www.factworld.info
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 ([email protected])
Project work – defining what we mean‘At school and university, a project is a research assignment given to a studentwhich generally requires a larger amount of effort and more independent workthan is involved in a normal essay assignment. It requires students toundertake their own fact-finding and analysis, either from library/internetresearch or from gathering data empirically. The written report that comes fromthe project is usually in the form of a dissertation, which will contain sections onthe 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?
Curriculum area?
Project work - ResourcesScience 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?
Project work - Skills
- research work
- dealing with data (gathering, presenting)
- presentation work
Example - HeredityHair colour, eye colour, skin colour, height, ear lobes, mid finger hair, tongue rolling
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).
Discount
References Forum for Across the Curriculum Teaching
www.factworld.info [email protected]
Young learners and teens group [email protected], onestopclil discussion forum
www.onestopclil.com/forum_board.asp?catid=80
Gibbons, P (2002) Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning, Heinemann
Science across the world www.scienceacross.org Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council,
www.bbsrc.ac.uk UK National Curriculum Website http://curriculum.qca.org.uk/