The various types of the Project work

The format of project work depends on curricular objectives, course expectations, students' proficiency levels, student interests, time constraints, and availability of materials.

Three types of projects proposed by Henry:

1. Structured Projects (determined, specified, organized by the teacher in terms of topic);

2. Unstructured Projects(defined largely by students themselves);

3. Semi-structured Projects(defined and organized in part by the teacher and in part by the students)

Projects can also differ in data collection techniques and sources of information:

1. Text Projects(involve encounters with the text rather than people)

2. Survey Projects(entail creating a survey instrument and then collecting and analyzing data from informants

3. Research projects(necessitate the gathering of info through library research)

4. Encounter projects(result in face -to –face contact with guest speakers or individuals outside the classroom)

5. Correspondence Projects(requires communication with individuals to solicit info by means of letters, phone calls, and e-mail

Projects may also differ in the ways that information is "reported" as part of a culminating activity.

Production projectsinvolve the creation of bulletin board displays, videos, radio programs, poster sessions, written reports, photo essays, letters, handbooks, brochures, banquet menus, travel itineraries, and so forth.

Performance projects can take shape as staged debates, oral presentations, theatrical performances, food fairs, or fashion shows.

Organizational projectsentail the planning and formation of a club, conversation table, or conversation partner program.

Projects can be carried out intensively over a short period of time or extended over a few weeks, or a full semester; they can be completed by students individually, in small groups, or as a class; and they can take place entirely within the confines of the classroom or can extend beyond the walls of the classroom or with others via different forms of correspondence.

Short-term projects: by their very nature, short-term projects are concentrated and less likely to generate unpredictable language. In this case, language monitoring is relatively straightforward, given that there are clearly defined objectives.

Long-term projects: it is not necessary to structure the overall language content at the beginning of a long-term project. As the project gets under way, you will become aware that some grammar which you know your students have not covered will be coming up. Sometimes the gaps in your students' knowledge will become evident as a result of what they discover they need to know.

3.Different projects , organized by language skills:

Reading skills (Debate Club, audiocassette journal, play reading class newspaper, bulletin board display,website)

Writing skills(Journal writing,on-line newsletter brochure, graphic display, guide book, handbook, information packet, letter, maquette,multimedia presentation,scrapbook,written report)

Vocabulary skills (lexical sets, collocation notebook, listening dictation, research survey, research paper)

Speaking skills (speaking contest, Debate club, audiocassette journal, play reading, oral presentation, pin and string display ,poster simulation, survey report, theatrical performance)

Reading/vocabulary

Students commit to read a certain number of pages in English and summarize what they have read in writing or in discussion with the instructor a specified number of times. They must also keep a vocabulary notebook in which they enter all the words they felt they had to look up, together with their meanings in context and any collocations they notice. This notebook must be presented to the instructor periodically during the semester. Students can choose to read anything they want, either one longer text or several shorter ones, from books, periodicals, or the Internet. The readings are decided upon and approved before the contract is completed.

Writing skills. Journal writing: for this project, the student writes about 400 words in a journal each week, allows the teacher to read and indicate errors at least every other week, and, finally, hands in a corrected version of the journal at the end of the semester. The students may write about anything they like in their journals; most write about their daily activities and their thoughts, feelings, and problems as the semester pro­gresses, while some include poems or stories.

On-line newsletter:for this project, the student writes an arti­cle for publication in the on-line newsletter of the English Language Unit of the university. The student decides on a topic for the article in collaboration with the instructor, the newsletter editor, and other students who have chosen to write articles for the newsletter. All articles must be original, though they can be based on information gathered from other sources, for example, interviews, readings, or questionnaires. Rough drafts of articles are submitted to the instructor first, who indicates errors. The drafts must be corrected before the final, word-processed articles are submitted to the editor.

Speaking skills. Speaking contest: Students commit to enter the university speaking contest, which is held near the end of the academic year. They must decide on a topic, gather information, prepare a five- to eight-minute speech, and deliver it in front of their classmates before presenting it at the actual contest. Drafts of the speech are given to the instructor. Debate club :students must attend the weekly meetings of the debate club. They are expected to par­ticipate as part of a debate team several times during the semester, while at other meetings they listen to debates and join the follow-up discussions. Audiocassette journal: for this project, the teacher records ques­tions and ideas for discussion on an audiocassette. The questions tend to be open-ended and aim to elicit a 10- to 15-minute response. The students then record their responses (in private) and return the tape to the instructor, who responds to what they said, points out major language problems, if necessary, and records further questions. The process is repeated several times during the semester. The audio journal has proved very successful, especially with students who are shy about speaking out in class. Play reading: this project requires a group of students, who meet with an English instructor one hour weekly (or biweekly, depending on scheduling) to practice reading a play. The plays are selected in consultation with the instructor, and after the practice period may be performed before a live audience of the performers' classmates or audio-recorded. This project can be especially useful for improving pronunciation, intonation, and stress, as well as vocabulary, especial­ly use of colloquial expressions.

Vocabulary skills. Lexical Sets: students collect a specified number of words relating to actions that can be demon­strated (e.g., movement of the legs: walk, stand, stomp, hobble, etc.). The list is present­ed to the instructor for verification, who later will test the student's understanding on the words by having the student perform the actions. If more than one student is involved, one can perform the action while die other supplies the lexical item. Collocation notebook:The student uses concordance software to search articles on a specific topic (possibly related to medicine) for words and their collo­cations, which are then recorded in a vocabulary notebook.

Listening/dictation: working individually, students try to write down the exact words spoken in 10 to 15 min­utes of a video. They give die first draft of the script to the instructor, who indicates errors and helps if needed. Students then revise the script and meet with the instructor to discuss the meaning of what they have written. Final­ly, they prepare a typed copy of the script with gaps for certain words so that it can be used as a cloze listening activity in future classes. A similar project, writing words to popular songs, has to be treated with caution because some students simply download the words from the Internet. The same is possible for film scripts.