Class project: English magazine

    When I try to recall my EFL classes in school, I remember a boring textbook. I remember doing many exercises but with very little variety among them (most were fill-in-the gaps), and write some artificial text with no purpose. English language teacher have always resorted to using a textbook when teaching English as a second language in the school, but sometimes this method don’t work because this book don’t have nothing in common with students' interests of at that age.

 

    Something completely different can help to learning and teaching English. Class projects can be an excellent way to focus the whole class and get them together towards a common goal. Students learn better when they can work together in groups. Collective work can activate and build background knowledge. We can ask our students if they would like a magazine in English about our town. We ask children for ideas for a name for the magazine and hold a class vote to decide on the name.

 

    On the board we write the different sections that magazines have. We will try to include as much variety as possible so there’s something for everyone (our monuments, environmental problems, our heroes, sports pages, film reviews, news, photo stories, comic strip, puzzles, music, interviews, recipes, jokes, etc.)

 

    We will negotiate with children about how long they will need to produce their section and allow sufficient class time for help each group and provide language input and error correction. We can introduce these sections to produce first.

 

Our monuments: Students read texts about our different monuments and complete some questions about them with the help of all members of the group. Then, using cooperative technique, they change their groups and complete a chart about all monuments where each student writes about his or her monument. Students complete a short text about monuments of our town and they can create a beautiful craft: tourist guide.

 

Environmental problems: Pupils create this section to write about environmental problems, their consequences and possible solutions. Students complete a letter for the major and write about environmental problems and how we should solve them. Then, we use "rotating paper" cooperative technique to correct friends’ worksheets. They can practice "should and shouldn´t" to give advice about how to solve some of these problems using an oral activity called "I give one, I take one”. This activity consists on asking a question to a classmate and getting the answer, and after that changing their roles.

 

Who is your hero? Not all heroes wear capes. We meet a lot of heroes in our lives: family, teachers, doctors, policemen... Humanity is incredible and we need to be inspired by those who are near us. We can describe our heroes for the class.

 

    I think that  is a interesting activity to do in class. Maybe you can use it with your students!