Project-based learning and Internet in EFL instructions

Project-based learning and Internet in EFL classroom

As I talked to some EFL lecturers who are currently using technology, I have seen some similarities among their successful integrations even though they work in different environments. The lecturers mentioned that the most effective use of IT integration in EFL classroom is adopting a project-based learning. A teacher told me that asking students to work online is not difficult for the young generation. The key thing is students need to know explicit goals of the activities. Students would perform the tasks better when they see what they are required to do. Students and teachers may have to use a lot of skills in order to complete the assigned tasks. In Brandl’s article(Are you ready to Moodle), there is a number of literatures supporting the project-based learning with the incorporation of technology in the following ways.

- Project-Based Learning is a comprehensive constructivist-based approach.
According to Chun & Plass (2000), “Constructivist approached to learning advocate allowing learners not only to interact directly with information to be learned, but also to add their own information and construct their own relationships” (p.160). An Internet-based approach to project learning also lends itself well to the teaching of specific skills required to conduct research. For example, Gaspar (1998) used McKenzie's (1995) "Iterative Research Cycle" consisting of the different stages of the research process with her advanced language students.
These stages are:
> Questioning -- Decide what information is lacking or what problem needs solving.
> Planning -- Develop a strategy to efficiently locate valid information.
> Gathering -- Locate the best sources, Internet and other, and collect needed information.
> Sifting -- Select from what was found that information most pertinent to the research question.
> Synthesizing -- Sort the information into a meaningful pattern.
> Evaluating -- Assess progress in answering the research question, and if needed, return to the first step in this cycle (cited in Gaspar, 1998, p. 72).

- Benefits of project-based learning
Stroller (1997) summarizes some of the pedagogical advantages in the following way:
- Focuses on content learning rather than on target specific language targets. Real-world subject matter and topics of interest to students can become central to projects
- Is student-centered, though the teacher plays a major role in offering support and guidance throughout the process
- Is cooperative rather than competitive. Students can work on their own, in small groups, or as a class to complete a project, sharing resources, ideas, and expertise along the way.
- Leads to authentic integration of skills and processing of information from varied sources, mirroring real-life tasks.
- Culminate in an end product (e.g., an oral presentation, a poster session, a bulletin board display, a report, or a stage performance) that can be shared with others, giving the project a real purpose. The value of the project, however, lies not just in the final product but also in the process of working towards the end point. Thus, project work has both a process and product orientation, and provides students with opportunities to focus on fluency and accuracy at different project-work stages.
Potenitally motivating, stimulating, empowering, and challenging. It usually results in building students confidence, self-esteem, and autonomy as well as improving students’ language skills, content learning, and cognitive abilities

- Integrated Skills
The use of the Internet for research purposes requires a variety of searching skills. It asks for knowledge of different search engines and how they work, such as whether they are case sensitive or not. Furthermore, it assumes the user has some information-seeking skills. Fidel et al. (1999) showed that being somewhat knowledgeable of the topic being searched is necessary for learning how to search the Web, and that being somewhat knowledgeable about Web searching is necessary for exploring new topics.

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Language teachers are not computer teachers. What they can do is guiding students to produce a language output by using technology in the process of doing a project with all integrated skills needed for the task completion.