English 724 Moena Mukai Final Project
Dr. Olsher 2013/12/18
“Are we ready for 2020? Welcome to Tokyo Olympics!”
Project-based learning in Japanese EFL high school utilizing Web 2.0 tools
Introduction
In Japanese EFL high school classrooms, like other Asian EFL contexts, English learning is often seen as just another required school subject rather than second language (L2) learning.
Considering the unique natures of EFL settings, limited exposure to L2 and its culture and little opportunity to use L2 both inside and outside classroom, it has been said that there is no immediate purpose of learning English. Once described as “motivational wasteland” (Berwick
& Ross, 1989 as cited in Nakata, 2006: 166), Japan’s English educational system, particularly in high school, that forces the students to learn English without any obvious purposes has consequently resulted in low motivation toward L2 learning regardless of the government’s ambitious and high budget policy. The common English classrooms in Japanese EFL high school, for example, are usually teacher-fronted, which provides the students with strictly limited interaction or collaboration, and heavily focus on grammar based instruction targeted for success in college entrance exams instead of communicative use of L2.
Project-based learning (PBL) has its full potential to solve those recurrent challenges and problematic issues of Japanese EFL contexts discussed above especially when utilizing technology. Through collaborative PBL, the students are provided with rich opportunities to expose themselves to and simply use L2 for communicative and authentic purposes among each other during the whole processes to achieve the shared goals. It should be noted that technology allows its users to connect with the outside world, the authentic context in which there is an immediate need of English use and provides them with the authentic audience or real people. By making most of PBL utilizing technology, which offers immediate and authentic purposes of
English learning/using in the first place, Japanese EFL learners will benefit in terms of the four key themes: motivation; collaboration; engagement; and learner autonomy.
The current project is thus aimed at designing a unit of project-based lessons that exploits
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Dr. Olsher 2013/12/18 technology, specifically web 2.0. tools, Wikispaces and Glogster for Japanese EFL high school students in an attempt to tackle the problematic issues of the target context and increase the target students’ motivation, collaboration engagement and learner autonomy. The project’s topic as being welcoming people from all over the world into Tokyo Olympics 2020 itself is potentially a motivating and rational prompt in a way that there emerges obvious and immediate purposes of English in the EFL context since for the big international event, English is expected to use as an international language, or Lingua Franca. The present project is also intended to serves as future resources for the author who is a pre-service English teacher in Japanese EFL context herself and hopefully for other EFL and ESL teachers.
Background
What is Project-Based Learning?
Project-based learning (PBL) has its own root in the field of education as early as the
1900s. Since its inception, PBL has been long implemented in various settings not necessarily limited to language learning. As the definitions of PBL vary slightly depending on each author, it can be said that PBL leaves its practitioners a space for possible and most suitable adaptations, and thus allows them to maximize their flexibility and creativity. The basic understanding of
PBL is well illustrated by Moss and Van (1998) that “an instructional approach that contextualizes learning by presenting learners with problems to solve or products to develop” (p.
2). It means that PBL provides learners with clear purposes and goals to achieve and visible final products as an outcome in the end. This approach of PBL commonly aims at “the development of a positive attitude, critical judgment, teamwork, independent reasoning and study habits” (Pestrosino 2007, as cited in Elam & Nesbit, 2012: p. 114).
Based on Vygotskian’s Social Learning and Constructivist views that insists that interaction, or communication among learners is the key in learning process, PBL is designed to encourage learners’ interaction during the process of developing a project (Elam & Nesbit,
2012; Hanson-Smith, 2007). Accordingly, PBL focuses on communicative aspects of language
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Dr. Olsher 2013/12/18 rather than linguistic forms. Following Hanson-Smith (2007)’s definitions, PBL can be described as authentic or semi-authentic tasks depending on its project as PBL deals with not only language but “life skills” (Elam & Nesbit, 2012) that learners will need in their real world.
