A Trainee-centered approach in teaching a foreign language

       Project approach captures better than any other activity the two principal elements of communicative approach. These are:

       - a concern for motivation, that is, how the learners relate to the task;

       - a concern for relevance, that is, how the learners relate to the language;

       - a concern for educational values, that is, how the language curriculum relates to the general educational development of the learner.

       Let’s look at these in a bit more detail.

       a) Motivation. Positive motivation is the key to successful language learning, and project work is particularly useful as a means of generating this. If you talk to teachers who do project work in their classes, you will find that this is the feature that is always mentioned: the students really enjoy it. But why is project work so motivating?

       The first and most important reason has already been mentioned, it is personality. Project work is very personal. There is nothing simulated about a project. The students are writing about their own lives: their house, their family, their town, their dreams and fantasies, their own research into topics that interest them. What could be more motivating, particularly to the young learner? And because it is such a personal experience, the meaning and the presentation of the project are important to the learners. They will thus put a lot of effort into getting it right.

       Secondly, project work is a very active medium. It is a kind of structured playing. Students aren’t just receiving and producing words, they are:

       - collecting information

       - drawing pictures, maps, diagrams, and charts

       - cutting out pictures

       - arranging texts and visuals

       - colouring

       - carrying out interviews and surveys

       - possibly making recordings, too

       Project work is learning through doing.

       Lastly, project work gives a clear sense of achievement. It enables all students to produce a worthwhile product. There is feedback from the students as they realize what they can do with the English they have learned.

       This feature of project work makes it particularly well suited to the mixed ability class, because students can work at their own pace and level. The brighter students can show what they know, unconstrained by the syllabus, while at the same time the slower learners can achieve something that they can take pride in, perhaps compensating for their lower language level by using more photos and drawings.

       b) Relevance. A foreign language can often seem a remote and unreal thing. This inevitably has a negative effect on motivation, because the students don’t see the language as relevant to their own lives. If learners are going to become real language users, they must learn that English is not only used for talking about things British or American, but can be used to talk about their own world. Project work helps to bridge this relevance gap.

       Firstly, project work helps to integrate the foreign language into the network of the learner’s own communicative competence. As this diagram shows, project work creates connections between the foreign language and the learner’s own world. It encourages the use of a wide range of communicative skills, enables learners to exploit other spheres of knowledge, and provides opportunities for them to write about the things that are important in their own lives.

       This last point raises a very important issue in language teaching: the relationship between language and culture. It is widely recognized that one of the most important benefits of learning a foreign language is the opportunity to learn about other cultures.

       Project work helps to make the language more relevant to learners’ actual needs. When students use English to communicate with other English speakers, what will they want to talk about? Will it be London, New York, Janet and John’s family, Mr Smith’s house? Surely not! They will want, and be expected, to talk about aspects of their own lives – their house, their family, their town, and so on. Project work thus enables students to rehearse the language and factual knowledge that will be of most value to them as language users.

       The purpose of learning a foreign language is to make communication between two cultures possible. English, as an international language, should not be just for talking about the ways of the Englishspeaking world. It should also be a means of telling the world about your own culture. Project work helps to create this approach. With project work the language acts as a bridge enabling two cultures to communicate with each other.

       c) Educational values.  There is a growing awareness among language teachers that the process and content of the language class should contribute towards the general educational development of the learner. Project work is very much in tune with modern views about the purpose and nature of education.

       Firstly, there is the question of educational values. Most modern school curricula require all subjects to encourage initiative, independence, imagination, selfdiscipline, co-operation, and the development of useful research skills. Project work is a way of turning such general aims into practical classroom activity.

       Secondly, cross-curricular approaches are encouraged. For language teaching this means that students should have the opportunity to use the knowledge they gain in other subjects in the English class. Project work clearly encourages this [18].

       There are some problems that teachers have about project work.

