CL and its individual accountability work and demonstrates how activities involved in individual accountability, i.e., individual students’ performance(s) and peer interaction, can accommodate the teaching of the four language skills and components. We argue that these activities promote learners’ use of and meaning making in English and thus recommend teachers, especially those new to CL, follow the procedure of CL techniques exactly as described so that language learning in their classrooms goes in the direction of attaining improved communicative competence—the goal of CLT.

stood.After considering this feedback, the speaker can revise the form of the message if such revision is necessary.In essence, then, students learn how to communicate by communicating.(p.34) Larsen-Freeman (2012)'s description of an information gap activity suggests that CLT favors student-student interaction (see also Larsen-Freeman, 1986) in which there are exchanges of information as well as feedback giving and receiving activities; together with their peers, students make meaning in the target language.
In addition to the information gaps activity described above, other communicative activities in which students have opportunities to use the target language a great deal include: games and role playing (Li, 1998).In Holliday's (1994) view, however, these activities do not seem to reflect the CLT classroom.Holliday stresses that when learning in CLT, rather than communicating with each other, students collaborate and help each other to solve language problems.In other words, Holliday underlines the importance of students learning about how language works in discourse, which amounts to more than language practice.
To put CLT into practice, in a way that accommodates both stances, i.e., communication functions-oriented-meaningful and authentic language use (Larsen-Freeman, 1986, 2012;Richards, 2002) and discourse-orientedmaking sense of the target language (Holliday, 1994), teachers can use cooperative learning (CL).CL consists of group learning activities in which individual students' contribution to the learning is realized through their performance or presentation, which is beneficial not only for their own learning but also for their peers' learning and the group's goals (Astuti & Lammers, 2017).
In addition to the above limitations, we should keep in mind that students' use of first language during their interaction with their peers in CL groups might be inevitable.For example, in the first author (2016)'s study, the use of Indonesian and Javanese languages-either language was the first language of the student participants-was prevalent during students' peer interaction.One of the students explained that the reason for using their first language was to make their meanings and messages more clear.
The study also showed that the student participants tended to use their first language more during conventional group work than in CL group work.In the latter, they were required to communicate in English (i.e., through peer interaction and individual accountability performances) with other group members and to the whole class to share what they had learned.Such requirement (i.e., the use of English for communication) might be present in most EFL classrooms given the goals of CLT.However, the structure of interaction facilitated by CL-with both learning materials and peers-may be absent when students are working in conventional group work or in commonly introduced learning activities, such as free conversation.Finally, the issue of first language use in students' interaction in their CL groups may not inhibit second language learning, as studies show the advantages of using the first language in EFL learning (e.g., Kagan & McGroarty, 1993;McGroarty, 1989).
Notwithstanding its limitations and the issue of learners' use of their first language during student-student interaction, CL has been shown to provide benefits to EFL learners.For example, through its required individual students' presentations or performances (or individual accountability) and structured peer interaction, CL maximized opportunities for learners to use the target language, which benefitted them in attaining improved communicative competence (Astuti, 2016).Other research literature has shown that using CL increased English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' achievement in the four language skills and promoted EFL learners' mastery of language components (e.g., Alghamdi, 2014;Almuslimi, 2016;Bejarano, 1987;Ghaith, 2003;Liang, 2002;Sachs, Candlin, & Rose, 2003, Wei & Tang, 2015).Thus, we believe that CL works in harmony with the aims of CLT.
However, other studies on the use of CL in EFL classrooms did not show the expected outcome of increased achievement of EFL learners.These results were due to a number of factors, such as: 1) the short period of investigation and CL intervention (e.g., Ghaith, 2003), 2) various time and curriculum constraints (e.g., Sachs, et al., 2003), 3) the need to train students on how CL works (Chen, 2011), and 4) the need to connect the how (of CL techniques) to accommodate the what (teaching content) (Bejarano, 1987).The last two factors will be addressed in this article.