In addition to interaction and authenticity, the major key themes of PBL can be summarized as the following: 1) the organization of learning around real world problems, 2) student centered instruction, 3) collaboration, 4) teacher as facilitator, 5) an emphasis on authenticity, 6) formative assessment, 7) reflection, 8) and the production of authentic artifacts (Sidman-Taveau,
2005: p. 6).
PBL with web 2.0 tools
The use of technology has been proved to maximize the potential effectiveness of PBL implementation in language learning, though not necessary. Its accessibility in terms of time and place enables more efficient and active collaboration among learners during PBL, and consequently triggers their increased motivation (Barrs, 2012; Elam & Nesbit, 2012).
According to Hanson-Smith (2007), PBL utilizing technology should ideally have the following components:
1.
seeking out, synthesizing, and analyzing information in order to comprehend or create higher order knowledge expressed in varied and creative language
2.
interaction, that is, the use of language, both input and output supported by the students’ need to know and the scaffolding effects of communication
3.
collaboration as a group or team in which specific roles are assigned and knowledge is networked, thus readily facilitating the previous two processes
4.
guided assessment, both formative and summative, that includes time for individual reflection and peer evaluation in addition to the teacher’s feedback
(p. 196)
This note is highly valuable in designing a PBL classroom as being a guideline to follow. These components of PBL in an optimal language classroom, which can be briefly summarized as
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Dr. Olsher 2013/12/18 high-order thinking, interaction, collaboration, and reflection, are slightly different from those in the field of education as well as non-computer mediated language learning since technology makes many of them possible and easier.
It is worth mentioning here that planning is an essential or even crucial part of PBL especially when utilizing technology. In addition to the three components in planning PBL in general, scaffolding, goal setting and formative assessment, it is also important to consider: which technology tools are the most suitable and beneficial for the target learners; if the practitioners are familiar with the tools before instruction; what kind of steps to take in conducting each activity in detail; whether or not the planning provides enough scaffolding for the language use and collaborative experiences; and what kind of multiple evaluation can be offered (Hanson-Smith, 2007)
Technology, specifically web 2.0 has been recently drawing much attention by English language teachers, yet its implementation has not been reported much since it is relatively brand new tool, not to mention its utilization as a tool for PBL in a language classroom. Web 2.0, or the second generation of the World Wide Web, refers to an advanced version of web 1.0 that only allows its users to passively access web platforms developed by someone else, and is characterized by its allowance of collaboration and participation (Warschauer & Grimes, 2007).
Wesch (2007) describes web 2.0 in a comparison to web 1.0 as “an evolution from the linking of information to the linking of people
” (as cited in Warschauer & Grimes, 2007: p. 2). These features of web 2.0 seem to be very suitable and beneficial in utilizing for PBL especially in terms of collaboration and students-centered active engagement. The empirical studies of PBL are to be discussed in the following section.
PBL + web 2.0 in EFL contexts
Although the mainstream of the English learning in reality is more likely to still remain as traditional as being grammar focused, teacher-centered, and exam oriented in EFL contexts, some empirical studies that used either/both technology or/and PBL in the contexts have been
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Dr. Olsher 2013/12/18 reported on its positive outcomes.
Collins et al (2008) utilized Social Network Service (SNS) as a Computer-Mediated
Communication (CMC) tool in a university English classroom. It was reported that overall outcomes were positive especially in terms of the students’ increased participation, real communication, motivation, and autonomy. The noteworthy finings of the authors’ observation was that the students who were more computer literate but less fluent in English were willing to help others in using the CMC tool and in this process. Similarly, Yamauchi (2009) reported on her successful teaching experience by using technology including a learning management website, online dictionary and weblogs with high beginning Japanese university students. The author observed even the passive students with little experience with computers showed more engagement during online-based activities and exploited opportunities for output. One of the studies was conducted in a Japanese high school in which the students communicated with
American teachers and Korean EFL students on Skype (Tsukamoto et al, 2009). This study also reported on the students’ enhanced motivation and participation, which suggests high school students can benefit from Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL).
