Week 5

 Seeing is worth a thousand times hearing.....

“One of the most important student-centered techniques in modern language teaching scenario is the project work. The project work is an activity which centers around the completion of a task, and usually requires an extended amount of independent work either by an individual student or by a group of students. Much of this work takes place outside classroom”. (Richards et al, 1985)

A picture taken during discussion on PBL at American Corner, Dhangadhi

PBL is student centered rather than teacher centered, the teacher may need to develop a more flexible attitude towards the students’ work. The project is not necessarily designed to suit a syllabus, and the language derives not necessarily from the text book but from the nature of the project itself. PBL also provides one solution to the problem of the learner autonomy of making the learner responsible for his/her own learning. By its very nature it also places responsibility on the students, both as individual and as member of a co-operative learning group. Autonomy becomes a fact of life.

PBL have to be carefully designed and well planned, through a process of teacher-learner collaboration, but their setting up as well as the guidance and monitoring is necessary. The success of project depends upon availability of time, access to authentic material, receptiveness of learners and flexibility of time table. Possibility of training to learners and collaboration with others also influence success of the PBL. By encouraging students to move out of the classroom and into the world, the project work helps to bridge the  gap between language study and language use. It is, therefore, a valuable means of extending the communicative skills acquired in the classroom. The motivation lies in the project itself.  Students are offered the opportunity of using their acquired skills in situation which are new, challenging and real.

The week was very much fruitful to me. I learned about PBL. It was not new to me but presented in a different way teaching different techniques. Here, I learned about Rubrics and how to use it with PBL. Assessment has always played a vital role in teaching and learning process. Rubrics is some thing different to our traditional way of assessment and technology has made it modern way of assessment where not only the teachers but students them self know what they are doing, what they have to do and how they have to do. Even the parents know what their children are doing.  Students can measure their performances, their drawbacks and their abilities. Where as, parents, through the internet can have a direct access to their children’s performance. http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=ShowRubric&module=Rubistar&rubric_id=2285878 Rubric id :2285878

Next, we learned about Web Quest. This was new to me. It took me a long time to first understand what it is. Then I tried to design a project on Web Quest. http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=183076

Next, my project wok is going on. It’s the fourth step, and I was working hard this whole week to find out solutions. I engaged my students in communicative essence. I used interactive web to make them practice speaking. Communicative games were played. Chain story was made them. All activities were done n the computer lab using the multimedia computers.

As a whole the week was wonderful…….