BRETON LUCILA & DIEGO FRANCISCO

10-11-19
PROJECT-BASED RK WITH YOUNG LEARNERS

INTRODUCTION

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the benefits and advantages of project-based
work in EFL classrooms with young learners. Project work boosts students’ necessity of
gathering, processing and reporting information over a period of time. Also, this approach
increases students’ motivation, autonomy, engagement, and creates a positive attitude
towards English (Bülent Alan and Fredricka L. Stoller, 2005). Although project-based
learning presents challenges for teachers and students (Beckett 2002; Eyring 1997), most
project-work proponents assert that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

THE BENEFITS OF PROJECT WORK

Project-based work is an integrated unit of work which consist of a beginning,

middle and end. It provides several benefits for both students and teachers. First of all,
students gain initial motivation and a sense of achievement when the project is finished.
Once they finish the work, both students and teachers have something to show to their
families and the institution which is an evidence of how much students have learned.
Secondly, this approach not only focuses on teaching the language but also on the
development of different skills which provides education for life. Therefore, intellectual
skills such as describing, using the imagination, drawing conclusions, reading and
planning are put into action. Physical-motor skills like colouring, painting, cutting and
gluing are developed together with social skills of sharing, co-operating, making decisions
together and appreciating other’s work. Additionally, it fosters learner independence skills
such as making responsible choices, deciding how to complete tasks and being
responsible for their own work. Project – based work goes beyond the linguistic teaching
but it is also related to personal and emotional achievement. “Project work gives the
children an opportunity to bring their knowledge of the world into classroom and to extend
their general knowledge of the topic under focus” (Phillips, Burwood, Dunford & Malley,
1999, p.6). Moreover, projects can suit mixed abilities classes since there are different
opportunities for children to make different contributions and when individual contributions
are valued, students’ confidence is increased.
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 BRETON LUCILA & DIEGO FRANCISCO
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PROJECT-BASED RK WITH YOUNG LEARNERS

“Projects that are structured to maximize language, content, and real-life skill
learning require a combination of teacher guidance, teacher feedback, student
engagement, and elaborated tasks with some degree of challenge. Generally, such
projects are multidimensional” (Alan & Stoller, 2005, p.11). Successful project-based
learning takes place when the project relies on real students’ needs and interests and by
the end of the work, students can reflect upon the knowledge they have acquired.

PLANNING A PROJECT

When planning a project, teachers have to bear in mind the language points. On
what topic students have been working on and which new knowledge teachers want their
students to learn, vocabulary items and skills which are suitable for children of a particular
age and level. By reaching the end of the project, a balance of skills (grammar,
vocabulary, pronunciation) will be reached upon what students have learned.

PLANNING THE END-PRODUCT

The end product of the project-made needs to be simple and concise, something
that students enjoy doing and can do on their own with little help coming from their
teacher. What is of vital importance is the process in which students learn and produce
their own outcome over what is the final product itself.

PRESENTATION OF THE PROJECT

By planning a project, there are a number of questions that need to be taken into
account:

 To whom will it be presented? To parents, friends, other teachers, pupils in the

school.
 Where will it be shared? In the classroom, the school hall, a theatre, pupils in the
school.
 How will it be represented? There is a wide variety of forms to present the achieved
work. For example, a film, a model, an interactive model.
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INTRODUCING THE PROJECT TO THE CHILDREN

 BRETON LUCILA & DIEGO FRANCISCO
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PROJECT-BASED RK WITH YOUNG LEARNERS

The way in which the project is introduced will depend on the age of the students.
The older the students are, the more explanations they will demand about the purpose of
the project. With younger students, it is probable that purposes will not be questioned but
they will require explicit explanations and help with the task they have to achieve. Either
way, teachers need to consider that spending some time explaining what will be done
and the way students will be assessed is essential for having their initial motivation and
commitment with the work.

NEGOTIATION AND CHOICE

In order the project to be successful, instances such as work preparation, grouping

students, searching for information need to be discussed before setting the objectives of
the project. It is important to consider the voices and opinions of the students in this stage
so as to engage students on what they will produce.

MANAGING THE PROJECT

Project based work needs to be carefully planned, advisably, following a set of tips:

 Introduce the project carefully so children know what they will have to do.
 Establish rules.
 Be sure that the topic of the project is known by students and that extensive whole
class work is done before they work on their own.
 Prepare all the materials before starting the project.
 Give clear instructions, use the mother tongue if necessary.
 When children are working in the project, monitor them all the time so as to be sure
they are actually working and be able to clarify their doubts.
 Allow them chatting when doing creative activities. Even if they are speaking in
their mother tongue, this is helpful for the development of social skills and it
contributes to make the activity enjoyable.
 Remind students about the further homework for coming classes.

EVALUATION OF PROJECT WORK AND MEASURING PROGRESS

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 BRETON LUCILA & DIEGO FRANCISCO
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PROJECT-BASED RK WITH YOUNG LEARNERS

The time for evaluation and feedback ought to be planned within the time you have
set for the whole project. Evaluation has to take into account both the process and the
product, also when finishing the project, students call for feedback on both tthe final
product and the oral production.

