The national educational initiative defines modernization and innovation as the only way that will allow Kazakhstan to become a competitive society in the world of the 21st century, to provide a decent life for all our citizens. In the context of new strategic objectives such personality's traits as initiative, ability to think creatively and to find creative solutions, the ability to choose a professional way, a willingness to learn throughout their lives are becoming crucial and major factors. Method of projects as means of realizing individual project can provide training for such a person, as in the course of its implementation, students learn to work independently, gain cognitive and learning experience. During the project work responsibility for training will be at the student as an individual and as a member of the project team. Thus, the project is an opportunity for students to express their own ideas in a convenient and creatively crafted form for them.
Over time the comparative analysis of the history of project method formation shows that approaches to understanding the nature of projects by domestic and American teachers were different. As a result, the principal difference was that local educators had accepted the core value of the project method in the development of a person’s socially significant qualities (collectivism, social and political activity, diligence and perseverance in the goal achievement). It must be said that American counterparts have been focused on the developing the student’s individual adaptive response at the situation or surrounding. In terms of American educators the value of project method was the possibility of learning individualization by relying on a subjective experience and educational interests of students [6].
However, both of these approaches contain positive aspects as in the life of every person. It is necessary to develop an individual characteristics and social interaction skills.
To answer the question "What is project-based learning in the pedagogical process?" we should select it characteristics of different definitions.
According to pedagogical encyclopedias project method is described as a "learning system, where students’ knowledge and skills have acquired in the process of planning and performance of gradually complicated practical tasks". The authors have declared "historical experience of approbation of this method shows that educational technology should not be dominant, but should be organically intertwine into the educational process along with other methods and techniques of teaching" [5].
E.S. Polat emphasizes his thoughts on students’ independent activity, accompanied by detailed problem formation and completion as a real, practical result. Also much attention should be paid to the understanding of project
by A.A. Khromov. He has defined project method as a learning system, a flexible model of educational process oriented toward creative student’s self-realization. Thus, it provides development of their intellectual and physical abilities, strong-willed skills and creativity in the process of new product’s creation, having an objective and subjective novelty, practical importance under the teacher’s control [2]. In teaching, the project activity is considered as a way of organizing the teaching process based on the interaction, collaboration and co-creation of the teacher and students during the phase of practical activities in order to achieve the goals.
In order to confirm or refute the hypothesis put forward by us, as well as implementation of the objectives, we have conducted a number of studies, including:
- Interviews and conversations with teachers using the method of projects in the educational process;
- Reading articles about the experience of using project methodology;
- Analysis of work products (wall newspapers, posters);
- Observation of the work on the project.
The positive attitude of the teachers of the gymnasium towards this technology during the interviews was clearly seen. Among the positive factors were named the development of cognitive students' interests, the opportunity more carefully to analyze students' activity while independent work in order to further use student-centered approach to learning and the ability to convey a leading role in the activities of the students themselves and for some time to reduce the stress arising in educational activities. Within the project technology is possible to use a various range of methods such as discussion, brainstorming, search and research methods. In addition the project method has great educational impact. According to teachers' opinions, which are familiar with this technology, the project method develops responsibility, activityactive attitude and the ability to see all tasks through to the end.
Studying of projects and guidelines for them for the books English by Kozlov and Enjoy English as well as students' surveys suggest a direct connection with the proposed themes towards the level of preparation, students' interests and needs. Thus, we see that the work of teachers implement the basic principles of the organization of project activities, such as student-centered approach, taking into account students' individuality and the principle of cooperation [7]. Moreover, it manifests itself in a wide interaction of teachers between the participants in the group and between groups at different stages project. Preparatory work of the teacher in developing a wide range of sub-topics within a certain current theme also allows implementing the principle of students' free choice and the principle of reliance on the personal life experience. Thus, it will increase the motivation for the learning process, which is extremely important at the current situation of students' negative attitudes towards learning.
The training itself can be constructed in different ways. Sometimes students initially aim at the final draft when all speech activity testing of material is subject to the final result [1]. Otherwise, students are encouraged to project after a study of the topic. Teachers tend to occupy the position of consultant and coordinator of independent students'. Work can be organized in different ways: only for extracurricular lessons or be accompanied by consultation [3]. The degree of coordination varies from the peculiarities of the team and work stages. For instance, coordination work is often apparent while the preparatory and organizational stages, but its role significantly reduced in activitystage. The stage of estimation is interested by a huge number of teachers where they can make an experiment. In the literature the following valuation models such as expert group of senior school students [4] or expert group of the best students have come across. The studying of work products resulting from the work of projects allow us to confidently state that teachers use different types of activities on the dominant projects in their practice. The paper reflects research, gaming and creative projects. However, in our opinion, preference is given to projects of familiarization (the typology of E. Collings can be defined as organic union of story projects and hand projects (manual or design projects) [5]. These projects allow teachers to go beyond the curriculum, attaching students to the values of contemporary culture. The search of new information activates students' cognitive interest and develops the ability to cooperate, to work with different data sources. To analyze precisely, we must turn to the data collected about the topics and the course of the project, we can say that English language projects have numerous of interdisciplinary links. English as a foreign language in this case is a means of realizing some topics that may be relevant to other subjects, such as literature, history, geography.
It should be noted that the experience of teachers from gymnasium and as well as other native teachers, whose works I have read in the journal “Foreign languages in school”, characterized by both group and individual projects. In the case of age of using project method, so the teachers tend to believe that the maximum potential of the method implementation of projects is possible for more senior levels of education (second half of the middle school and high school). It follows when the level of knowledge and skills of students allows us to implement large-scale projects involving interdisciplinary information. Nevertheless, the project activity is presenting in all stages of education: primary, secondary and high school.
