Abstract:

A personal innovative micro-project has been implemented by the authors at Primary School level (year 4) during the last two years. The driving question of this project started asking ourselves how can we make our students to learn and fix in their minds a large list of irregular verbs to be memorized in a much more funny and atractive way. To obtain positive results the Project Based Learning Methodology (hereinafter PBL) has been implemented and one of the main targets consisted in fostering significant learning, collaborative work and creative learning. Moreover, it can be asserted that throughout this micro-project an important contribution to the development of the eight main basic competences established in the European Framework of Reference for Languages has been included. Learners act as active agents in the teaching and learning process so that key words and concepts are clearly settled down from the very first moment they start thinking about their personal tool-kit project.

The first part of this essay is devoted to explain and reasure some theoretical concepts about PBL and the real need to include this methodology in the National Curriculum. The second level of this essay pays attention to the different phases in which this micro-project has been developed and real examples are provided. This micro-project can be named as a Cross-Curricular Project because different subjects as the English subject, Arts and Crafts, Main Language, etc. are involved in the different phases that have been designed to implement it. A lot of creative work and the teachers guide acting as a coach helped learners to make a very personal and innovative project. Last but not least, all data collected throughout this experience will be discussed and some considerations and critical reflections will be pointed out to reinforce the authors first hypothesis about the benefits of implementing PBL in the clasrooms.

Keywords:

Projects, TESOL, TEFL, PBL, Primary.