Текст виступу на засіданні методобєднання вчителів англійської мови Колківського _cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b- 136bad5cf58d_ of the educational district on the topic: Method of projects in learning English.
Due to the specificity of the subject, a foreign language has a great potential that educates and develops a child's personality. It encourages students to study examples of world and native culture, includes them in the dialogue of cultures, and develops language. The study of foreign languages today is carried out in a broad socio-cultural context and has a clearly expressed cultural studies direction.
In the modern practice of teaching foreign languages in Ukrainian schools, the project method is widely used, which involves relying on the creativity of schoolchildren, encouraging them to research activities, and allows for the real integration of various educational subjects, use different student work modes, organize cooperative learning.
Project work - a type of work (mainly in groups), the purpose of which is the preparation of the final product in English - an album, presentation of information etc. The purpose of this type of work is to give the student the opportunity to perform independent work based on knowledge of the language and skills acquired during a certain period of studying the topic. Project work is ideal for multi-level groups, as each task can be completed by students of different levels of preparation. In the process of project activities, students really communicate with each other and with the world around them in English.
The practical purpose of performing a certain project work can be based on the improvement of various abilities and skills. Some jobs require more speaking practice, others are more aimed at developing writing skills, and still others require the application of certain artistic abilities. Some tasks are more suitable for individual work, others - for work in pairs or small groups. It is very important to help students choose the task and such methods of its implementation so that they feel as comfortable as possible.
The benefits of project work have been well appreciated in the teaching of subjects such as geography, history, basic chemistry and physics for many years. . Language curricula have only recently begun to systematically use this approach. To the question "Why exactly project work?" the following answers can be given: because the project work motivates (students write about themselves - their family, their home, their interests and preferences. While working on the project, students conduct a small research work on a topic that interests them. Students take an active position during project work. When doing a project, students often cut something out, color it in, write about something, look for information in books, talk to other people, find illustrations - maybe even make audio or video recordings. Students of different levels of speech development can do their their own project - big or small, simple or complex - and can be proud of it. For example, some students in the class may have a weaker command of the language than others, but this will not prevent them from showing their ability to design or illustrate their work or find an original approach during the project to the presentation of the project). because the project work is personally oriented (while preparing a story about their surroundings in written form, students discover for themselves teaching English and international languages. Sometime in the future, they may have to tell a foreigner in English about their family, their city, or their preferences. Working on such a project helps them prepare for such an event. Focusing on the topic studied in English, students have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the peculiarities of the culture of English-speaking countries, compare them with their own ideas and thus enrich their own understanding of other cultures). because the project work has a general educational value (most modern school programs require that the teaching of subjects contributes to the development of students' initiative, independence, imagination, self-discipline, cooperation with other students and useful research skills. Project work is a practical way to realize these educational goals in class and outside of class).
From the point of view of practical considerations, project work includes various types of activities. Students may need to move around the classroom to, for example, ask questions of other students or find information in reference books. Of course, there will be no silence in the classroom then. But this is a productive noise that will contribute to the completion of the task.
The preparation, implementation and presentation of a project takes much more time than the performance of traditional tasks. But not all project work must be done in class. If the project is prepared as an individual, students can continue to work on it at home. Many students will want to work extra on the project to create a piece of work they can be really proud of.
It is clear that most students will speak their native language while working on the project. This is natural and inevitable, and there is no need to perceive it as a problem. The main thing is that the final result is formulated in English. Project work provides opportunities for real use of translation - for example, translation into English of postcards, maps, interviews with family members, texts from a handbook written in the native language.
The key to the success of project work is good preparation and organization. To complete the project, it is necessary to have scissors, rulers, glue and large sheets of paper in the classroom. Students should also have access to a small reference library, in which a dictionary, grammar and atlas could be found. Students should be encouraged to collect and bring their own materials to class: magazines, brochures, maps, postcards, etc., even if all these materials are written in their native language. Teachers should also collect such materials.
