Project work is becoming an increasingly popular feature within the ELT classroom. Common projects are class magazines, group wall displays about students' countries and designs for cities of the future.
A project involves students in deciding together what they want to do to complete a project whilst the teacher plays a more supporting role.
- Some advantages
- Planning the project
- Some possible drawbacks
- Example projects
- References
Some advantages of project work are:
- Increased motivation - learners become personally involved in the project.
- All four skills, reading, writing, listening and speaking are integrated.
- Autonomous learning is promoted as learners become more responsible for their own learning.
- There are learning outcomes -learners have an end product.
- Authentic tasks and therefore the language input are more authentic.
- Interpersonal relations are developed through working as a group.
- Content and methodology can be decided between the learners and the teacher and within the group themselves so it is more learner centred.
- Learners often get help from parents for project work thus involving the parent more in the child's learning. If the project is also displayed parents can see it at open days or when they pick the child up from the school.
- A break from routine and the chance to do something different.
- A context is established which balances the need for fluency and accuracy. Haines (1989)