After reviewing these studies focusing on implementation of CALL intro EFL classrooms, the recurrent themes emerged: increased motivation, engagement, stimulated collaboration and learner autonomy. These pedagogical benefits gained from the CALL based approaches appear in PBL classrooms and even stronger. McCarthy (2010) focused on the learners’ perception of their experiences of PBL (non-CALL-oriented) in a language classroom. Thought the results showed the students’ autonomy did not get promoted significantly since they put more emphasis on passing the class, the students admitted the increased motivation and enhanced self-efficacy in language skills and also the authors observed they got more self-reflective over a semester.
More importantly, the study itself made administrators of the university aware of the more benefits of PBL approaches compared to traditional ones. Foss et al (2008) incorporated PBL activities into a science-focused intensive summer English course. Those activities included
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Dr. Olsher 2013/12/18 writing a newspaper article, creating an entry for Wikipedia, and making short films, in which the target university students highly engaged. The authors noted that the benefits of PBL were that the students “left with a tangible product” and therefore prepared themselves for their field of speciality. The two studies confirmed that PBL in EFL classrooms are beneficial in various settings.
Finally, one of the studies conducted by Elam and Nesbit (2012) specifically investigated the effectiveness of PBL using web 2.0 applications in a Korean university. The authors also reported on the students’ positive responses, stimulated motivation, and more engagement. More importantly, it was found out that even those who were unfamiliar with collaboration increased their confidence and actual ability of collaborative skills over a semester. Inspired by these relatively new empirical findings, this project is guided to employ PBL using multiple web 2.0 tools.
Project Overview
Reflecting pedagogical implications offered by relevant literature, this project is intended to design a unit of project-based lessons utilizing web 2.0 that will 1) enhance the target students’ engagement, 2) increase interaction and collaboration among classmates, which also trigger negotiation of meaning 3) stimulate motivation and 4) foster learner autonomy. As mentioned earlier, these four target areas are what the target context, namely Japanese EFL high school, lacks in due to its traditional current approach of teacher-oriented, grammar-based, and exam-oriented, which triggers low motivation of the learners. By employing practical suggestions by Hanson-Smith (2007) on the four components to involve as well as several considerations in planning, this current project will be well-planned and scaffolded lessons of
PBL. By utilizing web 2.0 tools, Wikispaces as a classroom platform and Glogster as a final product in the form of online posters, the designed PBL lessons provide Japanese EFL high school students with a stimulating project theme being welcoming foreign guests into Tokyo
Olympics 2020.
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
Class context and target audience
The target audience is high intermediate Japanese EFL high students in Tokyo. There are
20 students in a class, which is a classroom of 40 students divided into two classes depending on their proficiency, so that five groups of four students are made up. Ideally, the students are at their first year since their focus gets more on entrance exam as year goes by. Their basic learning goal is to pass the entrance exam, which is highly grammar translation based. However, there is also a strong need to develop communicative skills and higher competence in English will offer more options in their career path for a longer perspective. The majority of the students is expected to be highly technology literate and has access to at least one of those smartphones, mobile devices, and computers at home. The school has a well-equipped computer lab
The class meets twice a week and each session is 50 minutes. The whole unit of lessons is designed for four weeks, which consists of eight sessions.
The target class context is an oral communication class (OC), which was introduced by the government and has been taught in public high school since 2003. OC is required to be conducted only in English by the government starting from 2013, which is still controversial due to its practicality in a homogenous context. Along with other English subjects, English 1,
English 2, Reading and Writing, OC places its emphasis on practical communication abilities according to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT).
However, several studies have revealed that the course is still based on grammar-translation method or at least pre-communicative, and is often used as a catching-up time for other subjects under limited amount of class time. To break through this situation, this project is intended to make use of this wasted course and improve the way it is done.

Rationale for the use of Wikispaes and Glogster
The current project employs two web 2.0 tools, Wikispaces as a platform and Glogster as a final product in the form of online posters. In this section, the brief descriptions and rationale for choosing those two particular tools will be discussed.
