I don't like projects. That may be because I am doing something wrong. Or, maybe not? You tell me. Here are 5 reasons why I dislike projects enough to avoid them as much as possible:
1. Projects almost always seem to involve wasting a lot of time coloring, cutting and sticking. If the students use computers, the same amount of time is spent on layout, finding pictures/clip art and/or choosing the perfect font. If they use a video camera, hours and hours will be spent on editing and effects...These activites belong in (and are meaningful in) an Arts & Crafts type class - not in the ESL classroom.
2. Research projects, or any type of project where students are allowed to "find information" on the net - invariably leads to a lot of copying and pasting of paragraphs and texts that the students do not even understand themselves! Plagiarism is rampant! Nobody really cares about copyright.
3. "Homework projects" (also referred to in Turkish as "Performans Ödevi" or "Dönem Ödevi") are nothing less than a joke as they are almost always the parents' work. Sometimes private teachers (!) or some cousin in High School is the actual author, but very rarely the students themselves.
4. Projects almost always means groupwork and groupwork almost always means a lot of noise and a lot of talking - and most of (if not all of) that talking happens in Turkish, not in English. I mean, as the kids are busy in their groups cutting, sticking and coloring in, they do not chat pleasantly with each other in English. They do it in Turkish. They even prefer to use Turkish when they actually know how to say whatever it is in English, like "please hand me the gluestick" or "may I have the red crayon"...
5. Projects in groups also often means that the stronger students become stronger and the weaker ones become weaker or are left out altogether. If the students are left to divide the tasks between themselves, they will for instance tend to assign the writing bit to the strongest writer, the presentation bit to the best speaker and so on. That way the group as a whole will be more successful (that is, get a better grade). However, what's the use of the strong writer getting more writing practice and the weaker writer getting less?
So, these are the first 5 reasons (if pressed I could think of more) why I avoid projects. Now you tell me - have I had one too many cups of Turkish Coffee - or ...?
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You have brought up how project work is mostly completed in schools across the country. I believe you have the answer to, How to set up projects effectively, because you have already shown you are aware of the all the problems. We might ask ourselves:
-time is wasted
-they plagerize
-parents do the work
-they don't bother using English
-the weaker don't contribute
2. What can I do to counteract?
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Hi CoffeAddict,
I quite disagree with you. Here are 5 reasons why I disagree with you:
1. Cut, paste , stick and colour crafts are a part of English teaching especially if you teach in the primary level. For example, nature, body, animals, shapes, numbers, alphabet, transport, objects, clothes, family, food topics should include cut, paste , stick and colour activities. So, these activities also belong to English classes.
2. Children may not know about plagiarism or copyrights. As teachers, we can raise their awareness on this. Turnitin is a good resource to prevent plagiarism.
3. Parents, tutor or cousin can also do a student’s Maths, Science etc. homework. It’s all about their level of consciousness on education. That’s why we should have a strong collaboration with parents to avoid such mistakes.
4. Group works and pair works are musts of English classes. The fact that they prefer to speak in their mother tongue shouldn’t prevent us from doing such activities. As guiders, we should encourage them to communicate in English.
5. It’s a fact that our classes aren’t homogenous. There are strong chains and weak chains. What we should do is to make them work together. Strong ones can help the weak ones. It’s sure that each of them has something to learn from these works. Some will learn more and some will less. It isn’t realistic that all students will learn at the same speed and amount.
When I was a student at high school, we used to have a book called Hotline and at the end of each unit we were expected to design a project. The teacher used to exhibit our works in the classroom and we were happy to see our works on the classroom panel. These projects and performance works are also great ways to appreciate students’ works and increase their self-esteem and motivation.
Thanks,
Bülent
As a project-lover (!) I want to mention the potential benefits of a project work first: 1. Through project work students are expected to be engaged in real-life tasks, get acquainted with and use real-life language, practice and improve language skills, think critically and creatively, learn how to do small-scale research and how to work in groups.
While designing and assigning them we love it, but at the end both students and teachers hate them because of all the problems you mentioned above. In our case (university prep school) due to plagiarism and poor teamwork skills project works turn out to be a 'pain in the neck' situation. You call them 'donem odevi' we call them 'mini projects in portfolio' but the results are similar.
But how can we overcome such problems and get the best out of the project works? I believe the projects should be carried out through a step-by-step process. Firstly, the teacher should explain the task, the goals, the procedure, the outcome, the grading system and make everything explicit to students. Then the teacher should provide the students with an example to guide them better (concrete examples are better than words). It is also crucially important to teach the students basic research and teamwork skills before they get involved. As the projects are completed by following a process, it is important to spare time for each step to check how well the students are doing or to see if they are on the right track. Grading each step also helps. If we don't check the students (or guide them) at each step, they either get lost, or plagiarize, or have someone do it. But frankly speaking, this requires time and energy. So we can say that project works are a little bit demanding. If we want our students to do the projects properly and benefit from them thoroughly, we need to provide assistance through the whole process.