Schoolchildren should learn to independently find the necessary information and ask for help from the teacher only in those cases when they themselves cannot find the answer to a question. Children must also learn to plan their actions and decide for themselves what materials they will need to complete the project tasks and where they can find them.
An important stage in the work on the project is its evaluation. Students always want to hear feedback about their project from the teacher. It is extremely important that students' work is evaluated not only from the point of view of linguistic correctness. Teachers should note how creative and original the work is and how much effort was put into its implementation.
It is important that teachers do not correct errors in the final version of the project. To do this, students should be asked to prepare and show a draft of the project for review. Thus, errors will be found, and the final version of the project will not have corrections.
Sample tasks for project work that have been most memorable to me and my students lately:
1. "A weather book". Children make cards on which they draw a schematic image of different types of weather, put these cards in envelopes, which are pasted on special notebooks or notebooks - "weather books". During the lesson, we orally find out what the weather is like outside with the help of cards (students spread the corresponding cards on the desk, and the teacher on the board) and record the description of the weather in the "books".
2. "Learning to learn" projects with practical ideas and tips for working on the language (learning words, rules, working with dictionaries and manuals, reading original literature, preparing for exams, etc.). The results of such work are presented in the form of bright monuments.
3. Questionnaires, interviews, research on the subject being studied. The result of such work is presented in the form of tables with conclusions and posters) (survey, quiz)
4. Audio tour of the city (creating a script, recording the text of the tour on a tape, listening to the tape by classmates)
5. Design works related to the topics "I, my family, my friends", "Student and his environment", "External appearance":
a story about yourself with a support (for students of the primary and secondary stages of education), where the support is made in the form of hexagons folded into a kind of "flower", where on each "petal" the student must reveal a certain question (his name, age, place of residence , school, school friends, pets, preferences, etc.);
"Family trees";
"Stars talking" - biographical data about a celebrity (the work is presented in the form of an essay or a poster, the student must be ready to answer the questions of classmates, to participate in a kind of interview);
6. Project works for older schoolchildren with a higher level of language knowledge on the topic "Biography" can be "A life story", "Personal details", "Personality Questionnaire", etc.
"Transform your teacher", "A new image" (where a person's photo is taken "before" and "after" the transformation, students change the image of this or that person);
lesson schedule in English.
7. Quite interesting project works that look like advertising posters (planning a party, advertising interest groups or clubs, advertising posters for movies, etc.).
8. "Create your own musical group" (to the topic "Music and musical instruments").
9. Different types of project work on the topic "Food and products" ("Healthy food", "Plan a lunch", "My favorite recipe", etc.).
But as evidenced by the analysis of pedagogical practice and methodological literature, which considers the general problem of using the project method, the approach to defining the concept of "project method" has not yet been clarified. the issues of theory and practice of a purposeful, specially organized and managed process of using the project method for the formation of communication skills of schoolchildren and for the education of personality by means of a foreign language are not fully clarified.
All of the above indicates that, despite the frequent use of project development tasks both in textbooks for secondary schools and in various additional manuals, it cannot be said that all aspects of the use of this method are sufficiently analyzed in the educational literature, especially in the context of the solution educational tasks by means of a foreign language.
Personally oriented education by means of a foreign language involves, on the one hand, the use of educational communication, cooperation and active creative activity of the student during the lesson, and on the other hand, the teacher it is necessary to find a way to introduce a real foreign language into the school classroom, to include the student in real language communication, in information exchange, without leaving the educational audience, to simulate the real process of entering the culture.
The objectively existing information environment includes the following:
books (artistic, educational, reference books, popular scientific literature);
periodical printing;
radio broadcasting and television;
multimedia hardware and software, including educational tools;
global and local networks of educational, general and special purposes.
The book is the most widespread carrier of foreign language information. In the educational process, these are textbooks and teaching aids. Unfortunately, original artistic and scientific texts are not often found in modern school textbooks of the English language, and the tasks for them quite often turn the text into an educational one.
