Project Pedagogy

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Project Pedagogy
The Competency-Based Approach to Language Teaching has appeared to nuance the active role (or autonomy) of the learner right after the Communicative Approach to Language Teaching, which did not lay clearly the basis for a role distribution. The project is linked to CBALT. However, its methodology is not easy to apply and the distributions of roles not always made clear (the initiative and the managing is the part of the learner, while monitoring is the teacher’s lot). Nevertheless, one can assume that a very methodical approach to the project work can help both learners and teachers reach their goals and objectives.

DEFINITION
In ELT a project work is an activity that focuses on a task or activity which usually requires an extended amount of independent work done either by an individual pupil or a group of pupils. Much of this work takes place outside the classroom.

The application of the project in ELT or EFL facilitates language learning by setting tasks that require students to make decisions and work mostly on their own. Students collect information from a variety of sources and by collecting and analysing their data, they produce a research work that should be given back at the end of a unit or a chapter to show that the students have learnt information and that they can use it

ADVANTAGES OF GROUP WORK
Small groups working together may produce worthwhile projects. It provides the opportunity for students to learn together while sharing views, problems, and respecting each other’s feelings. The teacher then should support either the individual or the group and let them choose the ones they feel most comfortable with.

In a group effort, all the participants need to contribute to something. They may work together on a single activity or they may decide to subdivide the project into learning tasks assigned to each member of the group.

Below is a partial list of activities teachers may assign to group members:

- Collecting information, facts and pictures.

- Drawing or painting.

- Drawing maps, diagrams and tables.

- Writing poems and acrostics.

- Completing lists.

- Responding to questions and interviewing.

- Writing and telling stories.

- Developing questionnaires.

- Keeping a diary.

- Experimenting.

- Role-playing.

- Writing invitations, recipes.

- Setting rules and regulations.

HOW SHOULD GROUPS BE FORMED?
Most experts on collaborative learning suggest that teacher –selected groups are best, at least until when the pupils become competent at collaboration. Teacher- selected groups aim to achieve a heterogeneous mix which consists of various people different from one another. Such a mix promotes peer tutoring, and helps to break down barriers. The teacher may select randomly to form the groups and this way of grouping is quick and easy and conveys the idea that one can work with anyone. It is up to the teacher to use any way to randomise the group. Here are some suggestions:

- Take the number of pupils in class, divide by the number of pupils you want per group.

- Take some cards of animals, or plants, or countries and so on…Then all the animals would find each other and form a group.

When pupils become good at cooperative group work, they can group themselves by interests for self directed projects

THE PROJECT PURPOSES

Its purposes are:

- to help pupils work with the teacher in formulating objectives.

- to develop techniques to carry out independent work.(It is an approach in which indirect teaching is employed)

- to review all the main points of the unit

- to produce anything they are assigned

- to raise the students’ awareness about their own learning process by examining and categorising the different types of tasks.

- to increase their sense of responsibility towards their mates.

- to recycle what they have learnt previously in a creative way.

- to promote real learning.

- to employ a variety of instructional modes by doing independent study, cooperative learning, brainstorming, role-playing, discovery learning, and discussion.

- to give the students the satisfaction of seeing a tangible product which they have produced.

METHODOLOGY
The project work is a task that promotes (as said before) indirect teaching and second, it is a method of teaching in itself. Every project is the result of coordinated actions and activities undertaken by a student or a group of students. These activities are organised into a process which consist of the following stages: 1) preparation- 2) planning - 3) research - 4) conclusion or results – 5) presentation - 6) evaluation

1) Preparation: the teacher introduces the project work and motivates the students. The students have the chance to discuss with their teacher and ask for more information.

2) Planning:it is the next stage. At this point the pupils’ decisions are confirmed by the teacher, and planning starts on the various aspects of the process such as identifying the sources, determining the mode for collecting information, deciding on the technique to present the project, and assigning individual tasks.

3) Research:This stage is central to the project work. Pupils, individually or in groups, collect materials and information from books, journals, libraries, maps, resource persons (experienced people). At this stage some useful tools can be used such as interviews, observations and questionnaires

a- Interviewsrefer to the collection of information from individuals whom students consider as experts on a subject. They are asked to conduct interviews. They have to prepare their questions in advance and if necessary, tape the entire conversation.

b- Observations: the pupils observe certain events or interactions that they record.

c- Questionnaires:pupils prepare the questionnaires and distribute them to people for a response. It could be written in the native language (if necessary) but the results must be presented in English.

4) Conclusions or results: After the students have gone through all these stages they are ready to present their work. to the teacher and the entire class.

5) Presentation:The following are suggested models or examples of presentation: oral reports, oral reports accompanied with illustrations and pictures, or written reports.

