Projects are a way of giving students the chance to put all the language they have learnt together and to express themselves.They allow students to gain a sense of satisfaction after having produced something they are proud of. Projects also provide a welcome break from potential classroom monotony and are great fun to do!
Classroom projects can be broken into two basic types:
Paper-based projects
Video-based projects
This week is project week at the London School of English and so l'll be posting ideas for both paper and video based projects that you can try in your classes, as well as some examples from my students' own work.
First some advice on setting up a project.
The worst thing you can do to set up a project is give the students too much choice. If the students are given too much scope about what to do, they might struggle to form ideas or their ideas might lack structure.
A good idea is to give the students a choice of two or three good ideas that you provide and they have a vote on. This way the students get to feel that the project is their own, while at the same time working within the parameters that you have set for them.
The planning stage
Don't just give the students a free rein when planning as this could lead to a lack of productivity. Instead you can follow these steps to help them plan:
- Give each group 3-5 minutes to brainstorm ideas
- Tell the students to eliminate all the ideas except two
- Tell them to discuss the pros and cons of each choice
- They now have two minutes to make the final choice.
- Tell the students to plan what they will need and which order they will produce it
- The students then assign roles to each person in the group
There you go, the students have now chosen a project which is their own idea (increasing engagement) and they should now be motivated and ready to make some fantastic projects!
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