Newspapers and magazines are not as widely used in the educational process as textbooks, even if they are real carriers of living language and current information.
Electronic media in the coming years will acquire the same importance as books and periodicals. Modern technologies for providing new information create unique opportunities for automatic information search and work with reference material.
Radio and TV broadcasts in a foreign language are an obvious reality of the modern information space. Today, in many schools, especially with in-depth study of a foreign language, students use media library funds to work both during and outside the lesson, they have the opportunity to view not only educational programs, but also TV broadcasts in real time using satellite antennas.
The possibilities of computing and software are so limitless that this topic could become the subject of a separate book. As modern practice proves, using the Internet for educational purposes is the main trend today. Participation in various telecommunication projects, conferences, the possibility of connecting to libraries of the world, simply polling about the pressing problems of the inhabitants of any part of the planet - all this expands the world of the student's imagination, brings a large amount of information to his life, incidentally, in the majority of the languages studied, in our case in English
The educational potential of a foreign language increases with the introduction of new information technologies into the educational process. The use of technologies, which attract the experience and creative potential of the student, takes the process of learning and education through the means of a foreign language outside the school framework.
The project method is one of the technologies that provides a person-oriented direction of learning and education, as it practically incorporates other modern technologies, such as cooperative learning.
Unlike other technologies practiced at school (communicative-role-situational and linguistically oriented activities), the project method gives the teacher the opportunity to include students in real communication, the most saturated with foreign language contacts, which is based on research activities. on cooperation, and to see real, and not just obtained during the game, results of their work.
The project in projective learning and the method of projects differ from each other. In the project method, a project is a means of learning, a means of mastering certain educational material; in projective learning - the development of a project - the goal of learning, that is, speaking about the method of projects, we mean the way to achieve a specific didactic (methodical) goal through the development of a problem and obtaining a real practical result.
Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, a well-known researcher in the field of modern learning technologies, E. S. Polat defines the project method as "in a certain way organized search, research activity of students, individual or group, which provides not just the achievement of one or another result, designed in the form of a concrete practical outcome , but the organization of the process of achieving this result"
She believes that the project method, subject to certain conditions, can be used in any type of school, at any stage of education , if it meets the following requirements:
The presence of a significant research or creative problem or task that requires integrated knowledge and research to solve it.
Practical, theoretical, cognitive value of expected results.
Independent activity of students: individually, in pairs, in a group in class and outside it.
Structuring of the substantive part of the project with indication of phased results and distribution of roles.
Use of research methods: definition of the problem, research tasks arising from it, putting forward a hypothesis of a solution, discussion of research methods. preparation of the final results, analysis of the received data, summary, correction, conclusions.
Project typology that is actively used in modern school
Analyzing the works of different authors, it is possible to single out the most developed typology of projects according to their characteristics:
The dominant method in the project: research, creative, role-playing, familiarization-orientation.
Subject-content area: monoproject (within one area of knowledge) or cross-subject project.
Nature of project coordination: direct (rigid, flexible), hidden (implicit, imitating a project participant).
Nature of contacts (among participants of the same school, class, city, region, country, different countries of the world).
Number of project participants.
Duration of the project (short-term, long-term).
According to the first feature, it is possible to distinguish the following types of projects:
Research. This type requires a well-thought-out structure of the project, clearly formulated goals before the start of the project, the interest of each project participant, social significance; well-thought-out methods of experimental and experimental works, methods of processing results.
Creative. Creative projects do not have a detailed structure, it is only outlined and developed, obeying the scheme adopted by the students themselves. But, before starting the development of such a project, you should agree in advance on the desired, planned results. These can be works, video films, wall newspapers, expeditions, and so on.