CL promotes individual students' accountability in their learning and interaction with peers.Literature suggests that this benefit of CL is possible due to the occurrences of its principles-defining elements of CL-which include positive interdependence, individual accountability, equal participation, and simultaneous interaction (see e.g., Johnson & Johnson, 1999;Kagan, 1989;Olsen & Kagan, 1992;Slavin, 1995).Johnson and Johnson (1999) define the first two principles as the following: Positive interdependence occurs when individual students' success (e.g., mastering the assigned material) depends on their peers' success.Individual accountability happens when individual students learn on their own and then interact with their peers to perform higher as individuals.Kagan and Kagan (2009) offer the following definitions of equal participation and simultaneous interaction, respectively: "Participation is not voluntary; everyone must participate about equally" and "…not only are students participating about equally, they are participating frequently; many students participate at once" (p.5.11).
When CL's defining elements or principles are enacted, cooperation among students takes place, and effective implementation will likely be achieved (see Chen, 2011;Johnson & Johnson, 1999;Olsen & Kagan, 1992;Slavin, 1999).Literature also suggests that CL's principle of individual accountability differentiates it from conventional group work and, when enacted, learners gain numerous benefits (Bruffee, 1995;Panitz, 1999).Nevertheless, little research has been conducted to investigate how CL principlesparticularly individual accountability-enhance learning in EFL learning settings.Therefore, based on the first author's qualitative case study that focused on individual accountability in CL (Astuti, 2016), this article proposes the use of CL, specifically the enactment of its individual accountability principle to make EFL instruction more CLT-oriented.
To do so, we offer illustrations of the enactment of individual accountability in EFL classrooms through the use of CL techniques for teaching the four language skills and language components.The CL techniques described are mainly those from Kagan and Kagan (2009) because they incorporate the principle of individual accountability in their development of CL techniques, or structures-content-free ways of organizing student interactions with content and with each other (see Olsen & Kagan, 1992).This article also demonstrates how ensuring students perform individual accountability can help teachers to train their students on how CL works.Additionally, we show how knowing individual accountability activities in CL techniques can help teachers to connect the how (of CL) to the what (teaching content) of language learning.Finally, we offer teachers some points to consider when using CL techniques to promote their students' EFL learning.

INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTABILITY IN CL
Individual accountability in CL requires presentation or performance by individual students in front of their CL peers, making their performance public, to complete a task in their EFL learning (Astuti & Lammers, 2017).For example, when students learn through a CL technique named RoundRobin (Kagan & Kagan, 2009), described in greater detail later in this article, they perform their individual accountability when they state a response or solution to a question or problem posed by the teacher.When this presentation or performance is missed or skipped, not only do students lose an opportunity to use the target language, there might also be students who do not have their answers ready.If this happens, the benefit of CL for promoting EFL learners' communicative competence may not be reaped.
Through a qualitative case study, Astuti (2016) explored the roles of individual accountability-a key principle of and one of the activities in CL-in enhancing EFL learning in Indonesian secondary schools.Constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) was employed to guide data collectionthrough participant observations, in-depth interview, and document analysisand data analysis.Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) (Engeström, 2000;Jonassen & Rohrer-Murphy, 1999;Leont'ev, 1978;Yamagata-Lynch, 2003, 2007, 2010) and Interaction Hypothesis (Long, 1996) were utilized as theoretical frameworks to analyze the data.CHAT was employed because an implementation of CL symbolizes an activity system and Interaction Hypothesis was used to look at how CL, particularly its activities of individual accountability, enhances EFL learning.
The study identified four levels of individual accountability in CL: 1) in pairs, 2) in home (base) groups, 3) in other groups, and 4) to the whole class.The study also found that between two performances of individual accountability (e.g., between a performance in front of a peer and a performance in front of members of other groups or the whole class) peer interaction usually took place.Furthermore, the study identified a number of important roles that individual accountability had for the EFL learners, including, among others: 1) allowed them to give and receive vocabulary help, 2) gave them access to their peers' pronunciation, and 3) allowed them to gain confidence to speak in English.To elaborate on the first role, through peer interaction that usually took place between two performances of individual accountability (initial and higher levels), the EFL learners gave and received vocabulary help from their peers.This vocabulary help contributed to their performance of higher level(s) of individual accountability, such as in other groups and to the whole class.In these later performances, EFL learners communicated or elaborated on what they learned from peers using English vocabulary relevant to the given tasks.