Analysis of the experience of teachers, in our opinion, confirms the effectiveness of project methodology and its great opportunity for learning language. Teachers demonstrate various techniques for creating project teams, model presentation and evaluation of projects. Particular attention is paid to available theoretical positions, as well as a generalized experience of teachers which helped me while preparation of project-based tasks during pedagogical practice.
My teaching experience at gymnasium gives me an invaluable opportunity to apply received knowledge in my work as well as get acquainted with the project methodology in action. Within my experimental work, I have worked with the seven and eight classes; my experimental language group was consisted of 15 persons. It should be noted that the level of language and students' motivation for teaching English language were different, that we had to take into account in our work. The detailed study of practical side is of great importance. During my work I have tried to apply project method to the study of two projects such as Geography and political outlook of the United
Kingdom and the Health and Body Care. It is necessary to underline that each activity, I tried to build, especially in accordance with the students' age and the requirements for project activities. As for the collective, I had to take into account the specifics of the cognitive processes of the seventh graders, the level of attention and motivation. This year, the kids only went to high school, it was hard to concentrate for a long time, required different game elements and other methods of attracting attention. Moreover, the group did not differ discipline, so we had to spend extra time creating the right environment. First experience of project work was an individual project on the topic “If I want to be ..” where students were encouraged to choose who they would like to become in the future or to choose a hero and write ten rules or steps to achieve the goal, for instance “If I want to be a teacher I should be clever”. The aim of the project was to introduce students to the basics of the technology, and also grammatical construction work. This project was carried out as homework. I had to offer advice to students after school about doing project well. The results were decorated as a sort of memos. Then, in the course of work on the topic “Health and Body Care” I have planned group projects. Before preceding the project activity, the students were asked to complete a questionnaire with general questions about their attitudes toward foreign language lessons, as well as issues on the project activity in order to select the most appropriate forms of work.
The results of the questionnaire showed that 50% of students like to learn foreign language and the other rest 50% have answered those they not exactly sure about learning foreign language. To analyze precisely, we must turn to the conclusion that the majority of respondents wrote that they love to work in pairs or groups, which served as an additional incentive for me to organize project activities. After the discussion on the topic of project work, three project themes were selected based on questionnaire responses and class discussions: -Healthy way of life and Body Care (decoration of wall newspaper); -What should you do to keep fit (creation of a reference book); -Health and Healthy life style (creating a pocket glossary). Each project is divided into creation of differentiated tasks.
Then the students were divided into groups based on selected topics. Thus, I have prepared the instructions for students to complete the project. Therefore the technology of project was explained and told how the steps should be organized in their work.
As a result, students' project work was carried out after school and during the lessons, where projects have assigned a half or third of the lesson's time. At the final lesson the projects' presentation took place. Here students were presented visual solutions where students give the results of their work and answer the questions of the group. Assessment is carried out for all students together. At the end of the lesson, I have invited students to fill in another form of the project and set evaluation. It must be said that all respondents said that they enjoyed while working on the project, including an interesting topic and group work. By looking students' answers through questionnaire, the activity of groups was different: 20% of students worked not so well and were not active persons. It is necessary to point out that 80% of students wanted to be involved in such type of work and create their own projects using English language. In this way, there is therefore a need to consider the usage of project method as creative and effective methodology at English lessons.
During my work experience, I have identified some problematic aspects in the organization of projects' work in gymnasium. First of all, they were associated with linguistic communication. The students of sixth grades are lacked of the vocabulary and language skills to discuss organizational matters of the project, so that significant part of communication was based on their native language. Besides, I had had to control the process of working in groups, as students often diverted and provided all the work with their active classmates. Another problem was related to interpersonal relationships in small groups that directly influenced the course of work. As a result, I have analyzed that my students have the ability to work in a team but further work is needed to be developed in this direction. The most problematic was the fact that we had to literally squeeze the project work in the curriculum. The students were not enough forty five minutes of the lesson for project design and consulting. Also, the stages of project such as presentation and evaluation were failed down because of time limitation. Not all students did opportunity to evaluate others’ projects and give advices. Nevertheless, I have considered the project work successful, because basically the students coped with the tasks. They have passed all milestones and each student has made at least a small contribution. It should be mentioned that the positive was the fact that the presentation of projects involved all students and everyone commented on the chosen topic.
In the given article I have highlighted the importance of the project work in teaching English, discovered how it influences the students during the educational process and if this type of work in the classroom helps to learn the language.
On the basis of the literary sources studied we can come to the following conclusions that project work has advantages like the increased motivation when learners become personally involved in the project; all four skills, reading, writing, listening and speaking, are integrated; autonomous learning is promoted as learners become more responsible for their own learning; there are learning outcomeslearners have an end product; authentic tasks and therefore the language input are more authentic; interpersonal relations are developed through working as a group; content and methodology can be decided between the learners and the teacher and within the group themselves so it is more learner-centered. The types of projects are information and research projects, survey projects, production projects and performance and organizational projects which can be performed differently as in reports, displays, wall newspapers, parties and plays. The organization of project work may seem difficult but if we do it step by step it should be easy. We should define a theme, determine the final outcome, structure the project, identify language skills and strategies, gather information, compile and analyze the information, present the final product and finally evaluate the project.
The project work supported the students’ autonomy of decision and solution of problems in doing projects. Therefore I can conclude that I am a big supporter of project work at schools, colleges and Universities, and I think it has its significant place next to traditional teaching methods. Doing the project is positive motivation for the students to reach better results in English.
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