Maximizing the Benefits of Project Work in Foreign Language Classrooms (L. Stoller)
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Karla Diaz
What i
liked about this article is that reminded me those school times I had. I
clearly remember when my teachers all the time asked us to create a poster.
What for? It was always my question. Now I know the answer. Every single
activity was delivering with a purpose; that our learning process can be apply
it in an activity that involves an audience. I truly believe that an extra activity will be
successfully done if it has the correct guidelines. For example, it is
necessary that a teacher explain first what is the topic to be discussed, and
letting students to research and putting in practice what they know.
A poster is
just a visual help. It does not mean that everything you know must be written
or pasted in a poster. It means that a student can write some examples or add
visual aids. Like a power point presentation, we create slides with a specific
content, but the truly knowledge we share it is implicit in our explanation. The
project needs to be meaningful; it does not be just “another” project. The problem
is when students do not want to research or participate in the project because
they consider the topic boring and unnecessary. In order to avoid this
situation, I believe that if our main focus is the target language, we cannot
put limits to our students. For example, the teacher can choose any topic, but
students need to be free to use the vocabulary they want. Because the target
language never has to be forced.
Greetings.
ReplyDeleteI just have finished reading your log and I agree with you about having that thought "Why am I going to do that?". I can say sometimes pupils have those thoughts because of the lack of a properly explanation before getting started doing that kind of material. Now I have got pretty clear that teachers must explain all the details in order to create interest in all the students, and dodge they ask themselves Why should I do that? and avoid that whenever they listen "poster" they think automatically in a piece of paper and markers by cause of the technology in the classroom we can have eye-catching poster using PowerPoint Presentation or Prezi.