This is a post from a French Teacher from my school, Emily. She reflects on the Know and Need to Know Process that is an integral component of Project Based Learning.
Surely there’s no way the students could drive the learning when it comes to learning a language – I studied it for seven years!
Well, that’s where I was wrong. And here are my tips for enabling students to take ownership of their learning via the Need to Know process.
1. Give them context
Students should already have a bit of background knowledge about the topics involved in your project. Even if it’s just a quick learning activity. If you send them in cold, you’ll get blank looks when you ask them what they need to know. For example: the first project I did with my beginners involved some cultural significance, so we started with a fun picture matching activity involving images from different aspects of French culture. Outcome: 180 students in the zone before we hit them with the entry event.
2. Give them the lingo
As language teachers…
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