Project work in the language classroom Getxolinguae 2010 Keith Kelly

The plan for today… Definition of Project Student focus Resources Language, Skills, Concepts Products Follow up – networks

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English-German School, Plovdiv

Zh Class

Speed reaction test

Project work – defining what we mean At school and university, a project is a research assignment given to a student which generally requires a larger amount of effort and more independent work than is involved in a normal essay assignment. It requires students to undertake their own fact-finding and analysis, either from library/internet research or from gathering data empirically. The written report that comes from the project is usually in the form of a dissertation, which will contain sections on the project's inception, methods of inquiry, analysis, findings and conclusions. (Answers.com) fun student-focused curriculum-focused integrated skills structured and product-led (KK)

Project work - Curriculum Locate the curriculum guidelines for subjects you are interested in UK National Curriculum: Guidelines, resources, samples of work Example - What goes on in Science?

Exploring content resources

Your own GM person Create … … and present

The language of heredity Describing facial features S/He has / has got Her/His … is/are … (brown, green, blue, blond, red, grey) (round, thin, fat, long, short, flat, curly, straight, spiky, wavy) Naming parts of the face Eyes, nose, ears, earlobes, eyebrows, hair, chin, cheeks Describing inherited characteristics He gets his … from his … She gets her … from her … He looks like his … She looks like her … He takes after his … with his She takes after her … with her He has inherited his mothers … She has inherited her mothers …

Curriculum area?

Curriculum area?

Project work - Resources Science Across the World a) a bank of resources for general Science projects b) a database of contacts for carrying out a curriculum exchange project with a school in another country, c) an internet-based and ICT focus to learning. Example – What did you eat?

Ice Cream Consumption in Europe Who eats the most?

Food and drink diary

Project work - Skills - research work - dealing with data (gathering, presenting) - presentation work Example - Heredity Hair colour, eye colour, skin colour, height, ear lobes, mid finger hair, tongue rolling

Let's Launch a Rocket Content projects for language learning Design Build Test Observe Present

Observe and present

Whats going on here…?

Creating cosmetics

Other Product projects 24 paper airplanes to create and fly Bridge building challenges School partnership projects Chemistry as a Cultural Enterprise

Conclusions and getting started 1) Explore the content curriculum: - resources - skills - the language 2) Identify an appealing aspect of this context for you and students - a skill - PPTs - a grammar area - passive voice - general academic language for the content curriculum - economy 3) Offer a focus in your language lesson (large or small).

References Forum for Across the Curriculum Teaching Young learners and teens group onestopclil discussion forum Gibbons, P (2002) Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning, Heinemann Science across the world Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, UK National Curriculum Website