PROJECT: MY BEDROOM

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

In this project, students of fourth form (ages nine and ten - pre-A1 level) from "Escuela
N° 180 Mariano Moreno" in Santa Rosa, La Pampa, Argentina produced a model of their
own bedroom with recyclable materials. The objective of the project was that they learned
about vocabulary in the bedroom, description of a place, reflect upon the importance of
recycling and most importantly that they could produce orally through describing the
model they have made. This project took three lessons of 40 minutes each to be
completed

LESSON ONE

Materials

1. Video “My room vocabulary song in English for kids. Furniture, pets, objects.
Learning songs”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFBCeOYZFjw
2. A poster of a bedroom with vocabulary.
3. A poster with adjectives
4. Howdy Friends pages “29-30”

Language

 There is/ there are

 A / an
 Vocabulary: adjectives, prepositions and furniture

Skills
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 Listening and speaking to promote oral interaction in English.

 BRETON LUCILA & DIEGO FRANCISCO
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PROJECT-BASED RK WITH YOUNG LEARNERS

 Reading and writing to elicit description of places.

Preparation

1. Collect all the materials needed (download video, poster).

2. Produce the flashcards for adjectives.
3. Photocopy a writing description sample of a bedroom.

Activity one:

For starting the lesson, we used page 29 from the book in order to teach the articles a/an.

Activity two:
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 BRETON LUCILA & DIEGO FRANCISCO
10-11-19
PROJECT-BASED RK WITH YOUNG LEARNERS

For this activity we showed the following

video “My room vocabulary song in English
for kids. Furniture, pets, objects. Learning
songs”. We showed the video, then we
asked students about the furniture and
objects present in the video. We wrote down
each object and furniture in the whiteboard,
also students had to repeat each new word
orally. Furthermore, we asked them which other objects they had in their bedrooms. As
students came up with new furniture and objects, we added them to the vocabulary list in
the board. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFBCeOYZFjw

Activity three:

We read the text on page 30 (thirty) in which two kids described their bedrooms. We
asked some students to read it and explained the meaning of the words they didn’t
understand.

Book: Howdy Friends! Starter (Zanatta, T., 2013)

.
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Activity four: 12’

 BRETON LUCILA & DIEGO FRANCISCO
10-11-19
PROJECT-BASED RK WITH YOUNG LEARNERS

After the reading we introduced a poster made by us with some basic adjectives that they
needed for their description. Also, we had a poster with vocabulary about furniture in a
bedroom pasted on the board so that they can look for words when writing their
description.

After that they had to write a short description about their own bedroom using “there is /
there are” and “and”.

LESSON TWO

Materials:

 A poster of a bedroom with vocabulary.

 A poster with adjectives.
 Recyclable materials.

Language

 There is/ there are

 A / an
 Vocabulary: adjectives and furniture

Skills

Writing, cutting, gluing and painting

Preparation

1. Collect all the recyclable materials needed (shoe boxes, smaller boxes,
cardboards, pieces of cloth).

First activity:
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 BRETON LUCILA & DIEGO FRANCISCO
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PROJECT-BASED RK WITH YOUNG LEARNERS

Students finished their writing description of their bedrooms with our help. We have also
provided a chart with adjectives and flashcards to help them recognize adjectives. And
when they finished, they had to hand it in to us so we could correct it.

Second activity:

When students finished with their writing, they started working in the model of their own
bedroom. They were working with a shoe box and other recyclable materials that they
brought for that class. (We had also brought some shoe boxes and materials for them to
work in case some students forgot about it or couldn’t bring any.)

Students had to finish the models at home and bring it ready for the next class in order to
describe it orally.
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LESSON THREE
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 BRETON LUCILA & DIEGO FRANCISCO
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PROJECT-BASED RK WITH YOUNG LEARNERS

This lesson was devoted to asses children’s work. They came to the front in small groups
and presented their models. Some of them needed more help from the teacher (prompting
questions) in order to speak.

CONCLUSIONS

To sum up, we can confirm that by using this approach children get all the benefits
proposed by Alan & Stoller and Phillips et.al. in a significative way. All the students were
highly engaged with the process of creating their own bedroom, therefore, students were
eager to learn. Moreover, cooperation, responsibility and self-commitment were present
in every single student all along the project. Also, all the intellectual and physical-motor
skills were boosted. Most importantly, by the end of this project, every single student was
able to produce orally in English, which was a skill that not everyone could manage
before. It is important to point out that these students were only nine and ten years old
receiving only fourty minutes a week of English stimulus and it was their first time in
contact with the language. Above all, they managed to produce phrases and describe a
bedroom by using nouns, adjectives, intelligible pronunciation and a little bit of
grammatical awareness.

REFERENCES

Philips, D., Burwood, S. & Dunford, H. (1999) Projects with Young Learners. Oxford,
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England: Oxford University Press.

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 BRETON LUCILA & DIEGO FRANCISCO
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PROJECT-BASED RK WITH YOUNG LEARNERS

Alan, B. & Stoller, F.L. (2005). Maximizing the Benefits of Project work in Foreign
Language Classrooms. English Teaching Forum.
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