With regard to access to pronunciation, because of the availability of performances of individual accountability in their classroom, all EFL learners gained access to their peers' pronunciation.For example, one learner in the study noticed English words that his peers inaccurately pronounced in their individual accountability performance, and this served as a reminder for him not to repeat the same mistake in his own performance of individual accountability.Moreover, because of the nature of individual accountability in CL, i.e., required performances and the use of English in these performances, the EFL learners gained confidence to speak in the target language.
The following section will present illustrations of how to train students on CL techniques, specifically by familiarizing them with the activities of individual accountability.In our illustrations, we unpack each of the chosen CL techniques and discuss their imbedded activities of individual accountability-an endeavor that we believe adds to the knowledge base about CL in a unique way.At the end of our illustrations, we present our recommendation for how to introduce students to more complex CL techniques, i.e., ones that have more than one level of individual accountability.Altogether, the following section describes four CL techniques, which we chose because they share the same characteristic, i.e., having the level of individual accountability in home groups, for reasons discussed in more detail below.

TRAINING STUDENTS ON HOW CL WORKS
Taking into consideration the benefits of CL, especially the roles of its individual accountability in EFL learning as the first author's study has revealed, we recommend teachers whose students are new to CL to train them how CL works, including activities of individual accountability.There are four levels of individual accountability in CL, hence, students need to know about and experience performing in each of the levels.Moreover, as identified by the first author's study, most CL techniques set peer interaction to take place between two levels of individual accountability.Thus, students also need to know what is expected of them during this interaction, such as becoming the audience of their peers' performance of individual accountability, the audience of their peers' practice for the next performance, and the feedback provider (e.g., providing help on vocabulary).Teachers can start with simpler CL techniques that have one level of individual accountability, such as Fan-N-Pick and RoundRobin (Kagan & Kagan, 2009).We focus on these two here because they have the level of individual accountability in home groups.If missed, this particular level of individual accountability, and the peer interactions such accountability encourages, might create an unfavorable situation in the implementation of CL in which students may not present their share of the work or may perform without adequate preparation (Astuti, 2016).
In Fan-N-Pick, each group receives a set of question cards.Students and their group members play a card game to respond to questions, and roles rotate with each new question.The complete procedure of this CL technique comprises the following steps: 1) student #1 holds question cards in a fan and says, "Pick a card, any card!" 2) student #2 picks a card, reads the question aloud, and allows five seconds of think time, 3) student #3 answers the question, 4) student #4 responds to the answer, and 5) students switch roles.Fan-N-Pick can also be played in pairs: 1) student #1 fans, 2) student #2 picks and reads the question card, 3) student #1 answers, and 4) student #2 tutors or praises, 5) students switch roles (Kagan & Kagan, 2009, p. 6.25).Hence, depending on how a teacher groups the students, in Fan-N-Pick, students' individual accountability performance is carried out either in front of their home group members or in front of their partner.Since there is only one level of individual accountability in Fan-N-Pick, peer interaction may only occur in the response phase (step 4 in each variation of the technique).
In RoundRobin, 1) students sit in teams, 2) teacher poses a problem to which there are multiple possible responses or solutions, 3) teacher provides think time, and 4) students take turns stating responses or solutions (Kagan & Kagan, 2009, p. 6.31).It is clear that in RoundRobin, students perform their individual accountability in their home groups.Since this CL technique has only one level of individual accountability, as in Fan-N-Pick, peer interaction may not be needed in RoundRobin.
When students already know what to expect from individual accountability-that performance is required and to be carried out in the target language of English-teachers can then introduce them to CL techniques that have more than one level of individual accountability.The procedures of these techniques usually include peer interaction that follows an initial performance.This peer interaction can help students to prepare for the next level of individual accountability.Let's examine two examples of these techniques, Three Step Interview and Numbered Heads Together.As with our choice of the previous CL techniques, we focus on Three Step Interview and Numbered Heads Together for our next illustration because they also have the level of individual accountability in home groups that facilitates crucial peer interaction and preparation.