It is not easy to prepare projects and then control the process. It takes much time and it is really hard! For my young adult learners, I usually give the topics and ask them to research. It is not allowed to copy and paste from any resource. They need to have a list of references showing where they found the information. When I see unquoted copy-paste sentences, I give no mark to the student and they know I take plagiarism serious. So, they actually work on it and bring me their own work no matter how simple it is.
CoffeeAddict, I guess we need to know what to do when about these projects or homeworks. I believe they are really useful but when students or teachers don't take it seriously, it may not be more than a burden on their shoulders. However, I should also mention that when you give such homeworks, it takes terribly much time to review them all. We all have many hours of teaching and maybe we can contribute to the students better if we spend our time on preparations. I can't be sure though!
Great post as usual!
Osman
I like projects, especially with young learners because I think they express a lot about them. Most of the students like making coloring and sticking projects about their lives and they keep them for many years as memories from their childhood.
and I agree especially with your 2-3-5th reasons. In my next posts I was thinking of talking about some types of homework I give to students.
so what kind of work do your students do in and outside the classroom, how do you avoid plagiarism, or cousins' help?
Thank you all for commenting! It's nice to see that some of you agree with at least some of my "politically incorrect" views on projects. However, I almost appreciate the arguments against my views more. I really like a good discussion - and I am always ready to change my mind. However, you have to convince me first!
So, I feel that I have to respond to some of the things that you all (and especially seabiscuit - thanks!) mentioned in your comments. Here goes.
1. With little kids (K-5) a certain amount of cutting, pasting and sticking may be necessary and desirable, for the reasons given by seabiscuit. However, I teach Middle School and the older kids there should not waste their time in this way. They already know their colors and basic vocabulary on the topics mentioned. I may be convinced to allow arts type activities to "decorate" the end-product of a project. It may be nice, for instance to have the students draw a picture of the cupcake below the nice process paragraph explaining how to make cupcakes that they wrote. However, I refuse to give points for the drawing. I'm interested in the paragraph, not the picture.
2. Yes, you always run the risk of parents or others "helping" with homework and homework projects. It is also true that the school should work to raise students' awareness of copyright/plagiarism. However, I don't have time to play detective about homework or to teach students about plagiarism/copyright. To make absolutely sure that my students do their own work, I make sure all writing assignments/projects are completed in class. I leave plagiarism/copyright to the guidance department to deal with during sharing-time and assemblies.
3. I prefer pairwork to individual work and groupwork. I think probably 70% of all the activities in my classroom are pairwork activities. It is groupwork I dislike. Especially if the groups are larger than 4 students. They are messy, noisy, inefficient and offer students all sorts of ways to "relax" and stop applying themselves. The only real reason for assigning work/projects to large groups is really that there will be fewer "products" for me to mark in the end...
Let's face it - how much English could a group of grade 8 kids possibly learn by coloring, cutting, pasting and sticking things on a piece of cardboard while chatting among themselves in Turkish?!?
Cheers!
:-) CoffeeAddict
Hi CoffeeAddict,
I guess I should clarify my opinions on projects as a response to your reply.
1. This kind of activities aren't only for little kids. They are also applicable to middle school children. There are many other topics which can be adapted in projects and performance home works. When I was at high school, we used to have intensive English schedule and we were expected to design a project at the end of each unit and I was a prep student. I even know university students who prepare such projects. Middle school students are younger and they also need to see their works and crafts that they prepare in a foreign language. I agree with you that this kind of works should be evaluated according to quality of the language used. Besides, these works belong to the application stage of language learning, as you mentioned in your post on The Cambridge PET exam.
2. I don't think it is a good idea to put so much pressure on students. We should show them that we trust and believe them. They deserve to be treated with dignity. They should be allowed to do their projects together at home or in the library. If we leave important problems that we don't think our responsibility to other departments, we can never be sure when they will be solved. We should take initiative. I don't think it takes one's so much time to raise awareness on plagiarism and copy rights. We don't have to play the detective. But, I think we should play the teacher.
I think a group of 8 graders will learn more than they do in a traditional lesson, if they carry out a well-organized and relevant to syllabus colour, cut, paste and stick project.
Thanks,
Bülent
This was a great post! Way to go!
As one of the poeple responded, turnitin.com is the way to go. I struggled with it at first, but it is great. Your school needs to purchase the account and then teachers from all subject areas can recommend that students submit all or parts of an assignment. This site updates frequently and has all sorts of peer review and such. Check it out! Universities use it as well because, as you have said, plagiarism is rampant.
Perhaps the cutting, coloring and pasting can happen at home. Encourage your students that if anything is printed from the internet, they have to cite the web address of where they got the picture.
Create a very clear rubic and include a performance grade for how they interact in group projects.
I am disagree with u because your thoughts seem negative. you create postive thinking related to any work and project. so lets try........and complete your projects.