A travel of reflection
through Technology-Enhanced Project Based Language Learning
One of the first questions that first came to our mind when we were introduced to TEPBLL was the following: what are the main things that, as English teachers, should be taken into account when trying to work following this new approach? What are the first steps to take? The most important part of the answer came immediately: Project based learning!
For us it sounded really well!! We had heard about this approach at previous subjects! Broadly speaking, as we already knew, project based learning is based on the idea of creating a final outcome for an authentic purpose when learning contents. Fantastic!! Message got!
Thus, the first thing to do is to take into account the “Bus Metaphor” and try to answer the following questions:
Where are the students going?
(Objectives)
Where are the students coming from?
(Previous knowledge and learning styles)
How are they going to get there?
(Activities and materials)
How will you know when they have arrived? (Assessment)
Oh, oh... It seems that the first problems have appeared... Let’s see:
It was not until we had to face the big challenge of creating a project based on TEPBLL approach that we understood the main aspects that should be taken into account when planning English lessons.
Now, we are going to show you a must read list for teachers:
Let's start from the beginning:
How to plan English lessons
PROJECT BASED LEARNING
As far as we are concerned, these previous ideas are the most important ones when planning. However, there is one thing that we have to bear in mind as well: flipped tasks.
This concept refers to those tasks which students should do before coming to class, which are related to the upcoming lesson. There are different kinds of flipped tasks (to read a text, to watch a video, to make questions about some materials... ), but all of them have the same purpose: to make students reflect on the materials given so that they can work on that content deeply during the session.
As teachers, we had not listened about these tasks before starting the subject, so for us it was something both new and strange. At first, we did not know what the purpose of these tasks was and we even felt that there was no point in doing them, because we thought that it was a bit repetitive.
However, this first feeling disappeared some weeks later. After having shared some opinions about these tasks with our classmates, we started to realise that having some pre-tasks helped us to reflect on the materials. What helped us to do so was that during the class we were asked to share and discuss our points of view with our peers (through different kinds of activities). Thus, as we had already prepared the materials on our own before, we were able to go into the contents in depth when discussing. For this reason, we can say that flipped tasks are necessary for a deeper learning, so they become of importance when planning a TEPBLL project.
Therefore, the idea of repeating contents through different activities turns out to be necessary for a better comprehension.
Now, it is time to tackle the second question:
Flipped tasks!
How to make sure that
students are learning
Yes! You have given the right answer! The only way to know if students are learning is through assessment! But… how can we do it?
As we all know, it is important to consider the importance of using a formative assessment. In this way, as NCTE Executive Committee (2013) says, learners become the main protagonists of their own learning, as they know where they are in their learning process at every stage. In other words, students can self-monitor their own learning. So, the teacher should not be the only who assess students, but students themselves too. Due to this reason, we have to stop thinking of exams as a way to assess students. Instead, we should take into account different ways to keep track of pupils’ learning.
Click on the following tabs so as to learn a bit more about every kind of assessment:
The reality is that putting into practice this theory is more difficult than it seems. The key to succeed in our attempt to help our students find their way through assessment is to create appropriate instruments. However, this is not always easy. We have seen different instruments throughout the subject (such as rubrics and quick activities) but we sometimes still do not know how to make the most of them. However, all of us agree on the idea that it is a matter of lack of experience as teachers.
Although there is a long list of different instruments, it is essential to highlight the importance of rubrics, as Cañete (2014) has claimed. Using rubrics is a way to make sure that you are assessing objectively, since you can define the aspects you want to focus on and the different levels of achievement of each item. In this way, teachers can be aware of the difficulties of each student and try to find ways to help children to overcome these problems. We have to take into account that these rubrics can be used by the teacher or by pupils (depending on the kind of evaluation we are using: peer evaluation, self-assessment or teacher assessment ).
However, creating a rubric is not easy, as we have noticed while designing our projects. Sometimes you design a rubric but then you realise that maybe it is not as clear as you thought to be at first, or perhaps you even realise that you cannot evaluate certain items using the evaluation task you have designed. Again, this is something that, as teachers, we have to learn through practice.
Collaboration
As we have just pointed out, the discussion with other students becomes essential the learning process, as it is the way to build knowledge together. Thus, this fact leads us to talk about collaboration. It is an essential skill that people need nowadays and that will need in the future. But does this mean to work in groups?
Actually, it is more than this. There are some differences between collaborative learning and group work. To authentically carry out a collaborative learning, students need to be taught to work this way (collaborative skills). All students need to be grouped heterogeneously. Besides, the members of each team need to work together to achieve a shared goal. Moreover, having (rotating) roles promotes interdependence because each member contributes in one essential aspect of the project. Each member needs to be responsible for his/her part as anyone else is carrying out the same task.
In this sense, all the members need the contribution of the others to achieve their objective, so each member must ensure that the others are learning. Therefore, the roles need to be useful and meaningful to the project so that it really helps students to achieve the established purposes and get to the final goal. For this reason, it is necessary to assess how students perform their roles, as well as their general contribution on the project. In this way, all members collaborate and are responsible for one of the several aspects that make all the project work.
Remember that despite the students are the ones who directly participate in the learning task, the role of the teacher is essential to regulate all the process. He/she needs to take the timing into account and make students aware of it. Plus, he/she needs to monitor students’ interaction. And finally he/she needs to focus on the process rather than the final product.
Having seen the advantages of the project-based methodology, we wondered how to combine it with foreign language teaching, specially TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language). We have said that we need an authentic purpose so that the communication and the use of language is essential and required! But… is it easy to promote real situations inside the classroom in which we need to use English to communicate?
Uhmm… That is definitely not working. But…. what about using technology? How can it help us to learn language and communicate?