In Three Step Interview, students interview their partner and then each share with their group members what they learned.The steps in this CL technique include: 1) teacher provides the interview topic, states the duration of the interview, and provides think time, 2) in pairs, student A interviews student B, 3) pairs switch roles: student B interviews student A, and 4) teacher asks students to do RoundRobin (Kagan & Kagan, 2009, p. 6.38).As previously discussed, in RoundRobin students form groups of four and each student, in turn, shares with their group members what he or she just learned.When learning through Three Step Interview, students perform two levels of individual accountability -in pairs and in groups.After the initial level of individual accountability in pairs, they interact with their partner to prepare for their individual accountability in groups.
The procedure for the Numbered Heads Together technique comprises the following steps: 1) students work in groups, 2) each student in the group is assigned a number (e.g., one, two, three, or four), 3) teacher poses a problem and gives think time, 4) students privately write their answers, 5) students stand up and "put their heads together," showing answers, discussing, and teaching each other, 6) students sit down when everyone knows the answer or has something to share, 7) teacher calls a number, and 8) students with that number answer (Kagan & Kagan, 2009, p. 6.28).There are two levels of individual accountability in this technique: individual accountability in home groups (step 5) and individual accountability to the whole class (step 8).Peer interaction takes place when students do step five; individual students share their answers, dis-cuss their group's answer, and teach each other so everyone can be a representative to share the group's answer to the whole class.
When expecting students to perform more than one level of individual accountability, such as when they learn through Numbered Heads Together and Three Step Interview, teachers need to encourage students to do the following.First, use the given think time to prepare for their performance of initial individual accountability.Kagan and Kagan (2009) advocate that think time improves the quality of student responses.In Astuti's (2016) study, one of the teacher participants used Numbered Heads Together in a slightly different way.This teacher provided her students think time for all of the questions she asked/posed; her students processed all of the questions in the beginning.This modification worked fine for her students' EFL learning because what mattered was that students had think time to prepare for their performances of individual accountability.Students' performance of quality individual accountability facilitates their responsibility as individual learners.
Second, use the initial individual accountability performance as a verbal practice for the higher level of individual accountability.Existing studies suggest that the more EFL learners practice using the target language, the closer they are to the attainment of communicative competence.The first author's study revealed this as well.Specifically, it was found that because of the use of English in students' performances of individual accountability and during peer interaction-the availability of opportunities to use the target language-the EFL learners gained confidence to speak in English (Astuti, 2016).
Third, listen and pay attention to peers' initial individual accountability performance.For example, teachers can highlight students' opportunity to learn from their peers' English pronunciation when those peers are performing their individual accountability to demonstrate students' responsibility for their own learning (e.g., recognizing their peers' mispronunciation or pronunciation of newly-learned words) and their peers' learning (e.g., enabling them to later provide feedback for the performers).As "activity is precursor to learning" (Jonassen & Rohrer-Murphy, 1999, pp. 62-64), through the activities of listening and paying attention to their peers' performances of individual accountability, EFL learners consciously learned the target language (Astuti, 2016).This, to some degree, also reflects Holliday's (1994) notion of students learning about how the target language works in discourse as a characteristic of CLT.
Fourth, interact with their peers and give feedback to each other to better perform in the next level of individual accountability.The purpose of CL is "to make each member a stronger individual and that students learn together so that they can subsequently perform higher as individuals" (Johnson & Johnson, 1999, p. 71).From an Interaction Hypothesis lens, it appears that while EFL learners might realize that they are learning to negotiate meaning (recall the required activity of peer interaction), they might not be aware that they are "picking up" (Krashen, 2003, p. 1)-acquiring-English vocabulary during interactions with their peers (Astuti, 2016).As delineated by Larsen-Freeman (1986), these processes are favored by CLT.
