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Craig West on PBL
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6 thoughts on “Craig West on PBL”
Craig,
I think you are right about PBL being pretty useless for delivering CI. However, if your program is requiring it, your obligation for the sake of your job/career is to do either or both:
a) create a PBL unit, perhaps focusing on culture in Enlgihs rather than language.
b) put together a CI unit that resembles a PBL project, but delivers as much CI in context as possible. Perhaps using Textivate or some other online resource (they love when you use tech)
Here is Stolz on projects, traditional, as well as more CI friendly options. I really like his post because he not only criticizes the old ways, but offers adaptations. Much of this post could apply to the construction of a more CI friendly PBL, if you have to do it.
https://tprsquestionsandanswers.wordpress.com/2015/03/29/how-badly-did-i-screw-up-teaching-languages-1/
“Fourth, I used to do kid-created target-language movie projects. Typically, I said “make a short film of ___,” ___ being either some thematic vocab (e.g. the food or shopping unit) or this plus some specific grammar requirements (e.g. use the imparfait). Now, these are fun. My daughters also did them, and when they did, I’ve never at my house seen five teenagers spend so much intense time rehearsing, giggling, planning, etc. However…
the target language output was bad. They’re learners.
most of the time spent making a film was in English.
most of the energy, mental and otherwise, spent in making the film was fixed on visuals, acting, bloopers, editing, etc
when they watched each others’ films in class, mostly they could not hear or understand the Spanish…because most of the Spanish had been special-occasion looked-up just for the film, and because the sound was bad
because the kids KNEW that the story must be primarily visually told, and they would film/edit for visual comprehension, viewers didn’t really need to pay attention to target language.
even the understood good target language was often not repeated much throughout the year (low frequency).
In retrospect, movie projects did get the kids talking, and they were fun. But they didn’t deliver the sine qua non of good languages teaching: delivering compelling comprehensible input.
Doing it better: Thanks to Adriana Ramírez, I now do this. Provide the kids a script of 100% comprehensible vocab– including dialogue, with errors edited out– and have them film it. They will have a blast filming (picking costumes, editing, hanging out with their buddies, adding music etc). When you show it in class, they will be intrigued to see their friends acting, and they will not even notice that they are hearing and understanding the target language.”
Also, search the PLC archives, because I recall some PBL ideas being kicked around a few years back. I hope this helps, and good luck.
The PBL strategy that has stuck in my mind from that (searchable) flurry here a few years ago on the topic that you refer to John is from Jim and others where the kids kind of make collections of story books and stuff like that. I could care less about the CI at that point. It’s not as if any parent or admin is going to burst into the room and scream, “Hey there’s no CI going on in here! What gives?”
A few good things about relegating PBL to May are:
1. You can say that you do PBL but you don’t have to say when.
2. The kids are pretty much done with stories by then.
3. During the year, when we have a good story going, we can say things like, “Oh boy you guys are doing so great on this one! I think it’s going to make it into the spring storybook!”
4. The artists and tech people are thinking about collecting electronic images because they know that theirs is a key job in the assembling of the story book to be done in May.
‘It’s not as if any parent or admin is going to burst into the room and scream, “Hey there’s no CI going on in here! What gives?”’
Ha-ha-ha! You are hilarious, Ben! I love it! Nobody truly gets CI, here, at my school….
Your sardonic wit is much appreciated!
Perhaps you could create a class book about the Invisibles like Ben. It’s a finished product that documents students’ creative expression in L2, complied in a meaningful way to create a cohesive “project.” Maybe this will pass as a “project.”
These are some great suggestions everyone thank you so much for taking the time to address this. I appreciate it.