(6) Evaluation: During this stage, the teacher will consider the student effort, creativity, use of sources, and presentation. Of course, it is not the product or the research findings that count here, but the interaction of the pupils to complete the assignment.

Head of the Forum

LOYALTY wrote:

First, how many topics are you going to assign for ten groups of four each? second, how many sessions are going to spend for the projects presentations? ( and the question is addressed to all my broters and sisters in the forum)...Thank you all.

That's right Mr. LOYALTY
It's better to create a poll in this post so as to know better our opinion towards this question.

Active Member

Thank you Dearest sister NOR for your interesting suggestion .May Allah protect you.Always wise as we all know you .Let me please invite each brother and sister here to let us know about their experience so that everyone benefits and we are all here to learn.

Head of the Forum

Thank you Mr.LOYALTY for the invitation

Waiting for our colleagues' precious opinions

Site Reviewer

Thank you Mrs. NOR for the idea

I have already voted at the top of the post

Active Member

Thank you sister NOR for the interesting idea and the results are really interesting to share diffeent points of view.May Allah protect you for your forum family and for your daughter. I wish to seethe arrguments of the others for their choices.

Active Member

On my behalf , I vote for the first choice ( 4 groups ) for I believe that this number is enough to be divided between the group members

Head of the Forum

6 per group ( 44 pps / 6 = 7 groups = 7 topics)

Thank you Sir

Active Member

Sorry DEAREST brother Solinet but there is no choice of 4 groups here in the vote but 4 per group and this means 11 groups. so I wonder how are you going to manage with this number of groups and in how many sessions are they going to present their projects!!! Thank you Dearest brother for you point of view.

Solinet wrote:: ADVANTAGES OF GROUP WORK
Small groups working together may produce worthwhile projects. It provides the opportunity for students to learn together while sharing views, problems, and respecting each other’s feelings. The teacher then should support either the individual or the group and let them choose the ones they feel most comfortable with.

I choose four pps per group for the reason of making learning collaborative more than an encouragement of laziness which may lead the teaching-learning process into a narrower concept of copy/paste information.

I always leave the freedom to members when choosing their group mates so as they feel at ease when working. This is mainly a psychological encouragement of group work while learning.
Don't you think this is a way we enhance language acquisition and help our children deepen their competency further?

Solinet wrote:: They may work together on a single activity or they may decide to subdivide the project into learning tasks assigned to each member of the group.

The project , for me , is not the only parameter to assess the learner's level. There might be other activities that can achieve that.
A group of learners discussing the theme they were assigned is a thing we do lack among our classes. Discussion , itself, is one of the many aims we can achieve through projects

Solinet wrote:: However, its methodology is not easy to apply and the distributions of roles not always made clear (the initiative and the managing is the part of the learner, while monitoring is the teacher’s lot). Nevertheless, one can assume that a very methodical approach to the project work can help both learners and teachers reach their goals and objectives.

This is what I always believe in when thinking of the project and its output. Much of the time, I find a great difficulty in apllying what I see right "methodologically", but this has never discouraged me to go on and reach my aims because ( as Mr. Solinet stated) : "the initiative and the managing is the part of the learner, while monitoring is the teacher’s lot"

Thank you dear colleagues for openeing this discussion
This is what makes the forum more prfessional than the others
Special thanks to Mrs. NOR

I vote for the first choice for the reasons stated above

You supported my conviction towards this topic. Thank you dear colleagues for this discussion

We always find difficulty especially when inviting pps to present their projects for reasons I don't understand

Head of the Forum

How many sessions are they going to present their projects?

This is the biggest question.

Active Member

Simply put, the session learners are expected to present their work is two sessions.
In other words, I always ask my students to write their own paragraphs ( short, simple and interesting ) better than copying and pasting long paragraphs ( long , complicated and boring ).
I devise ( and do inform my students ) a mark more than ten out of twenty on the project I find with the qualities listed above ( short, simple and interesting ) and the other ones is less than this group. This is to encourage group work and research

I see no difference in project assignment . The main dilemma is presentation itself. Are our learners capable of presenting their work in a given time using the evaluation parameters stated beneath?
Project Pedagogy - Page 2 Nice10

Active Member

It all depends on the linguistic and psychological factors already acquired by our learners. Isn't that called C.B.A mission?

As the U.S president ; Abraham Lincoln stated : "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe" .

May I know my colleagues' opinion towards this point?