After students get the idea of how CL works, especially the activities involved in individual accountability, teachers can then focus their attention on which CL techniques are best for helping their EFL learners learn and meet the lesson objectives.Through its illustration of the use of different CL techniques for teaching EFL, the next section will demonstrate how teachers can connect the how of CL and the what or the teaching contents (i.e., the four language skills and language components).

CONNECTING THE HOW TO ACCOMMODATE THE WHAT
As discussed earlier in this article, one of the challenges faced by Indonesian EFL teachers in putting CLT into practice is their mastery of CLT methods.We present the following illustrations to show teachers how knowing the activities of individual accountability in various CL techniques can help them to connect the how and the what, which can create CLT-oriented EFL instruction.
In light of Larsen-Freeman's (1986, 2012) concepts of CLT, which emphasize on communicative functions and peer interaction for improved communicative competence, EFL teachers need to build their students' interpersonal skills.To do so, teachers can use CL techniques to build interpersonal functions such as class and team building, and social skills (Kagan & Kagan, 2009).We believe that through consistent use of these techniques, students begin to see each other as a resource for their language learning.These techniques appear to be equally helpful for teachers whose students are new to CL and teachers whose students are already used to CL. Astuti's (2016) study revealed that the EFL learners' familiarity with CL did not guarantee that they regarded all of their peers as resources.Thus, even with students who are familiar with CL in their EFL instruction, teachers need to continuously use CL techniques for building interpersonal skills.
After the class and the teams or groups reach a certain level of comfort with each other through the aforementioned techniques, EFL teachers can then employ CL techniques for communication functions (recall Larsen-Freeman's (1986, 2012) notions of CLT).CL techniques under this category seem to be ones that need to be highlighted more in EFL classrooms for the expected outcome of learners' improved communicative competence to be fully realized.The four CL techniques discussed in the previous section (Fan-N-Pick, RoundRobin, Numbered Heads Together, and Three Step Interview) can be used to promote communication skills (Kagan & Kagan, 2009).Astuti's (2016) teacher participant in the middle school classroom employed RoundRobin and Numbered Heads Together for teaching speaking, while the teacher participant in the high school classroom used Numbered Heads Together for teaching listening.In other words, the four techniques can be used in teaching all four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
We now move to providing illustrations of how the four CL techniques are used in EFL classrooms to teach each of the four language skills.As in our illustrations of training students on how CL works, in this section we unpack the activities of individual accountability in each CL technique.More specifically, we highlight how individual accountability is enacted in these CL techniques and how it benefits EFL learners.We do so to showcase how the individual accountability principle of CL helps enhance EFL learning and make EFL instruction more CLT-oriented.We believe that such effort, not made elsewhere in the CL literature, will build a better understanding of the importance of individual accountability in CL implementation to develop EFL learners' communicative competence.

Fan-N-Pick for Teaching Reading
After students have finished reading a text, the teacher can ask each of them to write simple open-ended questions on index cards (or pieces of small paper) using the 5WH question words: who, what, where, when, why, and how.The number of questions may depend on students' level of age and proficiency.After students finish writing the questions, the teacher collects and shuffles the cards, and puts students in groups or pairs.Each pair or group receives a set of question cards and starts Fan-N-Pick.Through the 5WH questions and their individual accountability in Fan-N-Pick, students practice communicating or presenting their answers to their peers and build their understanding of the text.
Hence, besides developing their reading skills (e.g., identifying main ideas, skimming, and scanning), students also practice their writing skills (e.g., writing the 5WH questions with correct spelling and/or sentence structure) and speaking skills (i.e., communicating/presenting their understanding of the text).In these processes, we believe that students make sense of the language being learned.For example, they realize that writing 5WH questions in English cannot be done by simply translating the questions-word-by-word-from Indonesian to English because they have to follow, among others, English syntax.

