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

Another factor which can determine teacher’s choice of writing task is the students’ interests. Teacher’s decisions, though, will be based on how much language the students know, what their interests are, and what teacher thinks will not only be useful for them but also motivate them as well.

To sum up it is possible to say that while project work all language skills should be trained. So, speaking activities may well form one part of a much longer sequence which includes reading or listening and, after the activity, study work. The teaching of reading is intimately bound up with the teaching of writing: the one provides the model for the other. Writing is a basic language skill, just as important as speaking, listening and reading. Listening is a skill and any help teachers can give students in performing that skill will help them to be better listeners.

Practical Use of the Project Work “My Body”

The aim of the practical application of the project work “My Body” was to investigate the possibility to increase the student’s interest in learning the English language, to develop all language skills and improve knowledge of young learners.

This part of the work passed through certain stages:

questionnaire to study the students’ types of the intelligence;

selection tasks and activities for project work “My Body”;

practical implementation of the project material;

analysis of the results obtained.

The practical application of the material was carried out from 1st October 2003 till 17th October 2003. It was realized in Jēkabpils Secondary School No2 with 4-th formers, three hours of the English language a week. The group consisted of 23 students.

4.1 The Results of the Questionnaire

To study the types of the students’ intelligences in the class, according to the first stage, the investigation was carried out. In order to do that the students were asked to answer the questions. (Appendix 2)

Figure 1. Types of the Intelligences in Form 4

Figure 1 shows the result of the questionnaire where the vertical axis reflects the percentage of the students’ intelligences in 4-d class.It turned out that the most part of the learners had linguistic, visual and socialiser intelligences. So, refering to the Gardner’s table of intelligences (see Chapter 2) it is possible to conclude that 6 learners like to read, write and tell stories; 2 learners like to do experiments, ask questions; 5 learners like to draw, look at pictures; 2 learners like to sing, listen to music; 3 learners are good at physical activities; 4 learners like to join groups; 1 learner is the best by having own space.

It was also interesting to find out what the students felt concerning their abilities to speak and read in English. The respondents were to choose the statement according to their feeling:

Speaking in English:

I speak as much as possible

I should speak more

I want to speak but I am afraid

Reading in English:

I can understand the main idea

I understand partly, I need help