| Body | Julio C Rodríguez, Director, Center for Language & Technology and National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Julio Rodriguez joined the faculty of the College of Languages, Linguistics and Literature at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa as Director of the Center for Language & Technology (CLT), formerly Language Learning Center, and associate director of the National Foreign Language Resource Center (NFLRC) in 2011.
Before you read this, take a minute to make a list of what you think are the essential qualities of a project designed to optimize second language acquisition. For example, “a project should result in a product.” Keep reading after you finish your list.
When thinking about projects, an idea that often comes to mind is learners engaging in an extended task or series of tasks that require meaningful use of language and result in a product. Although this depiction highlights important aspects of a project, it does not reveal the potential that project-based learning (PBL) offers to immerse language learners in highly engaging learning experiences. The purpose of this brief article is to summarize key aspects of quality project-based language learning (PBLL) and how attention to those aspects can help foster conditions that have the potential to enable second language acquisition.
In recent years, the Buck Institute for Education (BIE) has been a leading advocate for what is described as rigorous PBL, a model composed of essential elements that characterize a quality project. This model is captured in a document entitled Gold Standard PBL: Essential Project Design Elements (BIE, 2015). Building on the foundations laid out by the BIE, language professionals at the Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center (NFLRC) have worked with a broad community of language education professionals around the nation. Their goal is to craft projects that can serve as workable PBLL models and inspire other language teachers to learn more about and implement PBLL. An important aspect of this process has been the definition of exemplary language learning projects. The table below presents the key criteria for PBLL (left column) and a synopsis of how they relate to the context of language learning and teaching (right column).
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Key Knowledge, Understanding and Success Skills
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In quality PBLL, learners acquire the language through the use of their language skills in the real world with the purpose of creating a product, solving a problem or understanding a complex issue or question of relevance to the target culture. Two types of guidelines are useful to identify key knowledge, understanding, and success skills: (a) guidelines that help teachers identify content and (b) guidelines that help teachers align content with proficiency levels. The former are best represented by the World Readiness Standards for Learning Languages, ACTFL’s 21st Century Skills Map, or institutional outcomes (student learning objectives or SLOs). The latter type of guideline is represented by proficiency scales such as the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines or the ILR Proficiency Scale.
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The Challenge
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Projects are built around a challenge, which may be in the form of an open-ended problem or question or the creation of a product. The challenge should be meaningful, in the sense that it should be informed by learners’ interests and needs.
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Sustained Inquiry
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Projects that support sustained inquiry encourage learners a) to generate questions that target both form and meaning and promote language and cultural comparisons, and b) to learn how to find and use resources that will help them answer those questions, become curious about more complex questions, and produce their own answers.
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Authenticity
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Authenticity has long been discussed in second language acquisition, in particular with reference to materials and contexts of language use. In PBLL, authenticity also applies to language learning materials and contexts of language use but reaches beyond to include the tools (for example, using Wechat for a Chinese language project rather than a social media outlet that is not used in the target culture), and the products that are created through the experience. The extent to which the project produces an impact in the real world and connects with the learners’ own concerns, interests, and identities is also a measure of a projects’ authenticity.
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Learner voice & choice
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Research in second language acquisition has shown that motivation is a factor deeply linked to success in acquiring a language. Projects that build in opportunities for learner input in the choice of topic and in the evolution of the process are likely to increase learners’ instrumental and integrative motivation (Gardner & Lambert, 1972). Instrumental motivation refers to practical reasons to learn a language. Projects that meet learners’ needs are more likely to awaken this type of motivation. Integrative motivation refers to the learners’ interest in learning a language in order to connect with the people and the culture. Although both types of motivation are important, integrative motivation is a better predictor of success in language acquisition. Well-designed projects offer multiple opportunities to awaken a learner’s integrative motivation by creating the need to interact with the target culture in the target language. Achieving success in this regard attests to the transformative impact of the experience.
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Reflection
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The impact of learners’ and teachers’ beliefs in second language acquisition has long been documented and explored in SLA research and instructional technology. Quality project designs build in opportunities for participant reflection (both learners and instructors) thus providing ways for participants to discover and possibly revise beliefs about language learning and teaching that might impact acquisition.
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Critique and revision
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This element of a project design refers to both the importance to build in opportunities for corrective feedback in a general sense (from instructor, peers, and native speakers) and for the revision of ideas and products throughout the project. Critique and revisions in PBLL may include an intercultural dimension where members of the target culture are involved in this process.
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Public product
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Quality projects result in a public product presented to an authentic audience. According to the BIE Gold Standards (2015), a product can be a tangible artefact that showcases the learner’s knowledge or a presentation of a solution to the project challenge. An authentic audience ensures that learners receive meaningful feedback on the final product. Authentic audiences are considered those which are made up of speakers of the target language who have real stakes in the solution of the challenge.
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Adapted from Essential Project Design Elements by the Buck Institute for Education (bie.org)
Designing projects that meet all these criteria is a challenging project itself. However, a group of language professionals have taken up the challenge of conceptualizing and designing projects that illustrate these qualities and that might help their colleagues in the exploration of this exciting approach to language instruction. These are highlighted in the Activity of the Week section below.
References
Buck Institute for Education (BIE). (2015). Gold Standard PBL: Essential Project Design Elements. Available: http://bie.org/blog/gold_standard_pbl_essential_project_design_elements
Gardner, R. C., & Lambert, W. E. (1972). Attitudes and motivation in second language learning. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
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