Numbered Heads Together for Teaching Listening and Speaking
After students have learned a text genre-announcements, as an example-they listen to a sample spoken announcement and make some notes about it.Next, the teacher poses comprehension questions, including questions on how certain words are pronounced and expressions used by the speakerlearning how the language works in discourse.With their group members, students then answer the questions through Numbered Heads Together.This means that listening activities take place at least twice: when students are listening to the spoken announcement and when they are listening to the questions from their teacher.Additionally, because of the nature of individual accountability in Numbered Heads Together, speaking activities also take place: 1) when students are performing their individual accountability in their home group (i.e., sharing their own answer with their group members), 2) when they are interacting with each other to reach a consensus, and 3) when they are performing their individual accountability to the whole class (i.e., sharing their group's answer with the whole class).Astuti and Lammers (2017) discuss in greater detail how these required activities of individual accountability in CL provide EFL learners more opportunities to use English.
As indicated earlier, Astuti's (2016) teacher participants both in the middle and high schools employed Numbered Heads Together in their instruction, in teaching speaking and teaching listening respectively.Although they were teaching different language skills, the two teachers used Numbered Heads Together mainly to check their students' comprehension of the target texts, written fable (in the middle school classroom) and spoken news (in the high school classroom).Specifically, to the whole class, the middle school students stated their answers to the questions about the fable, while the high school students wrote their answers to the questions about the news.Although the two teachers missed one of the steps in the procedure of Numbered Heads Together, i.e., individual accountability in home groups, it appears that their students communicated with the text-they learned how the target language works in discourse (fable and news).In other words, their learning activities seem to be within CLT framework.

RoundRobin for Teaching Writing
When using RoundRobin to teach writing, students take turns stating responses or solutions (step #3) in written mode, going around the table to allow each student to contribute, which refers to another CL technique called RoundTable (Kagan & Kagan, 2009).RoundTable can be used for any stage of teaching writing.When used at the brainstorming stage, the teacher can, for example, ask questions around the day's topic, such as: "What do you know about…?"After thinking time, students take turns writing their answer on a piece of paper-performing individual accountability in groups.The teacher may ask them not to repeat their peers' answers.When used at the writing stage, teachers can, for example, ask students to write a problem or question they have in their writing process, including questions on vocabulary, tenses, or sentence structure (making meaning of the language being learned).Next, the teacher collects the papers containing the problems.The class can then use these problems for individual students' writing conference, next meeting's review, or for a whole-class discussion.
When RoundTable is used at the feedback providing stage, teachers can ask students to take turns writing their feedback on their group members' work-another form of individual accountability in groups.The focus of the feedback can be predetermined, depending on the needs of the class and/or the teaching content.When each group member finishes writing their feedback or comments, speaking activities may follow for the students to share what they learn from their peers' feedback on their writing.Astuti's (2016) teacher participant from the middle school, in one of the observed lessons, used RoundRobin for teaching speaking.She used this CL technique to get her students mention one fable title they knew.Although they did not do it in their home groups (individual accountability in home groups, recall the procedure of this technique earlier in this section), the middle school students mentioned one fable title for the rest of the class to hear, which is a form of individual accountability to the whole class.

Three Step Interview for Teaching Speaking and Listening
Using Three Step Interview for teaching speaking (e.g., teaching expressions for stating an opinion) might look like the following.After introducing the many ways of stating one's opinion, the teacher uses this CL technique for students to practice using the expressions.A list of topics is written on the board (e.g., pollution, deforestation, global warming).After all students in each group finish interviewing their peers' about their opinion on one topicindividual accountability in pairs (e.g.Question: "What do you think about…?"Answer: "In my opinion…") and reports what they learned in the interview (i.e., performing individual accountability in home groups, for example: "According to Monica …"), they move on to the next topic.The teacher moves around the room and encourages students to use different expressions for different topics (thus promoting student learning about how the language works in discourse) and to help each other to better state their opinions.In the teaching of speaking skills, listening activities are indeed involved.Through Three Step Interview, students listen to their peers' verbal production as they interview each other and as they listen to their peers' reports.Hence, they get exposed to different varieties of the target expressions (communicative functions).