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Wikispaces: http://www.wikispaces.com/
Wikispaces is “a web based publishing tool that offers learners and teachers editable virtual space for sharing information and knowledge” (Zorko, 2009 as cited in Singh et al, 2013).
According to Wikipedia , there are over 2 million members registered and more than 900.000 wikis exist. Wikispaces
Classroom specifically targets at education use with special features such as real-time formative assessment that allows its users to watch each learner’s engagement in participating
( image 1
) discussions, contributions to page editing, and comments over time. An example is shown as the image 1 on the right. This web 2.0 tool can be highly potentially beneficial for both teachers and learners as its advertisement says: “makes teachers’ lives easier”; “increase teacher capacity”;
“help students achieve more”; “improve student outcomes”; “make teaching and learning and teaching fun” “improve student engagement”.
On that note, Singh et al (2013) reported on its affordances, which in the field of technology is defined as “the perceived and actual fundamental properties of technologies that determine the usefulness and the way they could possibly be used” (Wang, Woo & Chai, 2010, p.
72 as cited in Singh et al, 2013). The report concludes that Wikispaces , as a knowledge management tool and as a collaborative learning tool, meets three of the affordances: pedagogical, social and technological. It is discussed that Wikispaces support both teaching and learning, promotes learners’ interaction and is free, highly accessible and easy to use.
As I explored the tool, I found it very easy and accessible to use and possibly for learners as well. From registering, creating a Wiki, to adding a page or discussion was all clear and simple. One of the features I found useful for a classroom is that a flexible settings of privacy, from completely to public to private, which offers an option to limit its access only to the members of the wiki or non-members as well. As for the Wikispaces of this current project, it seems reasonable to make it private to only the students and possibly other teachers who are
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Dr. Olsher 2013/12/18 invited via email by a teacher, and later after final products are created, makes it to public with all the discussion forums remain private. It is intended that the existence of the authentic audience, the potential guests for Tokyo Olympics 2020 from all over the world or simply someone who is interested in traveling to Tokyo, will enhance the students’ motivation.
As it can be seen in the image 2 below what the home page looks like on my sample
Wikispaces, the design is visually stimulating and organized.
( image 2 : http://fortokyo2020.wikispaces.com/)
Glogster http://www.glogster.com/
Glogster is a web 2.0 social networking service that offers users to create an online-based poster or a Glog, which refers to “graphics blog”. The posters are interactive in a way that can have images, videos and hyperlinks. Glogster EDU was established specifically for the educational purpose and now is cooperated with Wikispaces Classroom.
For the target context, the students’ language proficiency is not high enough to write the whole entry for a Wiki with only written texts. Instead, they are more visual learners who make most of graphic representations to process information. Therefore, not only its accessibility, but also the interactive features that are
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Dr. Olsher 2013/12/18 visually stimulating are rationale for the choice of Glogster. Unfortunately, at this time, it is not free even for educational purposes.
 Rationale for the topic “Tokyo Olympics 2020”
As discussed earlier, like other EFL contexts, Japanese EFL contexts are facing the issue of limited exposure to the target culture and immediate purpose of English learning in their every life. Even with the Internet that offers rich opportunities for the use of English as an
International Language (EIL), for a great majority of the target students, English seems still to be a “foreign” language. In hosting Olympics in Tokyo in 2020, however, Japanese people will come to experience English as being used as Lingua Franca that connects people from all over the world in their country. Tokyo Olympics 2020 is expected to give them an opportunity to see the real purpose of English learning, and thus raise people’s awareness on the importance of
English learning.
