Use of the Topical Project Work “My Body” for Developing All Language

3 Using Project Work for Developing All Language Skills

Generally teaching aims in foreign languages methodologists tend to divide into some parts – structures, functions, vocabulary, pronunciation and skills.

There are three skills teachers are supposed to master in learning a new language:

they must learn to read it;

they should learn to understand it when they hear it;

they should learn to speak it.

Most modern school curricula require all subjects to encourage initiative, independence, self-discipline, imagination, development of all language skills, so the project work is a way of turning such general aims into practical classroom activity and involve children into teaching process [6, 119].

Project provides a natural context in which these separate parts can be re-integrated in learners’ minds. This is important for students to be sure about their own abilities to use target language in real situations. It is student’s own interests to produce language that is accurate and fluent.

Teachers and students encourage that projects break the routine. Project work demands creature and a lot of enthusiasm for both- teachers and learners.

Project work is very effective method because:

themes and target tasks for project learning derived from all forms and objects of life;

learners are involved with the ideas through a process of discussion, experimentation, reflection, and application of insights to the new stages of experimentation.

For planning the structure of project work students and teacher make sure about every pupil’s responsibilities. During the project students practise in main language skills – listening, speaking, reading and writing.

3.1 Developing Reading and Listening Skills

Reading and listening are receptive skills.

Reading is not a passive skill. It is an incredibly active occupation. To do it successfully, we have to understand what the words mean, see the picture, the words are painting, understand the arguments and work out of we agree with them.

When we read a text in our own language, we frequently have a good idea of the content before we actually read. Book covers give us a hint of what is in the book, photographs and headline hint at what articles are about and reports look like reports before we read a single word. Teachers should give students “hints” so that they can predict what is coming too. It will make them better and more engaged readers.

There are many reasons why getting students to read English texts which is an important part of the teacher’s job. In the first place, many of them want to be able to read texts in English either for their careers, for study purposes or simply for pleasure.

A balance has to be struck between real English on one hand and the students’ capabilities and interest on the other. There is some authentic written material which beginner students can understand to some degree: menus, timetables, sings and basic instructions, for example, and, where appropriate, can be used in project work. But for longer prose, teachers may want to offer their students texts which, while being like English, are nevertheless written or adapted especially for their level. The important thing is that such texts are as much like real English as possible [6, 86].

Listening is a skill and any help students can be offered, in performing that skill will help them be better listeners. Listening to tapes is a way of bringing different kinds of speaking into the classroom, it is possible to play different kinds of tape to them, e.g. conversation, “plays”, interviews, stories read aloud, telephone exchanges etc.

One of the main reasons for getting students to listen to spoken English is to let them hear different varieties and accents – rather than just the voice of their teacher with its own idiosyncrasies. In today’s world, they need to be exposed not only to one variety of English (British English, for example) but also to varieties such as American English, Australian English, Indian English or West African English. [6,124].