Project work is
becoming an increasingly popular feature within the ELT classroom. Common
projects are class magazines, group wall displays about students' countries and
designs for cities of the future. A project involves students in deciding
together what they want to do to complete a project whilst the teacher plays a
more supporting role.
Some advantages of project work are:
- Increased motivation - learners become personally involved in the
project.
- All four skills, reading, writing, listening and speaking are
integrated.
- Autonomous learning is promoted as learners become more responsible
for their own learning.
- There are learning outcomes -learners have an end product.
- Authentic tasks and therefore the language input are more
authentic.
- Interpersonal relations are developed through working as a group.
- Content and methodology can be decided between the learners and the
teacher and within the group themselves so it is more learner centred.
- Learners often get help from parents for project work thus involving the parent more
in the child's learning. If the project is also displayed parents can see
it at open days or when they pick the child up from the school.
- A break from routine and the chance to do something different.
- A context is established which balances the need for fluency and accuracy.
Haines
(1989)
Planning the project
- Opening
To give learners an idea of what projects are and what they should be
aiming to produce, it is good to have examples of past projects: a photocopy
of a previous group newspaper or a photograph of a wall display.
- Proposing
After explaining the idea behind the project I ask learners to propose a
scheme of work:
- What they want to include in the project
- What form it
will take
- Who will be responsible for what
- An idea of the time it will take to produce each
part of the project
- Any material or resources they might need
I would then sit down with each group for 10 minutes to discuss their proposals
(a copy of which both I and the learner would keep to refer to as the project
develops). At this point the evaluation procedures would also be explained.
- Time
Allocate an agreed amount of time for the project. For a summer 60 hour
course of 3 hours a day I would dedicate 5 hours to project work so
approx. 6 sessions of 45 minutes each with a round up session at the end.
I would also have the sessions on the same day each week - Wednesday, and
Friday, for example, so learners know to bring materials to class on that
day.
- Space
Show the learners the space they will have for the project, it could be
wall space or a corner of the classroom, so they have some idea how much
material they should produce and can plan the layout.
- Materials and resources
Provide the learners with materials they might need: card, scissors glue,
paper etc. It is fairly common now for learners to want to use the
Internet to find information for their projects. Encourage a keen student
with Internet to do this at home! If there is time and Internet available
in the school make sure the students have informed you of exactly what
they're looking for - photos- or that they have prepared a list of
information they want to find. Simply giving the learners time on the
computers can lead to them aimlessly surfing the net. If the facility is
available learners often like to write finished drafts of their work on
the computer.
- Presentation
Projects need to be seen, read and admired so schedule the last project
session as a presentation. Ask the group to prepare a task for the others
in the class to do connected to the project: it could be a quiz with
questions for a wall display, a crossword using vocabulary for the project
or comprehension questions for a video that learners have made.
- Evaluation
As with any piece of work a project needs to be acknowledged and
evaluated. It's not enough to just say 'that's great' after all the work
learners have put in. I use a simple project evaluation report, which
comments on aspects of the project such as content, design, language work
and also evaluates the oral presentation stage of the project.
Some possible drawbacks to project work
- Learners using their own
language
If the class are monolingual they may use their L1 a lot (it often happens
anyway in YL classes) so you should decide whether the benefits of doing
project work outweigh this factor.
- Some learners doing nothing
By giving more freedom to the learners you may also be giving them the
freedom to do nothing! If the project is planned carefully and roles
decided at the proposal stage this is less likely to happen.
- Groups working at different
speeds
One group may have 'finished' the project after a couple of hours and say
they have nothing to do. Remind them it is their responsibility to fill
the time allocated to project work and discuss ways they could extend the
work they have already completed.
Examples of project work
- A project based on readers
At a summer school I worked in learners were encouraged to have a reader
during the month course.
This is not always a popular requirement so I decided to have the learners
use the readers in a way they might find motivating.
- First I chose 4 different readers that had also
been made into films - The Full Monty, The Client, Dracula, Mosquito Coast.
Each
group were given copies of their reader.
- The learners were then given free rein to do
whatever they liked as long as it was somehow connected to the reader.
- Examples of the work produced were:
- Summaries of
the story.
- Crosswords / word searches of vocabulary from
the story.
- Reviews of the
book.
- Information found about the history of Dracula.
- Filmed scene from the book.
- Presentation of a clip from the film of the
book compared to a scene in the book.
- Biographies and photos of actors from the film.
- Music Project
If your class loves songs this could be a motivating
project.
- Make a CD
Cover.
- Invent the band and the names and biographies of
the band members.
- Video an interview with the band.
- Record a song. (Students often borrowed the
music and wrote their own lyrics)
- Write gig
reviews.
- Photo shoot of the band.
- Design a poster advertising gigs.
There are also many other ideas but I hope
this shows the variety of work which can be produced.
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