In my first year of teaching, three years ago, I jumped in with both feet into a project with my grade 6 core French students. These students had low confidence and low language skills, and I really wasn't sure what would happen. The biggest struggle as I try to marry language learning with project based learning is the very lack of language skills. In my mind, project based learning is most effective when students can grapple deeply with ideas. To me, this always involves good competence in the language of learning. (Yes, English language learners can participate effectively in PBL, but often they are relying on students around them).
Here is a brief description of the project: Driving Question: What is necessary for school? Inquiry: A look into what materials we really need to learn. FSL: A twist on the traditional "classroom" vocab unit. Final project: An elevator pitch to me and a friend, who was taking a trip to a French-speaking African country and was willing to take school supplies to the children over there. Students would be given a budget and had to pitch to me what supplies they would buy and send over. Entry Event: When students entered the classroom, I had written on the blackboard: What is necessary for school? One arrow pointed left and was labelled "NECESSARY" and one arrow pointed right labelled "NOT NECESSARY". Underneath that was written "MOVE EVERYTHING!" The students then debated about all objects in the entire classroom, and moved everything to the left or right side of the classroom depending on how necessary they felt it was. (Entry event was done in English). Digging in: Several activities helped us explore classrooms around the world, and French language around school materials. These were all done in the target language (French). 1. "What's in your backpack" - students learned how to talk about the materials they use every day. 2. "Classrooms around the world" - we looked at photographs of classrooms around the world, describing what we saw and what we didn't see. 3. "On the way to school" - we watched this French movie about how children around the world walk to school. We discussed which walk was most interesting, dangerous, tiring, hard, boring, scary. 4. Guest speaker - my friend and her son (both Francophone) came to meet with us and talk about the orphanage she would be visiting, the kinds of things they were needing, and a bit about the country itself. She returned again after the trip to share videos and photographs. Reflection: A success! It truly was. I had been told that it was too difficult to do these kinds of projects with early language learners. And while we didn't get to go deep into inquiry and expression out loud in class because of language limitations, I could see the gears in the students' heads going. I heard them talking about the project in the halls. And they really did acquire the language we were aiming at. Final thoughts: I loved this project and the students loved it too. The real life application had buy-in from them right from the start. A careful curation of activities and materials (images, movie) meant I was presenting something completely new to the students they hadn't considered before. I would rate it at 4/5 in terms of language learning, and 5/5 in terms of project success. Since this project, I did a few more with other classes that year, but my second and third year derailed this focus with strike action and a global pandemic, both which made these highly social types of projects almost impossible. While I wouldn't have the same real-world connection next time (a friend visiting an orphanage) I still think we could connect with organizations and provide donations, whether locally or internationally.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Terri-AnnPersonal reflections on project-based learning. Archives
April 2021
Categories
All
|