Following Dörnyei’s (2005) L2 motivational self system, which explains EFL learners’ motivation as being a consequent of one’s desire to approximate the discrepancy between the actual L2 self and the ideal L2 self, Yashima (2009) points out Japanese EFL learners can develop their ideal L2 selves within an imagined international community even in domestic contexts and consequently become more willing to communicate. In this sense, Tokyo Olympics
2020 will be the Japanese EFL learners’ imagined international community that does not still exist but will happen in the near future in which they develop their ideal L2 selves, what they would like to do using English. In that particular imagined community, English is no longer an instrumental to meet their academic success or career goals but a tool that connects themselves and people from other countries. Therefore, the topic of this project, welcoming guests to Tokyo
Olympics 2020 has a clear and real purpose and goal and is motivating as well as meaningful in helping the target audience to develop their ideal L2 selves.
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A designed unit of PBL lessons utilizing web 2. 0
Descriptions
The chart below represents a unit outline of the designed project. The unit is divided into four phases: 1) introduction, 2) getting familiar, 3) trying things together and 4) Final presentation. Each phase is designed to functions as scaffolding for the next one. As suggested by Hanson-Smith’s (2007) that presenting a final product can be one of the motivational factors, the fourth phase of presentation is established. By inviting other classmates, teachers, friends, and possibly family members, the students will have another authentic audience in addition to the real people on Wikispaces . Another purpose of this phase is for teachers to learn the students’ reactions to PBL and collaboration process for the further improvements.
To keep Hanson-Smith’s (2007) reminders of planning in mind, every time something new to the students, such as new tools or even type of activity is presented, the students are provided enough scaffolding before actually doing activities. Specifically, in introducing
Wikispaces, Glogster , and Power Point , a step-by-step tutorial and instruction by a teacher is provided with any support at hand as well as in conducting group project work or giving a presentation, which the student are not familiar with, mini lessons on language needed for group work and for public speech is provided. As for language learning, instruction is given not only for spoken language but also written language that are needed in making projects.
In terms of assessment, not only final products but also the process is to be evaluated.
The participation both in class and on Wikispaces will be accounted. Also, by assigning one of the group members a role as a reporter (take turns) who will report on their group’s progress, reflections and questions after each day, a teacher will be able to keep track of each group’s work easily and efficiently.
Other than a role of reporter, the group members in this project have to assign roles for each member in order to enhance their engagement through a sense of responsibility and self-efficacy. Adapted from an example design teams by Hanson-Smith (1997 as cited in
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Hanson-Smith, 2007), the roles employed are as the following: Team Leader, Graphic Designer,
Research Coordinator, Process Observer/Recorder and Information Manager. The students are also encouraged to help each other regardless of roles at the same time.
Unit Outline
Activities that are highlighted will be provided with samples in the following sections.
Phase/ Top Day Aims
Phase 1:
Introduction
1 Introducing
Wikispaces as a platform
2 Introducing the content
“Tokyo
Olympics
2020”
Activities
☞ T’s step-by-step tutorial presentation on Wikispaces
☞ Ss exploring Wikispaces:
Registering and posting a self-introduction
☞ First group activity focusing on
Language to use in group work:
Situations-based Role plays
*Repair Strategy
*Agreement/Disagreement
*Request
☞ A topic introduced:
What can we as community members do for welcoming visitors from all over the world for Tokyo Olympics
2020?
☞ A list of possible topics Ss can choose from:
*Basic English lessons for Tokyo people to communicate with visitors
*Public transportation Map/Guide
*Guide for one day trip from Tokyo
*Recommendations on Restaurants in Tokyo
*Must-see sightseeing spots in Tokyo
*Guide for Japanese Culture
*A list of Japanese souvenirs
*Basic Japanese lessons for visitors
☞ Brainstorming and discussion:
Homework

Exploring the Tokyo
Olympics 2020 official website: http://tokyo2020.jp/en/

Commenting on each other’s introduction
“I also liked…”
“I didn’t know that”

Ss read and comment on each others’ posts on Wikispaces
 Ss choose a topic
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Phase 2:
Getting familiar
(with a topic and project members)
3 Community
Building
4 Learning from
Model samples
Think of what to consider and is needed in creating a project briefly for each topic
☞ Sharing:
Each group writes up collaboratively their discussion summary and ideas on Wikispaces
☞ Assign groups based on their choice of topics
Note: Adjustment and negotiation needed here
☞ Assign roles for each group member
Note: T emphasize teamwork is the key so whatever role assigned, Ss have to help each other for successful projects
☞ Community Building activities on
Wikispaces
☞ Sharing their own ideas on what kinds of products they are interested in creating
☞ Make a plan for projects based on worksheet e.g.
