MOTIVATING PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM: PROJECT-BASED LEARNING

When pre-service teachers arrive at the Teacher Training Degrees in the University of the Basque Country, they have got very diverse foreign language learning experiences, so their motivation and attitudes to English go from high (positive, willing to learn more or attending private lessons to obtain the C1) to low (negative attitudes, poor motivation, difficulties to understand basic conversations or to have standard language knowledge).This paper explains the methodology implemented at the Teacher Training Degree in Vitoria-Gasteiz to make teachers-to-be motivated towards English through a communicative language approach on project-based learning.

Thus, university students are asked to prepare a project in English on the topic they want and at the end of the semester they have to make an oral presentation to their college classmates. Students are divided into groups of 3-4 people, where there are different capabilities, rhythms and styles of learning. That is a very enriching and effective experience. At the end of the semester they have to write an essay reflecting on the whole process and acknowledging the benefits of that cooperative learning.

Lessons are devoted to getting motivation from students through these steps:
- to develop team-work in which students will prepare a project that will be presented orally
- to do autonomous learning; the first day they have to fill in two questionnaires, "Why are you learning English?" and "How do you learn?".

After thinking over their answers, they have to make a plan about what they want to learn or what they need to improve their English level
- to reflect on how people communicate when they do not know well a language or feel insecure when speaking in public and the types of motivation to learn it
- to develop good attitudes to improve their oral skills in English.
- to design activities for their classmates according to a specific project (each group has to take into consideration vocabulary and grammar parts related to the chosen topic) as they have to turn into "teachers" or "experts" to explain the topic
- to use learning materials and develop strategies on their oral skills in English.

In the conclusions, students realize making projects instead of focusing on so many grammar activities was very motivating to learn English as a foreign language and to engage themselves in the whole process. As prospective teachers they also say how useful it is to see what the rest of the groups have made to learn from them and to see the creativity and dynamics in the oral presentations.