Photocopy-free projects that work in class Jon Wright

What is a project? Student-centred Has an end-product

Advantages Multi-level Exploited in various ways Develop all 4 skills Creates opportunities for Ss to contribute Collaborative process, and Ss take responsibility ‘Stimulating break from routine’ Fried-Booth, D Project Work. Oxford: OUP Teaches language and content Beckett, G. and Slater, T ‘The project framework: a tool for language, content, and skills integration.’ ELTJ 59/2 108 – 116.

Example project areas Media (make school magazine, radio programme, newspaper, etc) Culture (only mugs do drugs, holidays and festivals, how green are you, etc) Trips (plan a trip, zoo visit, etc) Local (wheelchair guide, food and drink labels worldwide, visit your teacher’s house, etc) Classroom (dub a video clip, quiz contest, famous foreign cities, etc)

Other (mainstream) projects Concordancing Webquests School exchanges Presentations Drama Team teaching Organising events Out of class interviews

But... Time-consuming Often not valued by students – little awareness of learning goals (‘fewer than one fifth of the 73 participants enjoyed... or were in favour of project-based instruction’ Beckett and Slater 2005: 109) Teachers are unsure of their roles and responsibilities – or overwhelmed ( ‘a high level of pre-planning and co-ordination’ Carter, G. and Thomas, H ‘‘Dear Brown Eyes’: Experiential learning in a project-oriented approach,’ ELTJ 40/ ) The language level can be undemanding

And... Not all participate equally How to fit them in busy timetables? Loss of interest Problem solving can become problem avoiding Parallel groupwork means not all benefit from all Plus it could call into question the methodology used to present the language the project recycles/extends

Mini projects 1 Stage 1 In groups, think of ‘the problems I have solved so far today.’ Find 9 examples.

Problem solving Stage 2 Report/share (to the whole class/to a neighbouring group).

Problem solving Stage 3 Rephrase: the same facts, but present in a different style.

Problem solving Stage 4 Which version is more interesting, normal, useful, etc?

Project management Identify the benefit Start to produce what will satisfy the need Enjoy the benefits Identify the benefit of this: Learn a list of 20 words/phrases chosen in the group.

List of 20 things You have 5 minutes to think of the list, and learn them. Check each person in the group can remember all 20. How did you do? What memory techniques helped?

Memory project Conversation club (30 mins weekly) Week 1 Tell me 3 things about yesterday Week 2 Tell me 10 things about yesterday Next week I’m going to ask you to tell me 20 things about yesterday

Something about me Stage 1 Choose who will start, who is second, etc The first person has 1 minute to say 4 things about themselves. Feel free to ask person 1 any questions you like after their mini presentation.

Something about me, too Stage 2 The group recalls what person 1 said. Person 2 has 1 minute to say 4 things about themselves, but not on the same topics or using the same verbs as person 1.

Something about me And so on... Variants for later speakers: Make comparisons between yourself and all previous speakers (Remember what... said about...? Well, I...) Include references to topics you know the others like Talk about the future etc

Vocab brainstorm Stage 1 Choose/elicit a topic to review/present Prompt/elicit from different groups the related elements of the central topic.

Vocab brainstorm Stage 2 Quick group recap of all the suggested vocab.

Vocab brainstorm Stage 3 Now put it all together.

Mini projects Within a lesson Summarise what we’ve done so far. What mistakes have been corrected? What new language has been covered? Who has said what? Evaluate the usefulness of the input so far. Say what you didn’t know before.

Mini projects Across a series of lessons A story in the news Something about me Country/culture/topic profile Something I saw that surprised me A song I’d like you to listen to A book/story/film that impressed me Recipe of the week

The advantages of photocopy-free work No competing demands (we’re not doing exercise 3) No hiding behind paper Role of listening Flexibility Student-centred Role of memory

Professional skills Problem solving Memory training Listening to others Working in a team Active participation Keenness to learn