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★ INTEGRATING PROJECTS INTO TEENAGE CLASSES

(https://newroutes.com.br/author/leticia-moraes/) By Leticia Moraes (https://newroutes.com.br/author/leticia-moraes/)

The idea of using project-work with teenagers is not new and

it seems it will be around for a while. This popularity did not come by
accident; after all, projects
have a number of benefits for the learning
process and for the development of the teenager as a whole. Some of these
advantages, as described by Bohlke
(2014), are that projects:

Favour the Integration of skills in a natural

way;
Encourage creativity and collaboration among learners;
Foster responsibility and discipline;
Encourage the development of research and information-gathering
skills;
Are suitable for cross-curricular work.

Besides that, project-work can also be a powerful ally to encourage

reflection and critical thinking, as well as raise learners’ awareness of
cultural diversity
(Moraes, 2017). From my experience, I have also noticed that
the completion of a project may foster learners’ sense of achievement, and its
outcome
represents concrete evidence of learning, which may help parents
understand better the work done in the classroom.

We cannot neglect, however, that the implementation of project

work may also be quite challenging for the teacher. As Bohlke (2014) describes,
projects:

can be time-consuming;
depend on access to authentic material;
depend on receptiveness of participants;
demand planning and management skills from teachers.

Apart from that, since different schools and language institutes have different procedures, teaching beliefs and syllabus to be followed, the teaching context
itself may raise different issues related to the successful implementation ofprojects.

Of course, these challenges do not mean we have to ditch the

idea of working with projects. On the contrary, identifying potential problems
is the first step to
deal with them. You will find below some ideas to deal
with these challenges and use the flexibility of projects to overcome them.

Guide learners in the

process

Project work is an invaluable opportunity to go beyond language

learning and foster the development of 21st century skills, such as critical
thinking,
information literacy, social skills and collaboration (P21
Partnership for 21st Century Learning, 2015). However, just putting teenagers
in a situation where
they would need these kinds of skills may not be enough to
actually develop them. Students need guidance. Therefore, although project work
is essentially
student-centered, teachers have a vital role in the background
so as to help learners to:

find and select reliable information;

reflect critically about the content of their
project;
 plan;
get organized; 

interact with their peers in a collaborative

way.

Teachers are essential to guide learners during the project,

so that they benefit from it and learning can happen.

Plan ahead

As obvious as it may seem, we cannot take planning for granted.

This is key to the success of a project. If this is done thoroughly, many of
the challenges
mentioned above can be minimised. From my experience, here are
some questions that can be helpful when planning for this kind of work:

Topic: How current and relevant is it for my learners? Is it engaging for their
profile?
Outcome: What is going to be the final product of this project? What will be done with
it after it is ready (e.g. exhibition, presentation to other groups/
classes,
sent to parents)?
Model: Do I have a model of the outcome to show to my students? Will I show an example
from a former student? Will I show them an authentic
sample? Will I construct a
model with them step by step?
Access: Do my students have access to the material and information they need to do this
project? If not, can I provide them with this information/
material? How can I
adapt the original idea so as to cater for my learners’ profile and access to information/
material?
Length: How many lessons will learners need to complete the project? How much time of
each lesson will they need?
Interaction: Are students going to work in groups? Pairs? Individually? If it is in groups
or pairs, how are these going to be defined? If the work is going
to be
individual, how will interaction among learners be encouraged?
When and
where: When and where are learners going to do the research and production
of the project? In class? In the computer lab during the lesson?
As homework? A
combination of these?
Language: What kind of language will my learners need? Will they need to revisit any
aspect of the expected language? Will they need to learn anything
new? How will
I cater for emergente language needs?
Steps: How am I going to organise the project in steps? How am I going to communicate
these steps to learners?
Assessment: How is the project going to be assessed? Is it going to be part of learners’
formal assessment? How are the assessment criteria going to
be communicated to
students? Decisions regarding assessment, however, can be quite complex, thus
deserving to be looked into in a bit more detail.

Use projects as an
assessment tool

As I mentioned above, how the project is going to be assessed

is an important part of planning but this may be a multifaceted issue depending
on the
teaching context and beliefs regarding assessment.

To start with, grading projects may be a challenge itself.

As Pinter (2006) explains “it is very difficult to assign grades to project
work because of the need to
acknowledge both individual work and group effort”.
Other questions that may also arise when thinking of grading a project are with
regard to what exactly is
going to be taken into account when assigning it a
grade. The final outcome? The process as a whole? The quality of the research
made? Only linguistic
aspects? Students’ interaction?

Because of that, many times projects are used as a tool for informal
formative assessment, helping teachers gather information about learners’
development
and informing them of areas that would need more attention. In this
case, the formal grade would come from other assessment tools, such as tests.

From my experience, however, teenage learners and their parents

are usually concerned about grades and tend to expect to see the effort they put
in their
projects converted into a number. Many times, this happens because
students and parents see grading as a synonym of assessment. Thus, no grading
means no assessment. What can we do then? We can either start working on
raising their awareness of the fact that informal assessment can contribute to
learning, or include projects into the grading system.

Grading or not grading seems to be the first big decision regarding

the assessment of projects. Once this is made, it is important to define which
elements
are going to be considered during the assessment.