       Teachers are often afraid that the project classroom will be noisier than the traditional classroom and that this will disturb other classes in the school. But project work does not have to be noisy. Students should be spending a lot of the time working quietly on their projects: reading, drawing, writing, and cutting and pasting. In these tasks, students will be working on their own or in groups, but this is not an excuse to make a lot of noise. Project work is not inherently any noisier than any other activity. Obviously there will be a certain amount of noise. Students will often need to discuss things and they may be moving around to get a pair of scissors or to consult a reference book. And some activities do require a lot of talking. If students are doing a survey in their class, for example, there will be a lot of moving around and talking. However, this kind of noise is a natural part of any productive activity. Indeed, it is useful to realize that the traditional classroom has quite a lot of noise in it, too. There is usually at least one person talking (and teachers generally talk rather loudly) and there may be a tape recorder playing, possibly with the whole class doing a drill. There is no reason why cutting out a picture and sticking it in a project book should be any noisier than 30 or 40 students repeating a choral drill. The problem is not really a problem of noise; it is a concern about control. Project work is a different way of working and one that requires a different form of control. In project work students are working independently. They must, therefore, take on some of the responsibility for managing their learning environment. Part of this responsibility is learning what kind of, and what level of, noise is acceptable. When teachers introduce project work you also need to encourage and guide the learners towards working quietly and sensibly. Students will enjoy project work and will not want to stop doing it because it is causing too much noise. So it should not be too difficult to get your students to behave sensibly.

       Project work is time-consuming. It takes much longer to prepare, make, and present a project than it does to do more traditional activities. When you are already struggling to get through the syllabus or finish the textbook, you will probably feel that you don’t have time to devote to project work, however good an activity it may be. There are two responses to this situation. The first is a practical response and the second more of a philosophical point.

       Firstly, not all project work needs to be done in class time. Obviously, if the project is a group task, most of it must be done in class, but a lot of projects are individual tasks. Projects about My Family, My House, etc. can be done at home. You will be surprised how much of their own time students will gladly devote to doing projects.

       Secondly, when choosing to do project work you are making a choice in favour of the quality of the learning experience over the quantity. It is unfortunate that language teaching has tended to put most emphasis on quantity, i.e. as much practice as possible of each language item. And yet there is little evidence that quantity is really the crucial factor. What really matters in learning is the quality of the learning experience.

       Project work provides rich learning experiences: rich in colour, movement, interaction and, most of all, involvement. The positive motivation that projects generate affects the students’ attitude to all the other aspects of the language programme. Learning grammar and vocabulary will appear more relevant because the students know they will need these things for their project work.

       But surely the students will spend all their time speaking their mother tongue? This is true to a large extent. It is unlikely that most students will speak English while they are working on their project. However, rather than seeing this as a problem, we should consider its merits.

       Firstly, it is a natural way of working. It is a mistake to think of L1 and L2 (the language being learnt) as two completely separate domains. Learners in fact operate in both domains, constantly switching from one to the other, so it is perfectly natural for them to use L1 while working on an L2 product. As long as the final product is in English it doesn’t matter if the work is done in L1.

       Secondly, project work can provide some good opportunities for realistic translation work. A lot of the source material for projects (leaflets, maps, interviews, texts from reference books, etc.) will be in the mother tongue. Using this material in a project provides useful translation activities. In projects on Life in the Past students usually have to interview people in their native language but report their findings in English.

       Thirdly, there will be plenty of opportunities in other parts of the language course for learners to practice oral skills. Project work should be seen as a chance to practise that most difficult of skills, writing. There is no need to worry if the students use L1 to discuss it.

       Some teachers are concerned that without the teacher’s control the weaker students will be lost and will not be able to cope. Again, the answer to this worry is to see the positive side of it. Not all students want or need the teacher’s constant supervision. By encouraging the more able students to work independently you are free to devote your time to those students who need it most. It is often the case in the traditional classroom that the weaker students are neglected because the brighter students take more than their share of the teacher’s attention. It would be wrong to pretend that project work does not have its problems. It certainly demands a lot of the teacher in terms of preparation and classroom management. It requires a change of attitude about what is really valuable in language teaching, and you also need to work with your students to develop a responsible working environment. But, in practice, most teachers find that their worst fears about project work do not materialize. The work is so motivating for the students that it produces its own momentum. The noise of the well-managed project classroom is the sound of creativity.

       The project approach allows students to explore a theme or topic in depth. There is a list of the essential characteristics of a project approach:

       - student directed;

       - connected to the real world;

       - research based;

       - informed by multiple resources;

       - embedded with knowledge and skills;

       - conducted over time;

       - concluded with an end product [6].

       In a project approach learning environment, the teacher is no longer an authoritative figure who corrects and commands students but a facilitator who encourages and guides learners. In addition to the support from instructors, learners gain guidance from more experienced or skillful group members, experts in the field, and people involved in the project contexts. Activities such as classroom debriefing sessions, journal entries, and extension activities provide an opportunity for reflective thinking, feedback, and student self-assessment. 

