Project work
статья по английскому языку по теме

Project work

Project work is not a new methodology. Its benefits have been widely recognized for many years in the teaching of subjects like Science, Geography, History, and English. Some teachers have also been doing project work in their language lessons for a long time, but for others it is a new way of working. Projects allow students to use their imagination and the information they contain does not always have to factual.

Language learning involves learners getting engaged with the language. We need to give opportunities to children to work with language. Children should read, think about the ideas of the text, understand the meaning of the words, associated them with ideas and other words, notice the form of the structures. This engagement with language makes internalize meaning of words and structures.

Successful language learning can be achieved when students have the opportunity to receive instruction and the same time, experience real-life situation in which they can acquire the language other than the mother tongue is a parth towards intercultural development. Project work could be used as an effective strategy to promote collaborative ways of language learning where learners in groups work together to do an activity or a task for some period. When learners work together on a particular idea / topic, they collect information ideas use language in real life situations, exсhange views and debate on ideas, write the ideas into a report, edit their writing and produce the report in a suitable form.

    A project is an extended task which usually integrates language skills work through a number of activities. These activities involve working towards an agreed goal and may include planning, the gathering of information through reading, listening, interviewing, discussion and processing of the information, problem solving, oral or written reporting and display. At the school level, project work encourages imagination and creativity, self-discipline and responsibility, collaboration, research and study skills.

  What benefits does project work bring to the language class? Pupils don/t feel that English is a chore, but it is a means of communication and enjoyment. They can experiment with the language as something real, not as something that only appears in books.

Projects involved

1. Collecting information
2. Drawing pictures, mars, diagrams, chats
3. Cutting out pictures
4. Arranging texts and visuals
5. Coloring
6. Presenting information in poster format
7. Preparing Power Point presentations
8. Giving presentations

Using all this information and the children’s book "Scampering through Savannah", I would try to create a chapbook called Scampering through Zapoliarny. First I would have to talk to my pupils about what raccoons are and what they do. We would discuss which local sites to include during a visit. I would divide the class into groups and have them work on finding some basic information about each site. In this project students have the opportunity to use the knowledge they have gained about our town. In our town there are four schools, a hospital, a Palace of Culture, two Palaces of Sport. Also there is a hotel with restaurant "Pechenga". The main role in the life of our town plays the plant “Pechenganickel”. Our raccoons can visit disco “Youth” and also several small bars, such as “Gulfstream”, “Storm”. They can visit the Palace of Culture “October”, the Palaces of Sports “Dolphin” and “Builder”.

Working on this project, students have an opportunity to practice and learn English language and the same time they gain a lot of information and develop various important skills. Connections between the foreign language and the learners own world are likely to prove successful. The material in the project provides useful translation activities. In this project the students can interview people in their native language but report their findings in English. People are naturally curious about each other, about life and lifestyle in their own town or in different countries. This aspect is likely to prove successful.

The disadvantage of such project is the noise which is made during the class, also it is a time-consuming and the students can use their mother tongue too much, the weaker students can be lost.

Nevertheless I think this project would be useful for my students. I would do it with my pupils. It is interesting; it increases motivation when learners become personally involved in the project. This project can help to develop all four skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking. Learners become more responsible for their own learning.

In my opinion my pupils will be interesting to create the project about   some beautiful and famous place not only in Russia. It is always good to discover new things, different ways of life, to meet different people, to try different food. In big cities there are museums, art galleries, famous monuments, big shops, exotic restaurants. In the country there are mountains, lakes, valleys, plains, waterfalls, different kinds of trees, flowers and plants, animals and birds. Some of the pupils have the opportunity to travel to a foreign country. Thanks to their project work they will know more about the places of interest, where they can go, what national dishes they can try.

But some pupils may be self-conscious and reluctant to speak in front of the whole class, so when they are in a group, they may feel secure in the English class, so such work is positive and encouraging. Scampering through Kirkenes or other town encourages group writing. Writing in group in this project will be stimulating, motivating and simply good fun for pupils. You see that after writing in groups, most pupils are inspired to write in English on their own. At the same time, what they learn from the experience of group writing from the project will help them to become better individual writers, which is one of the most important reasons why time should be spent on such activities in class. Being part of a group is also to give weaker writers a sense of security.

 When the emphasis is on communication, it is important to avoid correcting mistakes, which should be left to times when the emphasis is on accuracy. One of the aims of a language teacher during the project work is to help pupils to express themselves accurately in oral and written language.

We meet two raccoons who, visiting the picturesque American city of Savannah, make their way from one touristy place of note to the next. This project uses a game. Games are challenging and motivating activities in which learners use language more free to achieve an aim. I think pupils can get engaged in such activities that they will forget they are using a foreign language. Many things of this project create relaxed atmosphere and the effect on the learners will be highly motivating.

I think it is necessary to use different pictures in the project. Both large and small pictures are excellent tools for vocabulary practice involving the whole class or groups.

Scampering through Kirkenes or Zapoliarny allows pupils to focus on topics and areas that interest them, provides them with practice in discovering and using different materials, gives them the opportunity to work together with other pupils and provides them with valuable training in presenting their work orally and in writing. Here pupils work more on their own and decide what it is important to focus on. We know that the necessary presentation skills to communicate one’s finings to somebody else, in written, pictorial or oral form, are an important part of project work. In our imaginary project this idea takes place. And I think it will be stimulate and motivate to present the results their work to others.