A practical idea that can help us assess and grade projects is

to break it in smaller parts. After all, projects are complex activities which
involve a series of
steps (McKay, 2005). Thus, depending of the project and on
the focus of the work, we can assess, for example:

Quality and breadth of the research

Selection of information
Oral production during the making of the project
Written production
Oral production during the final presentation
Creativity and originality
Team work
Task achievement
These may have different weights in the composition of the grade
for the project depending on the teaching contexto and the established grading
system.

As I mentioned before, the decisions regarding assessment are
not that simple, but it is essential to make them at the beginning of the
process. Besides, it is
also important that learners are aware of the
assessment criteria from start, even if you choose to assess the project
informally not assigning it specific
grades. This kind of communication is
necessary to align expectations, thus contributing to students’ engagement and
avoiding frustration.

Besides that, it is important to give learners clear feedback

on their work so that they understand their current performance and their
grade, or what they need
to do in order to have a good result in the formal
assessment.

Use the flexibility

of projects in your favour

Projects can be dealt with in very different ways, which can

favour their adaptation to a variety of teaching contexts. Thus, they can vary
in terms of structure
and their level of integration with the course. In this
regard, as Stroller (2005) explains, we can classify projects as structured, semi-structured
and
unstructured.

Structured projects: in this kind of project, teachers define all the characteristics of the project. Thus, the topic, outcome and expected language are
predefined and presented to learners. The result of the project is very similar among learners in terms of topic, outcome and language. The diferences
will lie mostly in the quality of the work done.
Semi-structured projects: here, although there are some elements that are pre-defined, students can decide how they are going to deal with some
aspects of the project. They can, for example, choose the format of the outcome (poster, podcast, video, blog post, presentation, etc.). Similarly, the
project may have a pre-defined objective and outcome, but students may have freedom to decide which topic they want to talk about. Thus, there is
more variety in terms of the result of the project, as different students may focus on different topics, use different language, or come up with different
formats for the outcome.
Unstructured projects: the project here is totally defined by learners, from its topic to its outcome and how it is going to be shared with the learning
community. Besides, the language work done emerges totally from the choices made by learners.

It is possible to notice that structured projects are much more

controlled and, consequently, easier to plan and manage. They may also be
interesting in
contexts where project work is a novelty, for example.
Unstructured projects, on the other hand, are highly personalised and allow
more room for addressing
learners’ specific needs and interests, which may
favour students’ engagement and lead to more meaningful learning.

The level of syllabus flexibility of the teaching context

can influence the choice of how structured the project is going to be. Thus, if
what has to be covered
during the term is pre-determined, you can opt for using
it as your starting point, analysing the content of the course and then
devising a project that would
make it possible for you to cover all these
aspects. If the syllabus is more flexible, the concept of the project may also
be more open to negotiation.

Here are four examples of how different projects with different

degrees of flexibility and structure can emerge from reading the same text:

1. Structured: after working with a text about a deaf student and CAN for abilities, learners
are told they are going to produce a poster about deaf children,
what they need
and how we can help them. Students are encouraged to use the language they have
just studied.
2. Semi-structured: after working with a text about a deaf student and CAN for abilities, students produce
a poster about a disability/ special need of their
choice. Students are
encouraged to use the language they have just studied, but there is room for
emergent language related to the special need they
choose.
3. Semi-structured: after working with a text about a deaf student and CAN for abilities, students
decide on the best way to share information about what
deaf children need and
how to help them. Students are encouraged to use the language they have just studied,
and, depending on how they decide to
share the information, there is room for
work on the features of genre.
4. Unstructured: after reading a text about a blind student and talking about this topic,
students decide to investigate it in more details. Thus, they discuss
ways of
sharing information about disabilities and the disability(ies) they want to focus
on. They also decide on a final product.

As you can see, project-work is flexible enough to allow teachers

in different contexts to integrate them into their lessons. Besides, depending
on the
teacher’s experience and the needs of specific groups of teenage
learners, it can be used in different ways to foster learning.

References:

Bohlke, D. 2014. Fluency-Oriented Second Language Teaching in

Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D. M. & Snow, M.A. (eds.) Teaching English as a
Second and
Foreign Language. Heinle Cengage Learning (121-134).

McKay, P. (2005) Assessing Young Language Learners. Cambridge

University Press: 163-164

Moraes, L. 2017. Developing lower secondary learners’ awareness

of cultural diversity through projects. TEYLT Worldwide, Issue 1, 2017 (48-49)

P21 Partnership for 21st Century Learning. 2015. P21 Framework

Definitions.
http://www.p21.org/storage/documents/docs/P21_Framework_Definitions_New_Logo_2015.pdf.
Pinter, A. (2006) Teaching Young Language Learners. Oxford: 139-140

Stroller, F. L. 2005. Project Work: A Means to Promote Language
and Content. In Richards, C. & Renandya, W. A. Methodology In Language
Teaching – An
Anthology of Current Practice (107-19).

The author

Leticia Moraes is an Academic Coordinator at Cultura Inglesa São Paulo. Currently, she is also Joint Events Coordinator of the IATEFL YLTSIG. Leticia has taught
English for more than 15 years, has been involved in teacher training and course development, is a Delta, ICELT and Anaheim TESOL Certificate holder.

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