| Body | If you decide to use PBLL, this is a great time to start thinking about language learning projects for your students for next semester. In addition to this sample project, here are a few ideas that may help inspire you:
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Existing projects are always a good place to start. The Buck Institute for Education, for example, maintains a database of projects, some of which are language-learning specific. Projects such as Story Corps, One in 8 Million, and the TED Open Translation Project are also good models to create mini-projects that replicate their features. Existing media repositories, such as the MIT Open Documentary Lab are also a good place for inspiration.
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Websites with general project ideas often offer concepts that can be scaled to an international audience and multilingual purpose, for example this page from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, or this one from Global Youth Service Day. Ideas such as “Make cards or write letters - for kids in hospitals, troops and veterans, or senior citizens in local nursing homes” can be easily turned into a language project. Making contact with a hospital in a foreign country can result in a very authentic and meaningful language project.
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Look for opportunities in your local community. A project such as “Help prepare your family for a disaster – and make sure your neighbors are ready too!” (from: http://www.gysd.org/easyprojectideas) can target TL speakers in the local community by creating a product that is relevant and useful. Or a documentary such as this one may be replicated based on local immigrants’ stories.
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Explore connnections with sister cities (http://www.sister-cities.org/). They offer an authentic audience and projects may receive support from local governments or communities, which makes them more tangible and exciting to learners.
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Look into international organizations that might have existing projects and community connections (e.g., there may be a charter in your own community). For example, a project such as this one could include language materials such as a letter from L2 learners explaining the importance of vitamins to the recipients of the donations.
- Participate in the University of Hawai‘i National Foreign Language Resource Center’s 2015 PBLL Online Institute and Intensive Summer Institute to connect with colleagues interested in PBLL.
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