       1.2 Application of the project approach to the school syllabus 

       Teachers can hardly work at the child’s level unless they know what that level is. It is important to match topics to the level, reserving complex issues for more advanced classes. Teachers should not expect beginners to tackle a national newspaper in English; they would not offer very advanced students a simplified dialogue. The traditional lessons do not give a chance for cognitive and creative development. Teachers of beginners will necessary use activities whose organisation is less complex then those for more advanced learners. Teachers find it quite effective to develop all language skills for beginner students.

       Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture defines the word project as a piece of work that needs skill, effort and careful planning, especially, over a period of time [8].

       Project work captures three principal elements of communicative approach. They are:

       -a concern for motivation;

       -a concern for relevance;

       -a concern for the general educational development of the learner [18].

       Project learning has not been redacted on the teaching methods, it is more educational philosophy, which aims are to show the way and to introduce with some possible activities achieving to a more democratic society, points Legutke [9]. The child is naturally active, especially along social lines. Teachers just should choose the appropriate teaching method.

       We think that project method is one of the most effective teaching forms. The originators of a project work have arrived at decisions about types of activities, role of teachers and learners, the kinds of the material which will be helpful, and some model of syllabus organisation.

       Project can consist of intensive activities which take place over a short period of time, or extended studies which may take up one or two hours a week for several weeks [7].

       Project work gives the students an opportunity to bring their knowledge, feelings, experience, ideas and intelligence of their world into the school and out of it – to the area where the project work take place. Projects can include a wide range of the topics and use knowledge and experience gained from the other subjects in the curriculum.

       In big classes, it is difficult for the teacher to make contact with the students at the back and it is difficult for the students to ask for and receive individual attention. It may seem impossible to organise dynamic and creative teaching and learning sessions. In large classes, pair-work and group-work play an important part since they maximise student participation.

       When teachers know how their students feel about pair-work and group-work it is easier to decide what method should be applied and what kind of the activities to perform.

       All people have all of these intelligences, he said, but in each person one (or more) of them is more pronounced. If teachers accept that different intelligences predominate in different people, it suggests that the same learning task may not be appropriate for all of students.

       Generally teaching aims in foreign languages methodologists tend to divide into some parts – structures, functions, vocabulary, pronunciation and skills.

       There are three skills teachers are supposed to master in learning a new language:

       they must learn to read it;

       they should learn to understand it when they hear it;

       they should learn to speak it.

       Most modern school curricula require all subjects to encourage initiative, independence, self-discipline, imagination, development of all language skills, so the project work is a way of turning such general aims into practical classroom activity and involve children into teaching process [6, p. 18].

       Project provides a natural context in which these separate parts can be re-integrated in learners’ minds. This is important for students to be sure about their own abilities to use target language in real situations. It is student’s own interests to produce language that is accurate and fluent.

       Teachers and students encourage that projects break the routine. Project work demands creature and a lot of enthusiasm for both- teachers and learners.

       Project work is very effective method because:

       themes and target tasks for project learning derived from all forms and objects of life;

       learners are involved with the ideas through a process of discussion, experimentation, reflection, and application of insights to the new stages of experimentation.

       For planning the structure of project work students and teacher make sure about every pupil’s responsibilities. During the project students practise in main language skills – listening, speaking, reading and writing.

       Reading and listening are receptive skills.

       Reading is not a passive skill. It is an incredibly active occupation. To do it successfully, we have to understand what the words mean, see the picture, the words are painting, understand the arguments and work out of we agree with them.

       When we read a text in our own language, we frequently have a good idea of the content before we actually read. Book covers give us a hint of what is in the book, photographs and headline hint at what articles are about and reports look like reports before we read a single word. Teachers should give students “hints” so that they can predict what is coming too. It will make them better and more engaged readers.

       There are many reasons why getting students to read English texts which is an important part of the teacher’s job. In the first place, many of them want to be able to read texts in English either for their careers, for study purposes or simply for pleasure.

       A balance has to be struck between real English on one hand and the students’ capabilities and interest on the other. There is some authentic written material which beginner students can understand to some degree: menus, timetables, sings and basic instructions, for example, and, where appropriate, can be used in project work. But for longer prose, teachers may want to offer their students texts which, while being like English, are nevertheless written or adapted especially for their level. The important thing is that such texts are as much like real English as possible [6].