The attitudes of secondary school students towards learning english through project based learning
Download as PPTX, PDF1 like4,085 views
This study examined secondary school students' attitudes towards learning English through project-based learning (PBL). A survey was administered to 100 students to determine their perceptions. The results showed that most students agreed or strongly agreed that PBL helped them learn new topics, was enjoyable, increased their motivation to learn, and developed various skills. However, older students and females tended to be more negative about PBL accelerating learning and improving problem-solving abilities. Overall, the findings suggest that PBL is an effective way to teach English when incorporating elements like collaboration and authentic tasks.
![ PBL can be defined briefly as “a model that organizes learning
around projects” (Thomas, 2000, p. 1). It is built upon authentic
learning activities that care the students’ interests and motivation.
It integrates subject-matter goals with an authentic learning
environment [Eskrootchi, R. and Oskrochi, 2010].](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/theattitudesofsecondaryschoolstudentstowardslearningenglishthroughproject-basedlearning-130922085505-phpapp02/85/The-attitudes-of-secondary-school-students-towards-learning-english-through-project-based-learning-4-320.jpg)
The attitudes of secondary school students towards learning english through project based learning
- 1. THE ATTITUDES OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS TOWARDS LEARNING ENGLISH THROUGH PROJECT-BASED LEARNING M.YAVUZ KONCA & KÜBRA OKUMUŞ
- 2. RATIONALE ELT needs new methods as the old ones are inadequate in Turkey. Reasons such as the great difference between Turkish and English, the difficulty of learning a new language and culture cause English teaching to be a problematic area.
- 3. INTRODUCTION PBL is one of the new techniques that engages students in exploring important and meaningful questions through a series of investigations and collaborations (Krajcik, Czerniak & Berger 1999)
- 4. PBL can be defined briefly as “a model that organizes learning around projects” (Thomas, 2000, p. 1). It is built upon authentic learning activities that care the students’ interests and motivation. It integrates subject-matter goals with an authentic learning environment [Eskrootchi, R. and Oskrochi, 2010].
- 5. It emphasizes improvement of critical thinking, problem solving and constructing projects. The student is autonomous and builder whereas the teacher is a supporter and counselor in this method. Constructing a project is considered not as a goal but a tool for learning, so the PBL places a great importance on the process dimension of learning
- 6. GOAL OF THE STUDY A teaching method that is generally used in the field of Science and Maths is suggested to be implemented in teaching English. For this purpose, the answers of the following questions are sought:
- 7. Is PBL an effective way of teaching English? What are the benefits of PBL? What are the possible problems that can be encountered while using PBL?
- 8. METHOD A qualitative research was conducted in this research. McMillan and Schumacher (1993, p. 479) defined qualitative research as, “primarily an inductive process of organizing data into categories and identifying patterns (relationships) among categories.” From this definition it can be inferred that qualitative research is closely related to relationships between variables. In this study, the correlation among the attitudes and the three variables: gender, age, class is sought. Since this study intends to describe the attitudes of students towards project- based learning, survey was used for this aim.
- 9. PARTICIPANTS Participants were the seventh and eighth grade students aging 12 and 15 years of a public school in Turkey. 100 students were chosen for the survey. As the aim is to describe the attitudes of secondary school students, a public secondary school students were selected for the study. Hence purposive sampling was used.
- 10. INSTRUMENTS A Lickert scale questionnaire was used to determine the attitudes of the students towards teaching English through Project-based learning. The questionnaire consists of twenty questions. Each has 5 items which are “I strongly disagree”, “I disagree”, “neutral”, “I agree” and “I strongly agree”. Questions like whether they learn through project-based learning and whether they like group works that are the important parts of the PBL were asked to develop an overall opinion about the students’ attitudes towards PBL.
- 11. DATA ANALYSIS Aritmetic average and standard deviation were used to analyze the data. t test was used to find out whether there were differences between answers in terms of classroom and gender. One way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine the differences in terms of age. LSD Post Hoc was used in order to understand which age group had differences for the items 3 and 18 of the questionnaire.
- 12. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS In the survey, the response “I strongly agree” was given to items titled "Project- based learning helped me to learn a topic I did not know.", "It was fun to work with my friends.", "Project-based learning increased our desire to learn", "Project-based learning made us learn by investigating.", " Project-based learning taught us to make use of knowledge.", "project-based learning can help us to learn important topics. "," project-based learning can develop my interpersonal relations." And " I believe that Project-based learning will develop my creative thinking skills.", " I think project-based learning will contribute to our work through cooperation." " project-based learning can accelerate my learning.", and " I want my future courses to continue with project-based learning."
- 13. In the survey, the response “I agree” was given to items titled "Project-based learning, developed my communication skills.", "All members of the group were active in the learning phase.", "We studied so hard.", " Project- based learning can develop my analytical thinking skills.", "Project-based learning can improve my communication skills." "Project-based learning can develop my group discussion skills.", and "I believe that project-based learning will improve my ability of problem-solving."
- 14. the response “I disagree” was given to items titled "I was unlucky because of working with those who disliked making research." and "I do not like group work."
- 15. F i n d i n g s a n d r e v i e w r e g a r d i n g r e s p o n s e s t o t h e i t e m s o n t h e s u r v e y a c c o r d i n g t o g r a d e l e v e l s o f t h e s t u d e n t s Whether there was any difference between the responses to the items in the questionnaire in terms of students' grade level was analyzed using the t-test. According to the results, it may be said that the level of response of 8th year students as compared to that of 7th year students to the items titled "Project-based learning helped me to learn a topic I did not know.",", " project- based learning can accelerate my learning.", and "I believe that project-based learning will improve my ability of problem-solving." was found to be more negative.
- 16. f i n d i n g s a n d r e v i e w r e g a r d i n g r e s p o n s e s t o t h e i t e m s o n t h e s u r v e y a c c o r d i n g t o g e n d e r o f t h e s t u d e n t s . Whether there was any difference between the responses to the items in the questionnaire in terms of students' gender was analyzed using the t-test . The level of response of female students as compared to that of male students to the items titled "Project-based learning helped me to learn a topic I did not know.", " project-based learning can accelerate my learning.", and "I believe that project-based learning will improve my ability of problem-solving." was found to be more negative.
- 17. f i n d i n g s a n d r e v i e w r e g a r d i n g r e s p o n s e s t o t h e i t e m s o n t h e s u r v e y a c c o r d i n g t o a g e o f t h e s t u d e n t s . Whether there was any difference between the responses to the items in the questionnaire in terms of students' age was analyzed using the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) LSD post hoc test was applied to find out between which age groups of students there was difference in the responses given to items titled "Project-based learning increased our desire to learn." and " Project-based learning can accelerate my learning
- 18. As a result of LSD post hoc test the difference between the students of 13-14 years and 12 years was found significant. The 13 and 14-year age group of students responded more negatively the item "Project-based learning can speed up my learning." as compared to 12-year age group.
- 19. CONCLUSION The results of the questionnaire carried out on 100 students show that students like PBL in English classes. The students want to learn with group works and projects. The 12-15 years students are opinion of that PBL will help them not only learn English but improve the skills such as creative and analytical thinking, problem-solving, communication and discussion. They would like to be part of active learning.
- 20. Hence it is suggested that PBL be used in teaching English as incorporating the essential elements of PBL which are colloboration, critical and creative thinking, communication, problem-solving into English language teaching process will provide learning in depth.
- 21. THANK YOU