Role-playing games. In such projects, the structure is also only outlined and remains open until the end of the project. Each participant chooses a role for himself, according to the nature and content of the project. These can be literary characters, heroes who imitate social and business relations, complicated by situations invented by the participants. The results of such projects can be discussed in advance, or they can "loom" closer to the end of the work.
Practically oriented. This type is distinguished by a clearly marked goal of the project participants' activities from the very beginning, which, in turn, should be oriented to the social interests of the participants themselves. The result of the work can be a newspaper, a document, a video film, a sound recording, a performance, an action program, a draft law, and more. Such a project requires a well-thought-out structure, perhaps even a script of all the activities of its participants, dominating the functions of each in processing and formatting foreign language information. When working on such projects, a clear organization of discussion, correction, presentation of the obtained results and possible ways of using them in practice is especially important.
According to the second feature - the dominant subject-content aspect - projects can be:
Mono projects. It is better to carry out these projects on the most complex topics related to country studies and social topics. They need a clear structuring, preferably with lesson planning, with a clear designation of the final goal and tasks, as well as the knowledge and skills that students acquire during the development of the project. The form of the presentation, which the students choose themselves, is indicated in advance.
Interdisciplinary projects. Projects of this kind are carried out outside of school hours. They can combine several subjects and solve rather complex problems, for example, problems of environmental protection, research of creativity of writers working in the same genre. Such projects require a clear coordination of the work of all subject teachers, a well-practiced form of intermediate control and a final presentation.
According to the third feature - the nature of coordination - projects can be:
With open coordination. In such projects, the coordinator (educator) directly participates in the work, organizing and guiding it, as well as coordinating the activities of all participants.
With hidden coordination. The teacher does not interfere in the work on the project, but, studying diaries and student reports, communicating with group members, he carefully monitors the process and can be in the role of an advisor or assistant.
According to the characteristics of contacts, projects are:
internal or regional (within classes of the same school, schools of the district, city);
international
The latter can take place during school exchanges. In addition, the opportunity to develop international projects together with students from different countries and continents is provided to the teacher by modern information technologies. Such projects appeared relatively recently and are called telecommunication projects.
A telecommunications project is primarily an educational and cognitive joint creativity or cognitive game activity of students, partners who are at a considerable distance from each other, based on computer telecommunications and which has a common goal - the study of a problem with the help of agreed methods, methods of activity aimed at to achieve a common result.
The specificity of telecommunications projects is that they are all interdisciplinary. Solving any problem on the topic of the project always requires the use of integrated knowledge. Work in international projects requires qualitative knowledge not only in the field of research of a specific problem, but also a certain awareness in the field of the national culture of the project partner.
Participation in a telecommunications project helps the student to join various environments: informational, social, language. This contributes to the formation of global thinking, the awareness of oneself as a citizen of the world, instills a sense of social responsibility, broadens the student's horizons, encourages a polylogue of cultures, helps to express one's attitude to the problem, remembering the rules of writing a letter, report, at the same time getting to know people's point of view, who live in other geographical conditions, who have different religious beliefs and national traditions, may look at their own world differently, be tolerant of the point of view of the project partner.
Let's turn to the main approaches of using the project method in teaching foreign languages. They can be divided into two categories. To the first, we include the development of projects not related to the textbook material: students get to know the city, the area in which they live, in order to tell about it to their foreign peers, thus getting involved in the social environment, developing pragmatic projects. The second category is research projects, the development of which is carried out in parallel with the study of a certain topic of the textbook.
Many teachers try to create situations in the classroom that are closest to reality, which help students apply the knowledge they have acquired in the learning process. Work on a project is primarily the student's independent work on solving a problem, which requires the ability to pose a problem, outline ways to solve it, plan the work, choose the necessary material, and so on.
Thus, in the process of this activity, the student develops his intellectual skills, such character traits as purposefulness, perseverance, diligence, acquires certain educational skills, and this provides social and professional adaptation in society, creates conditions for the development of creativity, which is important in today's fast-moving world.