-What kinds of contents?
-Ultimate goals of the project?
☞ Ss explore and search for authentic samples for each guides/lists/maps on the Internet
☞ Discussion
-What kind of features they want to follow?
-What is effective or not?
-What kind of information to be collected?
☞ Mini-lessons on written language for the target audience:
*Suggestions using modals or questions
Why don’t you…?
How about...?
It would be…
You could…
 A reporter of the day from each group briefly writes up what they have done in class based on the prompts given by T and posts it. Any other members are encouraged to add if necessary.

A reporter’s posting
 Ss start collecting information on the internet or outside school (information center at the station, travel agency)
 T puts up some recommended useful links
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Phase 3:
Tying things together
5 Collecting information
6 Putting things together
Phase 4:
Final
Presentation
7 Creating a presentation as a final product
8 Learning from each other
You might want to….
☞ Ss keep working on collecting needed information
☞ Brainstorming on which information is important and decide which to put up on their wiki page
☞ T’s tutorial on Glogster
☞ Storyboarding planning on the contents to put on Glogster
☞ Ss collaboratively create a
Glogster and a description part for a
Wiki page
☞ T circulates classroom and is available for assisting the students
☞ T’s tutorial on PowerPoint
☞ Each group makes an outline of each slides:
*Contents to include
-Overview of their project
(Topic, what kind of information they decided to focus and why)
-Main features of Glogster
(What/Why?)
-Reflection on their collaboration process
☞ Ss or T give feedback in class on the contents: what to add/delete etc.
☞ Assign a creator/presenter of each part
☞ Final adjustment & practice in class
☞ Each group gives a presentation

T puts up some sample Glogsters to take a look at

Ss keep working on their work
 Edit each other’s post and give feedback on other groups

Ss finish making their own PowerPoint
*Each S is responsible for their own parts as well as the whole product.
Adjust, Revise,
Comment.
 Ss practice their own parts
 T creates a discussion forum in which Ss can give each other applause and write about their reflections
Sample Activities

A lesson on language to use in group work
As a first group activity on the whole unit, language to use during group collaboration is introduced and practiced. The target areas focus on pragmatic aspects of language and deal with:
1) repair strategy--how to ask back if you don’t understand what your group member just said?
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2) agreement/disagreement--how to agree and disagree with your group member?
3) request—how to ask your group members to do something?
The students are provided some situations in which they have to use one of those strategies during group work. An example situation would be something like: You are trying to collect information needed for the project on a website. You find another website suggested on the page you are looking at that looks very useful your project. One of the group members looks bored and working on nothing. You want to share the workload and to ask the friend to take a look at the website on. What would you say?
The students talk about how they would say in English and act it out. Then after this raising-awareness phase, the teacher will show them model conversation that uses appropriate and polite but not too formal language such as “Hey, can you please look at this website? I’m looking at another one but this one also looks very useful for our project.”. It is beneficial to conduct this language lesson on the first day so that thereafter the students will be able to communicate smoothly with each other. Even though the students are expected to use their L1, Japanese, most of the time, whenever they would like to use one of those strategies, they will feel more comfortable doing so in English.

Brain Storming Activity on a chosen topic
For each topic that the students will choose from, an individual worksheet is provided for each topic. Based on that worksheet, the students will brainstorm what they already know about the topic, what information they need to collect and how, and why the topic is important. The below is a list of example brainstorming prompts for some of the topics.
*Basic English lessons for Tokyo people to communicate with visitors
⇒ What countries are the guests from? What language will be the common language?
