Assigning PROJECTS or TASKS to ELT Students:


The importance of project work and tasks in English Language Classes:
Assigning some projects or tasks to students is a great way to help students make real-life connections with the material, as well as increase motivation and collaboration – and have fun!
It is, however, difficult for most educators to find the balance between implementing these projects or tasks and teaching the standards. Another difficulty might be thinking outside of the box and sometimes it could be extremely challenging for some teachers. Teachers also need to think about how they can give feedback to these tasks without causing any problems to the curriculum. However, these kind of tasks will…
• make students benefit from what they have learned in class.
• arouse student interest outside or inside the class.
• make students become more creative.
• give the students the opportunity to work in pairs or groups.
• make students apply their knowledge.
• make students focus more on content rather than grammar.

The following tasks have been assigned to students outside classes:
1. VIDEO ASSIGNMENT/ RECORDING (A2 Level) :Meeting people outside class: Introducing yourself and asking Qs / saying goodbye.

2. DESCRIBE (A2 Level) Sherlock Holmes House / Ice Hotel / Bill Gates House / Simpsons House / Viking House:Students show the photo of the house that they have chosen and stand up and describe it with a partner in class.

3. PREPARING A POWERPOINT about their FAVOURITE PLACE and presenting it to their partners in class (A2 Level). All the partners do their presentations with their pairs in class.

4. Writing INFORMAL / FORMAL email to their friends / teachers which they have to send. (Any Level)

5. RECORDING A RECIPE: Nazo’s Cup as a sample from the teacher / Students’ Recipe’s in pairs or individual.

6. MY LIFE PRESENTATION: Students prepare a video about their life and present it in class. A sample powerpoint presentation should be prepared by the teacher first: Nazo’s Life.

7. WATCHING A DOCUMENTARY on the Life of Animals: Students watch the following video: (a bit long: about an hour)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkbp7h_bbc-life-e01-challenges-of-life_animals
and the task is: watch it and write ONE piece of info about each animal that they have learned from the video.

8. PRESENTATION of a FESTIVAL (A2 Level). Students first watched a sample presentation of the teacher. After the presentation materials have been distributed in class students can do their presentations in class.

9. PREPARING A POWERPOINT (A2 Level): Students prepare a powerpoint in pairs about a painter / artist / sculptor etc. with only 4/5 slides. They have to talk about the painter / artist and give some information about his/her artwork in their presentations.

10. Extra Listening Assignments(A2 or B1 Level): Tasks from the following website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/6-minute-english
A different task can be assigned to students each week and the tasks can be kept simple because the audios might be challenging for A2 level students. B1 students could watch those videos and take notes. Every Monday they could talk about their videos to their partners in class.
11. Extra Reading Assignments from the following website: (B1 Level):
http://www.topics-mag.com/
Online Magazine for Learners of English
This publication offers learners of English an opportunity to express and publish their ideas in English to an online audience. Students can read an article from this website and summarize what they have read in 3 sentences.

12. TEACH us SOMETHING (A2 or B1 Level):
Each pair teaches their friends something (a topic, a term, anything different they know well) every week. This gives students a chance to benefit from each other’s ideas and also deal with the stage fright.

The following tasks have been assigned to students inside classes:

1. PREPARING AN ADVERTISEMENT (A2 Level) on an A3 Paper. It could also be an imaginary product. Students in groups act out their advertisement in class. A sample advertisement done by teacher and two students in class first.

2. PREPARING a CHRISTMAS TREE in groups in class (B2 Level): The class is divided in groups of 4/5. Each group gets a big green paper and scissors which students have to cut to make a christmas tree during Christmas time. After the christmas trees are stuck on walls, the teacher provides them with little cards on which they have to write their christmas resolutions.

3. WRITING a SUMMARY of a PARAGRAPH in the text book in groups of 3. (B1 Level). The summary of the first paragraph should be done on the board as a sample by the teacher first. Then, students in groups of 3 can be assigned to summarize a paragraph on the board.

4. USING A PADLET (A2 Level) to describe their favourite photo that they have brought to class or the photo could be provided by the teacher.

5. PREPARING a VOCABULARY POSTER (Any Level): The class is divided into groups of 3 and they are asked to prepare a poster with the 9 vocabulary items that the the teacher provides them. They can do anything they like, such as draw pictures, sentences, synonyms with those words. After their posters are ready, they stick their pposters on walls and students stand up and choose the best poster after that they try to memorize as many words as possible.

6. WRITING FUTURE PLANS (A2 Level): This is an in-class activity which can be done after the future tense “going to” has been explained. The teacher distributes small pieces of paper on which each student writes a sentence related to that person’s future plan: e.g., I am going to become an excellent architect. Or I am going to travel around the world. After everybody has written their plans, the teacher collects them and reads them one by one. The class has to guess whose paper it is.

7. WRITING REGRETS (B2 LEVEL): Each student writes a sentence on a small piece of paper in the past tense; e.g., I had an arguments with mum last week. Students have to guess who that person might be. Afterwards, the teacher reads them aloud, and students have to provide a sentence which contains SHOULD HAVE. E,g., Ahmet should /shouldn’t have argued with his mum.