Project Work in the Japanese University Classroom

While the general unit for a teaching plan is the single class period, we have found that multi-period lessons bring many benefits: increased student motivation, visible student progress, and simplified lesson planning for teachers. Because university classes usually meet only once a week, multi-period lessons recycle skills and information. In this paper, we will present group projects as an example of multi-period work. First, we will give background information on projects and their applicability to the EFL classroom. Second, we will outline a survey project that we have used successfully in our freshman English classes at a national university in Japan. We will also suggest other project ideas we have used in a range of classes.

Using Project Work in the EFL Classroom

The English language classroom is a unique type of classroom, insofar as an English lesson is imaginable on almost any topic. However, it is important to match the content of the class material, known as carrier content, to the interests of the students (Cook, 1983; Littlejohn & Windeatt, 1989). Critics of content-based language teaching approaches argue that providing only content without analytical, grammar-based activities, students cannot make sufficient progress in the target language (Cook; Littlejohn & Windeatt). For the purposes of this paper, we will assume that the question is not choosing content over language practice, but rather one of balancing the two.

One of the challenges of the communicative classroom is to determine students' range of interests as an aid to choosing appropriate materials. The assumption that language learners will show better achievement when they are working with material that they consider to be valuable has only recently been systematically researched (Doenyei, 1994; Gardner & Tremblay, 1995). This research strongly indicates the obvious assumption, that students do better when they are studying something they are interested in. Thus, students also have a role to play in the learning process: "The learner must take at least some of the initiatives that give shape and direction to the learning process" (Little and Dam, 1998, p. 7).

Fried-Booth (1986) has presented project work for the ESL classroom. There is a fundamental difference between the ESL classroom, where a multi-ethnic group in London, for example, studies English for use in the wider community, and the typical Japanese EFL classroom, where students generally do not use English outside the classroom. Famularo (1996) introduced the group project as a focus for student-generated materials in which students provide the bulk of the content and the teacher helps students determine the best way to express their ideas. We take Famularo's idea further by addressing student evaluation and the problems of how to provide attainable goals for students and a replicable structure for teachers. In the next part of this paper, we present our group project assignment for use in Japan.

The Group Survey Project

We have used the survey project successfully in a range of classes in which student groups interview other members of the class and develop 7-10 minute presentations incorporating their findings. (See Strong, 1996 for a similar idea designed as a single class lesson.) The groups need four or five weeks to complete the project, and most of the work can be done in class apart from the week before the poster presentations. In all but the presentation stage, activities directly related to the project take up no more than 45 minutes of a typical 90-minute class.

To prepare students for working in small groups, we begin the term with activities which require students to express their opinions. After four to five weeks, we introduce the survey project by presenting an explanation and a general schedule (Table 1 shows an abbreviated sample). Informing students that they are working towards a specific goal helps them understand the steps along the way.

We recommend using the last half of a 90-minute class for work on the project and reserving the first part for more structured, grammar-based activities. Project work then provides meaningful follow-up language practice and application.

In our experience, four to five classes is the optimum amount of time for a single project. If longer, students become bored with the topic; if shorter, students don't have enough time to envision the final goal. We schedule two projects in a 15-week term, which has the advantage of letting students see their improved performance over time.

Lesson one: Getting into groups and choosing a topic (30 minutes)

Students form work groups of three to five for the project. They are told that the group receives a grade, so if a student is absent, the group is responsible for informing them of what to do. They receive a schedule (Table 1) explaining the aim of the project and how it is going to be carried out.

Table 1: Project schedule

A few points should be noted about Table 1. Leaving the dates blank and having the students fill them in allows you to work through the schedule with the students, and to use it with multiple classes that meet on different days. It also permits you to emphasize to the students that there are strict deadlines for each class. Groups who do not finish on time should complete the work outside of class and bring it to you before the next class. Students quickly realize that they are responsible for their work and that completing the assignment during class is the most efficient way of working. Other points you can add to the schedule include space for exchanging phone numbers and/or e-mail addresses, jobs (such as group leader, secretary, materials keeper and gofer), or a checklist of things to do.

Next, students choose their topics. The teacher should give them as much direction as possible to ensure that the topic is focused and will yield fruitful results. Instead of "sports," for example, which is too broad, better topic choices on the theme of sports include a particular sport, sports clubs on campus, reasons why people do sports, high school sports, or opinions of sports figures.

This time also allows the teacher to get a feel for which groups are self-starters and which may need more assistance. Once the teacher has approved the topic, groups use the rest of the time to decide on preliminary questions. A student worksheet to individually write down questions can provide structure as can a homework assignment to think of five questions on the topic.

Lesson two: Questionnaire and answer sheet

In the next class, a sample questionnaire is distributed to show students how to focus their questions and make them more schematic (Appendix A). It shows examples of the three question types, binary, multiple choice, and open-ended. This progression is important: Binary questions divide the respondents into general groups, and multiple choice and open-ended questions elicit detailed and personal information. When students have not been given adequate directions in making their questionnaires, they come up with a series of unconnected, poorly developed questions. Weak questions become quite apparent when the group delivers its findings to the rest of the class, but by then it is too late to do anything about it. For lower level classes, therefore, a standardized questionnaire format is helpful (see Appendix B for an example). More advanced students can be assigned a minimum number of each type of question or instructed to add questions to the standard questionnaire.

Groups should make copies of the completed questionnaire for each of their members and answer grids to take down the responses. Students who do not finish in class should do so for homework.