Embedding the Teaching of Language Components
Literature suggests the use of inductive methods for teaching language components (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and tenses), which is in line with CLT because it promotes students' meaning making of the target language (Richards, 2002).Specifically, through examples and activities, learners identify the rules or patterns of the target language, and this demonstrates how they learn about how the target language works in discourse; a classroom activity that reflects the CLT approach (Holliday, 1994).In the use of the four CL techniques illustrated above, the teaching of language components can also be integrated.For example, in the use of 5WH questions and Fan-N-Pick for teaching reading, teachers can ask students to include questions on vocabulary used in the text, which is then discussed in groups or with the whole class.For example, teachers encourage students to ask questions such as: "What is the synonym of the word…used by the author in paragraph…line…?" or "What is the meaning of the word…in paragraph…line…?" Teachers can also focus on pronunciation in the use of Numbered Heads Together for teaching listening by asking students questions such as: "How does the announcer pronounce this word (showing or pointing to a word used in the announcement)?"In the use of RoundTable for teaching writing, teachers can ask students to check their peers' spelling and provide feedback when necessary before writing their comments on the area of writing determined by their teacher.Finally, when using the Three Step Interview for teaching speaking, especially during peer interaction, teachers can ask students to help each other in putting together their sentences and following correct grammar and tenses.
The above illustrations of CL techniques and how individual accountability is enacted in EFL instruction suggests that any CL technique be used for teaching any EFL content, i.e., for teaching any language skill or component.For example, in the first author's study, one EFL teacher participant used Numbered Heads Together for teaching speaking, specifically for her students to recall the details of the narrative text they read.The other EFL teacher participant used the same CL technique for teaching listening.She used Numbered Heads Together for her students to recall and write down news-related wordsa vocabulary building activity.
Notwithstanding the compatibility of any CL technique for teaching any language skill or component, the wider the repertoire of CL techniques a teacher has (including having an understanding of individual accountability activities in each technique), the better he or she can select what best suits their lesson objectives and their students' needs.For example, although Numbered Heads Together can be used for teaching any language skill and component, teachers whose students are new to CL need to consider choosing a CL technique that has one level of individual accountability and Numbered Heads Together is not one.RoundRobin is another example.Although this technique, as Numbered Heads Together and other CL techniques, can be used for teaching any language skill and component, it best fits speaking lessons because the procedure requires students to take turns to speak in their group and to the whole class.
In discussing means-end relationships and thus advocating that researchers differentiate CL techniques (i.e., categorizing them based on their purposes), Sharan (2002) proposes a tentative taxonomy, which groups CL techniques according to their most outstanding characteristics.We believe these three components of Sharan's taxonomy can guide teachers in choosing the right CL techniques for achieving particular purposes: 1) techniques for enhancing achievement and motivation (see Slavin, 1995); 2) techniques for enhancing social skills and interpersonal communications (see Johnson & Johnson, 1994); 3) techniques for enhancing intellectual accomplishment, intrinsic motivation and equal-status interaction (see Cohen & Lotan, 1997;Sharan & Sharan, 1992).
Referring to Sharan's (2002) taxonomy, we see that the CL techniques illustrated and described in this article (developed by Kagan & Kagan) fall under the category of the Structural Approach (recall the definition of the word structure), which can enhance learners' social skills and interpersonal communications.These purposes, as we have indicated earlier in this section, are in line with the tenets of CLT (Larsen-Freeman, 1986, 2012).EFL teachers may then include CL techniques under the Structural Approach in their working repertoire and refer to Sharan's taxonomy when they seek to achieve particular purposes.

POTENTIAL BARRIERS
The connection between the how and the what discussed in the previous section suggests that teachers need to master the procedure of the selected CL techniques and follow them to better facilitate their students' learning of the target language skill and/or language components and to eventually achieve the lesson objectives.The first author's study found that teachers' understanding of CL affects the enactment of individual accountability in CL (Astuti, 2016).Specifically, in some of the use of CL techniques in the studied EFL classrooms, individual accountability in home groups and peer interaction were missed.One of the identified consequences was that the individual EFL learners did not present or report what was assigned to them.This might have hampered the attainment of the lesson objectives and the goal of the EFL instruction because the learners missed the opportunity to use the target language, especially to talk about what they learned.In what follows, we describe such a situation using one of the above illustrations, i.e., the use of Numbered Heads Together for teaching listening.
