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ReplyDelete1. A student-created newspaper as a project is especially intriguing, along lines mentioned by a colleague from Myanmar as a student magazine. In Laos our students were producing a college newspaper in English, an issue every few months, that was extraordinary, many critical articles, raising local issues. One of our teachers had some journalism experience and could oversee the project. Today that can of course be digital.
1a. FREINET PEDAGOGY and PBL: Such a project was and is also central to Freinet pedagogy. I recommend looking into Freinet pedagogy esp. in connection with PBL. It remains comparatively little known in the US and UK, despite an international association, Freinet educators are active in Germany France, Italy, and elsewhere. Is Courtney, are any of you familiar with Freinet angles on student-centered, project-oriented, collaborative education? Much stress there on working-class pedagogies, place-based curricular foci. Célestin Freinet was exchanging student newspapers between schools inside France, across borders, already in the late 1920s. Here an article of mine that can serve as introduction:
B. Templer (2014). Intercultural Networking and Freinet Pedagogy: Creating Transcultural Learning Partnerships Focused on a Locally Relevant Issue
https://www.academia.edu/27457171/Intercultural_Networking_and_Freinet_Pedagogy_Creating_Transcultural_Learning_Partnerships_Focused_on_a_Locally_Relevant_Issue
Explore also FINEM, a Freinet pedagogy association:
https://www.fimem-freinet.org/en/node/29
G. Schlemminger, The Freinet Movement: Past and Present: https://demolab.hu/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/01History-Freinet1.pdf
Many articles, videos about Freinet-inspired approaches nowadays online.
This is quite interesting! Mostly because in my school I teach in the area of Communication ,Art and Design . So a project like yours would be perfect. More over now that you can do it online and don´t need to spend a lot in printing the material.
DeleteHello! I´m Sonia ,from Tucumán, Argentina.I find PBL very engaging and motivating for teenagers. They are not very fond of learning grammar rules or doing so much writing tasks . They like singing,dancing,drawing, acting,taking photos,etc, and they are very creative in doing so.Therefore some years ago I asked them " You tell me please, What would you like to do in this course? " And they told me they wanted to do some acting, to produce a short film. I answered:" Oh yes! Sure! "But I was absolutely scared at the idea, mostly because we have only three hours a week and very few opportunities to practise speaking since classes are big ( 30 to 35 students). But I wouldn´t discourage them, so I added: "Let´s do it".From then on we started preparing our project. They said they wanted to tell the legend of " El perro familiar" which is like an evil dog which lived in the factories where they produced sugar in our town.So ,to start with I separated them into groups: The writers, the actors, the artist department, etc. We read other legends and analized the genre caracteristics, I gave them some graphic organizers and some information about conectors, time organizers,plot,characters,etc.Of course I had to devote a lot of extra time to them for the rehearsals.All this took us three months. Finally we joined at the old sugar cane factory near our school and we did the film shooting. It was a great experience for all. We enjoyed quite a lot and they were very happy.This is the link to the trailer :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj1oQZYqoM0
ReplyDeleteI´m afraid the pronounciation is not very good but they made quite an effort!
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ReplyDeleteThanks for the input, Sonia. Here are two books you and others can download as pdf with many articles by classroom teachers in a range of countries, esp. in the Global South, looking at issues and projects they have experimented with.
ReplyDelete*** Creating Global Change (GISIG, 2020) has 30 articles from 26 countries, including Libya, Angola, Sudan, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Gaza and many others. Voices from the grassroots. A truly remarkable book. https://gisig.iatefl.org/wp-content/publications/CREATING GLOBAL CHANGE - GISIG.pdf
*** Creating Change. Global Issues in ELT in Africa (GISIG, 2019) has articles by classroom teachers from 17 countries. Many stimulating ideas for projects that have been developed, great range of issues addressed. https://gisig.iatefl.org/wp-content/publications/GISIG_CREATING_CHANGE.pdf
(1) RE remote drama as an ongoing outreach project, the HANDS UP PROJECT Nick Bilbrough has created is a kind of paradigm. It could be the stimulus for other remote theater ventures in English, not just into Gaza. HUP is also now running cost-free training sessions for colleagues who want to learn the ropes of remote theater pedagogy and student-written short plays about their own lives. Such projects could be created by some of you, inside your own country or transborder.
ReplyDeleteNick’s success with HUP is phenomenal. And he is also developing a discussion venture for young teens to just discuss online, likewise free of charge called ‘online intercultural communication’. The artifacts created from the remote theater project are both video presentations of the plays being distributed in various channels, and now some books of collected plays as scripts, low-cost, so others could also watch a play from Gaza and then perform it themselves, a small group of students. He also has a competition between plays with volunteer judges internationally. See https://handsupproject.org/
(2) Regarding new angles on GROUP DISCUSSION and its creative pedagogy:
Margit Szesztay (Budapest, past President of IATEFL) has just published a new book:
>Talking to learn, learning to talk: Group Dialogue in education.< (2020) It focuses with many ideas for activities on *Asking fruitful questions *Listening with an open mind *Appreciating diverse perspectives *Tapping into the creative potential of groups
See: http://www.versatile.pub/talking-to-learn.html
You can order here: https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/margit-szesztay/talking-to-learn-learning-to-talk/paperback/product-njm95y.html
Nick Bilbrough has a special presentation Sunday, Nov. 1, at 6pm UK time, discussing the Hands Up Project: https://worldstorytellingcafe.com/performances/connecting-the-world-by-story-nick-bilbrough-talks-about/ It will probably be recorded on video. This is at the worldstorytellingcafe.com , a site you can also explore.
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