What areas of English do Tokyo people need to know at least? What kind of greetings?
*Public transportation Map/Guide
⇒ What might be difficult for the foreign guests? What ways you can help them?
Which lines are useful to get to the main stadium or the center of Tokyo?
*Guide for one-day trip from Tokyo
⇒ What kind of places are popular to foreign tourists? Where can they go for one day?
What genres? Which place for what kind of people?
*Recommendations on Restaurants in Tokyo
⇒
What kind of places are popular and appealing to foreign tourists? What kinds of food?
How to categorize the restaurants?
*Guide for Japanese Culture
⇒ What would be most surprising cultural differences between Japan and other cultures?
What they have to know at least not being rude, preparing themselves for the culture shock?
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Depending on the learners’ level and familiarity of the topics, it is important to provide some guiding prompts to keep the directions on the right track.
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Community Building Activity
This activity is conducted on Wikispaces for the purpose of community building. Although the students of the target context are expected to already know each other since they are more likely in the same homeroom, there might be surprising facts that they do not know about each other.
For this activity, the direction will be shown on the platform as the following.
After all the students give a comment and read them through, the teacher will randomly read out some of the comments one by one trying to read at least one from each group such as “this person used to be left-handed but now she or he is both handed. Who is this?”. Whenever the comment is from one of the group members, other members have to raise their hands and tell who it is to show they have learned about their members well and got to know them better.

Report Activity
As mentioned above, it is an essential part of formative assessment and class designs and thus important for teachers to keep the track of group progress. By assigning a reporter, teachers will be able to learn what is going on in each group beyond in-class observations without any limitations of time and place. The direction will look like the following. It is worth mentioning that a set of language and structure is provided so that the reporters feel less intimidating and more willing to participate in this outside of class responsibility.
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Future directions
Although I did not have a chance to pilot this project, I got to receive feedback from other in-service teachers. After a presentation in class, one of the classmates suggested that I could include a field research as a way to collect information that asks the students to go outside and interview local people. It inspired me that by doing a filed research, the students will get motivated even more and the information to present will be more reliable. Since the curriculum designed here is already packed and I was not able to include this phase, I will keep this valuable suggestion in my mind in trying out this project in the future.
After a talk with a Taiwanese EFL high school teacher, this project received very positive feedback with some practical suggestions. She mentioned all the situations of English education in Japan was very similar to their context in ways that there is limited opportunity for collaboration among learners, authentic tasks rather than grammar-focused traditional approaches. Thus, she was interested in utilizing Wikispaces for PBL to deal with the situations.
What is more, she offered me some future collaboration for lesson plans that connects between
Japanese and Taiwanese EFL students, which I am also willing to develop. However, some concerns in implementing this project-based learning were also shared. The first thing is that in reality, it might take time to conduct this kind of technology-enhanced lessons due to the lack of understanding from administrators or parents whose focus tends to be more on traditional pedagogical approach targeting at entrance exams. This issue is also expected in my target context. For this issue, practitioners need to prepare themselves to present some promising outcomes ideally with actual examples to support the expected benefits on language learning and also learners’ growth. Another thing is that by assigning roles, sometimes workload balance among group members can be not equal. To reflect this concern, it might be important to make sure the whole project is all about teamwork and thus requires equal participation and corporation of each member.
Reflecting those suggestions, I am excited to actually try out this PBL utilizing web 2.0
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Olympics 2020, is very specific to the target context, the overall design of this project that employ the scaffolded and well-planned framework will be hopefully adaptable for other contexts.
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Resources:
Collins, K., Ellison, T. M. & Jewel. G. (2009). Implementation of Computer-Mediated
Communication through a Social Network Service in a Japanese University. The Journal
of Tama University , 13, 67-74.
Dörnyei, Z. (2005).
The Psychology of the Language Learner: Individual Differences in Second
Language Acquisition . Muhwahm NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Elam, R. J. and Nesbit, B. (2012). The effectiveness of project-based learning utilizing Web 2.0
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