Active Member

Thank you brother Solinet, I do agree entirely agree with you in what you said,but not "two sessions" for 11 groups .Impossible. sorry but let's be realistic and I want each colleague to tell me EXACTLY how long is your session substracting getting into the class, setting the pupils down ,then starting work: 45 or 40 minutes? so how many groups will you listen to out of 11 ?
It is not merely listening to the news on radio or TV but to our pupils then they are going to be asked some questions on their work and to be given comments

This is not a problem in the middle school. The projects we assign to pps are handed then a mark is given. That's it

Hosni wrote:: This is not a problem in the middle school. The projects we assign to pps are handed then a mark is given. That's it

It is because we encourage pps to copy and paste a work it is not theirs

Head of the Forum

Quote :: Thank you brother Solinet, I do agree entirely agree with you in what you said,but not "two sessions" for 11 groups .Impossible. sorry but let's be realistic and I want each colleague to tell me EXACTLY how long is your session substracting getting into the class, setting the pupils down ,then starting work: 45 or 40 minutes? so how many groups will you listen to out of 11 ? it is not listening

Quote :

many sessions are they going to present their projects?

This is the biggest question.

Quote :

As the U.S president ; Abraham Lincoln stated : "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe" .

scratch

The discussion is still open

Head of the Forum

I totally agree with you Mr.LOYALTY

Two sessions are not enough to listen to 11 groups, I said listen .How about discussing students' work ???

It's nothing especially if we know that the project is - as stated by Mr. Solinet - :

Quote :

Solinet wrote:: Simply put, the session learners are expected to present their work is two sessions.
In other words, I always ask my students to write their own paragraphs ( short, simple and interesting ) better than copying and pasting long paragraphs ( long , complicated and boring ).
I devise ( and do inform my students ) a mark more than ten out of twenty on the project I find with the qualities listed above ( short, simple and interesting ) and the other ones is less than this group. This is to encourage group work and research

I add to your idea , if you allow me to, that the project work is a task that promotes (as said before) indirect teaching and second, it is a method of teaching in itself.

Active Member

Thank you brother solinet for this interesting and beneficial discussion on this important topic and we are here all learners. first of all let me say that I really like you solinet as a dear brother that I respect since our first contact.second, I do agree with you that projects are a method of teaching as the PBA states.BUT sir, our pupils need to be taught how to collect information and how to analyse those data so that they know what to take and what to ignore according to what they were assigned. Consequently, they can rewrite these data using their own words and style.In addition to this they are going to be discussed on their work (as an integration situation) so that they learn how to defend their points of view and feel at ease before their classmates so that we will have a very interesting lesson whose scenario, actors , décor,production and presentation all dome by the pupils.This sir will take each group at least 15 minutes unlike the Middle School where they are taught how to copy, paste and print then hand their projects so that both parts ( teachers and pupils are losers teachers of their times and pupils of their times and money).SOOOOO brothers and sisters I stick to my question how can you pass 11 groups in two sessions ( of no more than 100 minutes together)??? I corrected projects this week, 6 groups in two sessions and each group was between 6 and 7 ppupils and about 15 minutes with discussions and being graded for everything collection of data,organisation of the project and and ... ( Isn't this a mere realistic point of view and if I am wrong please correct me I am learning)..Thank you all for your precious time you spent reding my point of view.

It's not a big problem Mr. LOYALTY. It can be 6 per group in order to win time and effort. I think four insufficint for the project presentation. It's what I do in my classes.

Sêcial thanks to all my colleagues here who are enriching the members' experience and work with their discussions and advice. MAy Allah bless you

Moderator

Thank you Mr. SOlinet, Mr. LOYALTY , Mrs. NOR and the others for the debate. I teach fisrt and third year and don't consider the number of students per group a real problem. I let students choose the group and the number of members per group themselves provided that they don't exceed six ( as it would be a crowd) and not one (as the task itself encourages group work not the individual one). The session I devise to project presentation is merely dependent on the learners' presentation and their work. In a word, three to four hours are the number of sessions I leave to learners for their project (or, as I call, audience)

Active Member

You are welcome brothers Fellague and Wallace, sure the nu,ber of groups is a problem but not in itself but on the time preserved for presentation that should be guided too that should not exceed 20 minutes, consequently you can not have more than 3 groups each session and 6 or 7 groups in two otherwise the presentation will merrely be a form of speeches giving sessions and nobody will benefit from those time and expenses consuming tasks.Finally everybody will feel frustrated.

Deactivated Member

well as Iam concerned I would like to say that i have tried hard ( so hard ) to apply this pedagogy but let me tell you dear colleagues with a 44 pupils in each class you can imagine the result ( a very big noise) nat to mention that in every class we will find at least three or four pupils get the idea of the given task i'm not a pessmitic teacher but this is the truth Sad

Active Member

Thank you OUFFA for the reply.

Active Member

Most of our troubles start by project presentation. Students don't have enough linguistic and psychological readiness to face their mates and present their work. It takes me a long time to "get rid of" projects and their hardship. I divide students into 6 per group due to time assignment and the courage learners find when working and finally presenting their work. Thanks to all colleagues who have replied and pointed out their opinion towards this topic.

Active Member

What's other colleagues' point of view towards this topic?