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TitleProject-Based Language Learning: The Basics
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By the Staff of the National Foreign Language Resource Center (nflrc@hawaii.edu)

Project-based language learning (PBLL) may strike you as a recent buzzword, but its history can be traced back to the early 1900s (see, for instance, Stevenson, 1921). Nowadays we know more about how people learn languages, and new technology enables us to put together highly engaging language learning experiences. So what exactly is PBLL now? We define PBLL as an articulated series of activities, motivated by real-world needs and driven by the learners' interest, whose common goal is to improve language learners’ communicative competence in the target language through the construction of products. PBLL should provide a high level of learner autonomy; invite critique and revision; promote the use of skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and intercultural communication (also described as 21st Century Skills, Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2014); and include the sharing of the constructed product with a target audience. The six tenets explained below constitute the backbone of PBLL.

Projects bring learners face-to-face with real-world situations that have a real audience and require the use of the target language. That is, learning is organized around real world activities. The starting point of a project is an engaging central question (Blumenfeld et al., 1991) which learners can relate to and feel motivated to address. In ideal cases, the central or driving question is crafted by the learners themselves. Related to this idea is the notion that thematic content should be significant, that is, of interest to the learners and guided by standards. Language learning is facilitated by giving learners just-in-time instruction addressing the language learners’ need to successfully complete the project task at hand.

Just-in-time instruction is related to the second tenet: PBLL instruction is learner-centered. Because content is student-driven and language is taught on a need-to-know basis, instruction becomes an activity that is centered on the needs of the learners. Specifically, language learning focuses on the language knowledge that the learners need to acquire in order to complete the project. This is related to the idea that PBLL content should be significant, that is, perceived as important for the learners to learn.

Collaboration is an integral part of learning. As human endeavor becomes more and more technically complex and knowledge-intensive, collaboration becomes ever more critical. This is why collaboration (along with critical thinking, communication, and creativity) is listed as one of the 21st century skills. When teachers incorporate collaboration in instructional design,  language learning becomes a more cooperative and social undertaking, and the instructor takes on a more facilitative role. Projects that incorporate structured international collaboration offer the potential to foster intercultural competence (Godwin-Jones, 2013). The concept of collaboration in PBLL not only implies engagement in the process but also in assessment.

Because PBLL is a process defined by a sequence of learning activities, assessment has a dual purpose: guide the process and measure progress. PBLL assessment is typically collaborative (participants and their audience are involved), formative (occurs periodically and informs learning) and multidimensional (encompasses the entire experience, including both the process that learners engage in as well as the resulting product).

In PBLL, the role of the instructor is that of a knowledgeable participant and facilitator. The instructor provides different types of scaffolding to ensure that learners can successfully complete the project. Typically, four types of scaffolding are needed in a project: project process scaffolds (for example, providing students an outline of the phases of the project; see Nekrasova & Becker, 2012), content scaffolds (for example, engaging learners in activities that activate prior knowledge of a topic), language scaffolds (for example, providing just-in-time instruction or glossaries of key words to understand authentic materials), and final product scaffolds (for example, providing a template for the final product). Keep in mind that the learners themselves can be given the role of the knowledgeable participant at different points in the process and be charged with providing scaffolding for other learners.

Modern technologies now make it possible to provide an unprecedented level of authenticity in PBLL as language learners can connect with peers around the globe and interact with worldwide communities in rich and engaging learning experiences. Authenticity in PBLL is propelled by two requirements: projects entail the creation of a real-world product and involve a real audience. Project authenticity can range from the political, such as addressing social or environmental injustice in a community, to the personal, such as examining spending habits or time management.

If you would like to learn more about PBLL, please consider participating in the University of Hawai‘i National Foreign Language Resource Center’s 2015 PBLL Online Institute (http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/events/view/75) and Intensive Summer Institute (http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/events/view/74).

References               

Blumenfeld, P. C., Soloway, E., Marx, R. W., Krajcik, J. S., Guzdial, M., & Palincsar, A. (1991). Motivating project-based learning: Sustaining the doing, supporting the learning. Educational Psychologist, 26, 369–398.

Godwin-Jones, R. (2013). Integrating intercultural competence into language learning through technology. Language Learning & Technology, 17(2), 1–11. Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/issues/june2013/emerging.pdf.

Nekrasova, T., & Becker, A. (2012). Integrating STEM topics in the foreign language classroom promising practices for foreign language instruction 1. National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition. Retrieved from http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/files/uploads/promising_FL/ForeignLg_STEM.pdf.

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2014). Framework for 21st century learning. Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/our-work/p21-framework.

Stevenson, J. A. (1921). The project method of teaching. New York, NY: The Macmillan Company.

Weinstein, G. (2006). “Learners’ lives as curriculum:” An integrative project-based model for language learning. In G. H. Beckett & P.C. Miller (Eds.), Project-based second and foreign language education. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.

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