We see that there are two levels of individual accountability in Numbered Heads Together: in groups and to the whole class.If students do not perform individual accountability in home groups, they will not share the answer, which they have thought about, to the questions given by their teacher.In other words, individual students do not have the opportunity to share with their peers what they learn from the announcement (the listening materials).The first author's study showed that since the EFL learners missed individual accountabil-ity in home groups, they also missed the opportunity to interact with their peers, i.e., having conversations with them to reach a consensus (group's answer) and teaching each other so that everyone could represent their group (Astuti, 2016).As a consequence, they performed their individual accountability to the whole class-by answering the given questions-without preparation or any help from their peers.This is not the kind of learning that CL emphasizes because students do not cooperate with their peers to make them stronger individual learners.
To avoid the aforementioned barriers, we recommend that teachers, especially those new to CL, first use CL techniques developed by CL experts exactly as described (Astuti & Lammers, 2017).Doing so will help them to recognize activities involved in individual accountability in CL and understand how these activities can contribute to their students' learning, including maximizing their participation and contribution.We also suggest that teachers new to CL look for relevant literature on the variety of CL techniques, their functions, procedures, as well as their activities of individual accountability so that these teachers will be able to make informed decisions when selecting ones that suit their lesson objectives and/or their class/students' needs.This supports Sharan (2002)'s recommendations for teachers that they need to choose CL techniques that are "most suited to the purpose they wish to achieve" (p.115).Unfortunately, little research has been done to map CL techniques, i.e., studies that reveal the connection of the how and the what, which is actually needed by new CL practitioners.Through this article, we attempt to address this gap in the literature.
For practitioners of CL, or teachers with experiences in using this teaching method, based on the first author's study (Astuti, 2016), we offer the following recommendation.If they, purposefully or in an impromptu manner, modify CL techniques by adding the feature of individual accountability to the whole class (such to RoundRobin or Fan-N-Pick), their students should first perform their individual accountability in their home groups and/or in other groups.Such arrangement prepares the students so that later they can better perform their individual accountability to the whole class.Students utilize each other as learning tools/resources if we arrange their presentation in home groups or in the other groups prior to their presentation to the whole class.More specifically, they become the audience of their peers' performances and feedback providers, working together to promote their own learning and the learning of their peers.

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
Learners being responsible for their own and their peers' learning is the underlying idea of individual accountability in CL.Learners actualize this responsibility by doing performance or presentation of their learning in front of their peers.This is basically the essence of CL.We believe that this article has illustrated how CL works, with special focus on individual accountability, and how this key CL principle appears to facilitate EFL learning.More specifically, we have demonstrated how the enactment of this CL principle can help teachers to facilitate the learning of the four language skills and components and to promote the learning of how the target language works in discourse.
Starting from an understanding that CLT emphasizes the use of target language and interaction among peers, we argue that individual accountability in CL (i.e., performance or presentation of what is being learned with their peers) promotes the use of English.The more learners do performances or presentations and interact with their peers to prepare for these performances, the more they use the target language (Astuti & Lammers, 2017).The more they use the target language, the closer they are to achieving their learning objectives, and, in turn, the goal of learning the language, i.e., learners' developed communicative competence (Richards, 2002).
The enactment of individual accountability in CL illustrated in this article also demonstrates that it can help teachers train their students on how CL works.When students know the required activities of individual accountability in CL and perform them, not only will they better learn through CL, but they will also benefit from it.Additionally, we believe that our illustrations have shown that knowing the activities involved in individual accountability in various CL techniques helps them make informed decisions on which techniques can best meet their students' learning objectives.
With the goal of developing language learners' communicative competence, CLT primarily focuses on helping language learners use or communicate in the target language in their interaction with their peers and accommodating these learners to make sense of the target language.In foreign language learning, including in EFL contexts, getting learners to communicate in the target language with their peers remains challenging for some teachers.With its required individual students' presentation or performance and structured peer interaction (i.e., activities of individual accountability), which breed communica-tion and interaction in and about the target language, CL can help teachers make their EFL instruction more CLT-oriented.