Lesson three: The survey (45 minutes)

Once each group has questions and answer sheets ready, students can begin interviewing each other. In a class of thirty-two students organized into groups of four, each person interviews seven people. We have also required more advanced classes to survey students from outside the class. While some people may find it difficult to believe that students would do this activity outside of class in English, students quickly realize that doing it in Japanese and translating it into English takes twice as long as doing it in English. In order to avoid wasting time, we give each group a class list that can then be divided into three parts. Each student is responsible for finding their interviewees. Forty-five minutes is enough time to complete the surveys, with slower groups finishing outside of class.

Lesson four: Collating and analyzing the data (30-45 minutes)

The groups collate the information they have collected. The open-ended questions will give students the most trouble, since every respondent will potentially give a different answer. The best approach is to group the answers under general headings and pull out a few examples to show some of the main trends. Students also need to think about the design of their poster. As we ask the students to give their presentations with few or no notes, the poster becomes an essential prop which the group can refer to during the presentation, giving visual support while they are speaking and making the talk clearer and more interesting. As you assign projects from year to year, you can develop a bank of examples from previous classes.

The students must also decide how they will organize their presentations. Each member of the group is expected to play a full part in the presentation; one person cannot do all the speaking.

The teacher should provide large sheets of paper for the posters as well as pencils, crayons, and markers. While some of the work can be done during class, the posters will probably have to be completed outside class, and a deadline before the presentation may be necessary. The groups should plan their talks to last 10-12 minutes, including questions. One teacher asks students to make the presentations to him privately before class in order to give feedback and advice. Class time can be spent on how to make the presentations as communicative as possible, concentrating on speaking style, body language, use of notes, and linking the parts of the talk together, with stress on communicating effectively and encouraging as much interaction as possible. Listeners are encouraged to question the speakers for clarification and additional information.

Lesson five: Presentations (90 minutes)

The pitfall of most presentation projects is that groups present one at a time to the entire class. This is not only time consuming, but is also devoid of interaction between presenters and observers. To avoid this, we have used a modified poster session for presentations, which has increased student participation and given students multiple opportunities to present their material.

Four of the groups set up their posters in corners of the classroom. The students of the other groups make up the audience, and they are instructed to spread out in equal numbers to listen to the presentations. When the 10-minute presentation time is over, the audience rotates to the next presentation. Therefore, groups make their presentations four times, each time to a different audience. After the fourth time, the audience and presenters change roles. The teacher has ample time to observe and evaluate all presentations.

The benefits of this presentation style are as follows: First, speakers have four chances to perfect their speaking skills and their timing but don't have time to read from prepared scripts. Second, groups are more at ease and enjoy addressing a small group rather than the whole class. Third, the presentation becomes a much more communicative exercise.

Evaluation

The audience uses a grading sheet (Appendix C) to make comments on the four presentations they attend. It has letter or numerical grades for different aspects of the presentation (body language, volume, poster) and a space for additional comments that students complete as they watch the presentation. Since the student evaluations are included in the project grade, groups realize that they must make a serious presentation each time. Student evaluators can appreciate the types of things that teachers look for in a presentation. The teacher can decide whether to include the preparation materials in the project grade, and whether to evaluate the group as a whole or grade students individually.

Conclusion

In this paper, we have given a general description of project work, illustrating it with a survey project. During the first five classes of a 15-week term, students become familiar with communicative presentations. Then, they complete two projects lasting five weeks each. Some of the projects we have assigned as a second project include: a new nation, a campus improvement project, a wellness center, and a new invention (see Glick, Holst, & Tomei, 1998). These projects can be tailored to specific faculties. For example, students in the fisheries faculty were assigned to make an island nation, with special attention paid to the types of fish and aqua culture. Since students used information from their other classes, the relevance of this assignment was obvious, and their motivation improved.

Project work offers many solutions to the problems faced in the university classroom, including increasing the amount of input students receive, making the content more applicable to students, and encouraging them to be creative and imaginative. Once a framework has been established, the teacher is free to act as a facilitator rather than lecture. This framework can be applied to different classes without becoming boring for the teacher because each group will produce a new and unique project. We feel that project work can become a valuable addition to your classes.

References

Cook V. J. (1983). What should language teaching be about? English Language Teaching Journal, 37(3), 229-234.

Doenyei, Z. (1994). Motivation and motivating in the foreign language classroom. Modern Language Journal, 78, 273-284.

Famularo, R. (1996). A group project: Student generated materials. The Language Teacher, 20(4), 11-14.

Fried-Booth, D. L. (1986). Project work. Oxford: Oxford Press.

Gardner, R. C., & Tremblay, P. F. (1995). Expanding the motivation construct in language learning. Modern Language Journal, 79, 505-518.

Glick, C. Holst, M., & Tomei, J. (1998). Project work for selected faculties. Language and Culture, 32, 41-53.

Little, D., & Dam, L. (1998). Learner autonomy: What and why? The Language Teacher, 22(10), 7-8, 15.

Littlejohn, A., & Windeatt, S. (1989). Beyond language learning: Perspectives on materials design. In R. K. Johnson (Ed.), The second language curriculum. (pp. 155-175). Cambridge: Cambridge Press.

Strong, G. (1996). Oral pair work to class statistics. In I. Gleadall & J. Johnson (Eds.), Our share (pp. 32-33). Tokyo: JALT (Materials Writers Special Interest Group).

Appendices